by Aristotle
fist. These elements have been employed, we may say, by the poets to a
man; in fact, every play contains Spectacular elements as well as
Character, Plot, Diction, Song, and Thought.
But most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For
Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life, and
life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a
quality. Now character determines men's qualities, but it is by
their actions that they are happy or the reverse. Dramatic action,
therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character:
character comes in as subsidiary to the actions. Hence the incidents
and the plot are the end of a tragedy; and the end is the chief
thing of all. Again, without action there cannot be a tragedy; there
may be without character. The tragedies of most of our modern poets
fail in the rendering of character; and of poets in general this is
often true. It is the same in painting; and here lies the difference
between Zeuxis and Polygnotus. Polygnotus delineates character well;
the style of Zeuxis is devoid of ethical quality. Again, if you string
together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well
finished in point of diction and thought, you will not produce the
essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however
deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically
constructed incidents. Besides which, the most powerful elements of
emotional interest in Tragedy- Peripeteia or Reversal of the
Situation, and Recognition scenes- are parts of the plot. A further
proof is, that novices in the art attain to finish of diction and
precision of portraiture before they can construct the plot. It is the
same with almost all the early poets.
The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of
a tragedy; Character holds the second place. A similar fact is seen in
painting. The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly, will not give
as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait. Thus Tragedy is
the imitation of an action, and of the agents mainly with a view to
the action.
Third in order is Thought- that is, the faculty of saying what is
possible and pertinent in given circumstances. In the case of oratory,
this is the function of the political art and of the art of
rhetoric: and so indeed the older poets make their characters speak
the language of civic life; the poets of our time, the language of the
rhetoricians. Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing
what kind of things a man chooses or avoids. Speeches, therefore,
which do not make this manifest, or in which the speaker does not
choose or avoid anything whatever, are not expressive of character.
Thought, on the other hand, is found where something is proved to be
or not to be, or a general maxim is enunciated.
Fourth among the elements enumerated comes Diction; by which I mean,
as has been already said, the expression of the meaning in words;
and its essence is the same both in verse and prose.
Of the remaining elements Song holds the chief place among the
embellishments
The Spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own,
but, of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least
with the art of poetry. For the power of Tragedy, we may be sure, is
felt even apart from representation and actors. Besides, the
production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the stage
machinist than on that of the poet.
POETICS|7
VII
These principles being established, let us now discuss the proper
structure of the Plot, since this is the first and most important
thing in Tragedy.
Now, according to our definition Tragedy is an imitation of an
action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude; for
there may be a whole that is wanting in magnitude. A whole is that
which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning is that which
does not itself follow anything by causal necessity, but after which
something naturally is or comes to be. An end, on the contrary, is
that which itself naturally follows some other thing, either by
necessity, or as a rule, but has nothing following it. A middle is
that which follows something as some other thing follows it. A well
constructed plot, therefore, must neither begin nor end at
haphazard, but conform to these principles.
Again, a beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any
whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement
of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty
depends on magnitude and order. Hence a very small animal organism
cannot be beautiful; for the view of it is confused, the object
being seen in an almost imperceptible moment of time. Nor, again,
can one of vast size be beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all
in at once, the unity and sense of the whole is lost for the
spectator; as for instance if there were one a thousand miles long.
As, therefore, in the case of animate bodies and organisms a certain
magnitude is necessary, and a magnitude which may be easily embraced
in one view; so in the plot, a certain length is necessary, and a
length which can be easily embraced by the memory. The limit of length
in relation to dramatic competition and sensuous presentment is no
part of artistic theory. For had it been the rule for a hundred
tragedies to compete together, the performance would have been
regulated by the water-clock- as indeed we are told was formerly done.
But the limit as fixed by the nature of the drama itself is this:
the greater the length, the more beautiful will the piece be by reason
of its size, provided that the whole be perspicuous. And to define the
matter roughly, we may say that the proper magnitude is comprised
within such limits, that the sequence of events, according to the
law of probability or necessity, will admit of a change from bad
fortune to good, or from good fortune to bad.
POETICS|8
VIII
Unity of plot does not, as some persons think, consist in the
unity of the hero. For infinitely various are the incidents in one
man's life which cannot be reduced to unity; and so, too, there are
many actions of one man out of which we cannot make one action.
Hence the error, as it appears, of all poets who have composed a
Heracleid, a Theseid, or other poems of the kind. They imagine that as
Heracles was one man, the story of Heracles must also be a unity.
But Homer, as in all else he is of surpassing merit, here too- whether
from art or natural genius- seems to have happily discerned the truth.
In composing the Odyssey he did not include all the adventures of
Odysseus- such as his wound on Parnassus, or his feigned madness at
the mustering of the host- incidents between which there was no
necessary or probable connection: but he made the Odyssey, and
likewise the Iliad, to center round an action that in our sense of the
&
nbsp; word is one. As therefore, in the other imitative arts, the
imitation is one when the object imitated is one, so the plot, being
an imitation of an action, must imitate one action and that a whole,
the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of
them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and
disturbed. For a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible
difference, is not an organic part of the whole.
