Aristotle

by Various Works [lit]

  consecutive series of motions. The only continuous motion, then, is

  that which is caused by the unmoved movent: and this motion is

  continuous because the movent remains always invariable, so that its

  relation to that which it moves remains also invariable and

  continuous.

  Now that these points are settled, it is clear that the first

  unmoved movent cannot have any magnitude. For if it has magnitude,

  this must be either a finite or an infinite magnitude. Now we have

  already'proved in our course on Physics that there cannot be an

  infinite magnitude: and we have now proved that it is impossible for a

  finite magnitude to have an infinite force, and also that it is

  impossible for a thing to be moved by a finite magnitude during an

  infinite time. But the first movent causes a motion that is eternal

  and does cause it during an infinite time. It is clear, therefore,

  that the first movent is indivisible and is without parts and

  without magnitude.

  -THE END-

  .

  350 BC

  POETICS

  by Aristotle

  Translated by S. H. Butcher

  POETICS|1

  I

  I PROPOSE to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds,

  noting the essential quality of each, to inquire into the structure of

  the plot as requisite to a good poem; into the number and nature of

  the parts of which a poem is composed; and similarly into whatever

  else falls within the same inquiry. Following, then, the order of

  nature, let us begin with the principles which come first.

  Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the

  music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all

  in their general conception modes of imitation. They differ,

  however, from one another in three respects- the medium, the

  objects, the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.

  For as there are persons who, by conscious art or mere habit,

  imitate and represent various objects through the medium of color

  and form, or again by the voice; so in the arts above mentioned, taken

  as a whole, the imitation is produced by rhythm, language, or

  'harmony,' either singly or combined.

  Thus in the music of the flute and of the lyre, 'harmony' and rhythm

  alone are employed; also in other arts, such as that of the shepherd's

  pipe, which are essentially similar to these. In dancing, rhythm alone

  is used without 'harmony'; for even dancing imitates character,

  emotion, and action, by rhythmical movement.

  There is another art which imitates by means of language alone,

  and that either in prose or verse- which verse, again, may either

  combine different meters or consist of but one kind- but this has

  hitherto been without a name. For there is no common term we could

  apply to the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogues

  on the one hand; and, on the other, to poetic imitations in iambic,

  elegiac, or any similar meter. People do, indeed, add the word 'maker'

  or 'poet' to the name of the meter, and speak of elegiac poets, or

  epic (that is, hexameter) poets, as if it were not the imitation

  that makes the poet, but the verse that entitles them all to the name.

  Even when a treatise on medicine or natural science is brought out

  in verse, the name of poet is by custom given to the author; and yet

  Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common but the meter, so that

  it would be right to call the one poet, the other physicist rather

  than poet. On the same principle, even if a writer in his poetic

  imitation were to combine all meters, as Chaeremon did in his Centaur,

  which is a medley composed of meters of all kinds, we should bring him

  too under the general term poet.

  So much then for these distinctions.

  There are, again, some arts which employ all the means above

  mentioned- namely, rhythm, tune, and meter. Such are Dithyrambic and

  Nomic poetry, and also Tragedy and Comedy; but between them originally

  the difference is, that in the first two cases these means are all

  employed in combination, in the latter, now one means is employed, now

  another.

  Such, then, are the differences of the arts with respect to the

  medium of imitation

  POETICS|2

  II

  Since the objects of imitation are men in action, and these men must

  be either of a higher or a lower type (for moral character mainly

  answers to these divisions, goodness and badness being the

  distinguishing marks of moral differences), it follows that we must

  represent men either as better than in real life, or as worse, or as

  they are. It is the same in painting. Polygnotus depicted men as

  nobler than they are, Pauson as less noble, Dionysius drew them true

  to life.

  Now it is evident that each of the modes of imitation above

  mentioned will exhibit these differences, and become a distinct kind

  in imitating objects that are thus distinct. Such diversities may be

  found even in dancing, flute-playing, and lyre-playing. So again in

  language, whether prose or verse unaccompanied by music. Homer, for

  example, makes men better than they are; Cleophon as they are; Hegemon

  the Thasian, the inventor of parodies, and Nicochares, the author of

  the Deiliad, worse than they are. The same thing holds good of

  Dithyrambs and Nomes; here too one may portray different types, as

  Timotheus and Philoxenus differed in representing their Cyclopes.

  The same distinction marks off Tragedy from Comedy; for Comedy aims at

  representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.

  POETICS|3

  III

  There is still a third difference- the manner in which each of these

  objects may be imitated. For the medium being the same, and the

  objects the same, the poet may imitate by narration- in which case

  he can either take another personality as Homer does, or speak in

  his own person, unchanged- or he may present all his characters as

  living and moving before us.

  These, then, as we said at the beginning, are the three

  differences which distinguish artistic imitation- the medium, the

  objects, and the manner. So that from one point of view, Sophocles

  is an imitator of the same kind as Homer- for both imitate higher

  types of character; from another point of view, of the same kind as

  Aristophanes- for both imitate persons acting and doing. Hence, some

  say, the name of 'drama' is given to such poems, as representing

  action. For the same reason the Dorians claim the invention both of

  Tragedy and Comedy. The claim to Comedy is put forward by the

  Megarians- not only by those of Greece proper, who allege that it

  originated under their democracy, but also by the Megarians of Sicily,

  for the poet Epicharmus, who is much earlier than Chionides and

  Magnes, belonged to that country. Tragedy too is claimed by certain

  Dorians of the Peloponnese. In each case they appeal to the evidence

  of language. The outlying villages, they say, are by them called

  komai, by the Athenians demoi: and they assume that comedians werer />
  so named not from komazein, 'to revel,' but because they wandered from

  village to village (kata komas), being excluded contemptuously from

  the city. They add also that the Dorian word for 'doing' is dran,

  and the Athenian, prattein.

  This may suffice as to the number and nature of the various modes of

  imitation.

  POETICS|4

  IV

  Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them

  lying deep in our nature. First, the instinct of imitation is

  implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and

  other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures,

  and through imitation learns his earliest lessons; and no less

  universal is the pleasure felt in things imitated. We have evidence of

  this in the facts of experience. Objects which in themselves we view

  with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute

  