POETICS|9
IX
It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it is not the
function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen-
what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity. The
poet and the historian differ not by writing in verse or in prose. The
work of Herodotus might be put into verse, and it would still be a
species of history, with meter no less than without it. The true
difference is that one relates what has happened, the other what may
happen. Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher
thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history
the particular. By the universal I mean how a person of a certain type
on occasion speak or act, according to the law of probability or
necessity; and it is this universality at which poetry aims in the
names she attaches to the personages. The particular is- for
example- what Alcibiades did or suffered. In Comedy this is already
apparent: for here the poet first constructs the plot on the lines
of probability, and then inserts characteristic names- unlike the
lampooners who write about particular individuals. But tragedians
still keep to real names, the reason being that what is possible is
credible: what has not happened we do not at once feel sure to be
possible; but what has happened is manifestly possible: otherwise it
would not have happened. Still there are even some tragedies in
which there are only one or two well-known names, the rest being
fictitious. In others, none are well known- as in Agathon's Antheus,
where incidents and names alike are fictitious, and yet they give none
the less pleasure. We must not, therefore, at all costs keep to the
received legends, which are the usual subjects of Tragedy. Indeed,
it would be absurd to attempt it; for even subjects that are known are
known only to a few, and yet give pleasure to all. It clearly
follows that the poet or 'maker' should be the maker of plots rather
than of verses; since he is a poet because he imitates, and what he
imitates are actions. And even if he chances to take a historical
subject, he is none the less a poet; for there is no reason why some
events that have actually happened should not conform to the law of
the probable and possible, and in virtue of that quality in them he is
their poet or maker.
Of all plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a plot
'episodic' in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without
probable or necessary sequence. Bad poets compose such pieces by their
own fault, good poets, to please the players; for, as they write
show pieces for competition, they stretch the plot beyond its
capacity, and are often forced to break the natural continuity.
But again, Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action,
but of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an effect is best
produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is
heightened when, at the same time, they follows as cause and effect.
The tragic wonder will then be greater than if they happened of
themselves or by accident; for even coincidences are most striking
when they have an air of design. We may instance the statue of Mitys
at Argos, which fell upon his murderer while he was a spectator at a
festival, and killed him. Such events seem not to be due to mere
chance. Plots, therefore, constructed on these principles are
necessarily the best.
POETICS|10
X
Plots are either Simple or Complex, for the actions in real life, of
which the plots are an imitation, obviously show a similar
distinction. An action which is one and continuous in the sense
above defined, I call Simple, when the change of fortune takes place
without Reversal of the Situation and without Recognition
A Complex action is one in which the change is accompanied by such
Reversal, or by Recognition, or by both. These last should arise
from the internal structure of the plot, so that what follows should
be the necessary or probable result of the preceding action. It
makes all the difference whether any given event is a case of
propter hoc or post hoc.
POETICS|11
XI
Reversal of the Situation is a change by which the action veers
round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability or
necessity. Thus in the Oedipus, the messenger comes to cheer Oedipus
and free him from his alarms about his mother, but by revealing who he
is, he produces the opposite effect. Again in the Lynceus, Lynceus
is being led away to his death, and Danaus goes with him, meaning to
slay him; but the outcome of the preceding incidents is that Danaus is
killed and Lynceus saved.
Recognition, as the name indicates, is a change from ignorance to
knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by
the poet for good or bad fortune. The best form of recognition is
coincident with a Reversal of the Situation, as in the Oedipus.
There are indeed other forms. Even inanimate things of the most
trivial kind may in a sense be objects of recognition. Again, we may
recognize or discover whether a person has done a thing or not. But
the recognition which is most intimately connected with the plot and
action is, as we have said, the recognition of persons. This
recognition, combined with Reversal, will produce either pity or fear;
and actions producing these effects are those which, by our
definition, Tragedy represents. Moreover, it is upon such situations
that the issues of good or bad fortune will depend. Recognition, then,
being between persons, it may happen that one person only is
recognized by the other- when the latter is already known- or it may
be necessary that the recognition should be on both sides. Thus
Iphigenia is revealed to Orestes by the sending of the letter; but
another act of recognition is required to make Orestes known to
Iphigenia.
Two parts, then, of the Plot- Reversal of the Situation and
Recognition- turn upon surprises. A third part is the Scene of
Suffering. The Scene of Suffering is a destructive or painful
action, such as death on the stage, bodily agony, wounds, and the
like.
POETICS|12
XII
The parts of Tragedy which must be treated as elements of the
whole have been already mentioned. We now come to the quantitative
parts- the separate parts into which Tragedy is divided- namely,
Prologue, Episode, Exode, Choric song; this last being divided into
Parode and Stasimon. These are common
to all plays: peculiar to some
are the songs of actors from the stage and the Commoi.
The Prologue is that entire part of a tragedy which precedes the
Parode of the Chorus. The Episode is that entire part of a tragedy
which is between complete choric songs. The Exode is that entire
part of a tragedy which has no choric song after it. Of the Choric
part the Parode is the first undivided utterance of the Chorus: the
Stasimon is a Choric ode without anapaests or trochaic tetrameters:
the Commos is a joint lamentation of Chorus and actors. The parts of
Tragedy which must be treated as elements of the whole have been
already mentioned. The quantitative parts- the separate parts into
which it is divided- are here enumerated.
POETICS|13
XIII
As the sequel to what has already been said, we must proceed to
consider what the poet should aim at, and what he should avoid, in
constructing his plots; and by what means the specific effect of
Tragedy will be produced.
A perfect tragedy should, as we have seen, be arranged not on the
simple but on the complex plan. It should, moreover, imitate actions
which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of
tragic imitation. It follows plainly, in the first place, that the
change of fortune presented must not be the spectacle of a virtuous
man brought from prosperity to adversity: for this moves neither
pity nor fear; it merely shocks us. Nor, again, that of a bad man
passing from adversity to prosperity: for nothing can be more alien to
the spirit of Tragedy; it possesses no single tragic quality; it
neither satisfies the moral sense nor calls forth pity or fear. Nor,
again, should the downfall of the utter villain be exhibited. A plot
of this kind would, doubtless, satisfy the moral sense, but it would
inspire neither pity nor fear; for pity is aroused by unmerited
misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves. Such an
event, therefore, will be neither pitiful nor terrible. There remains,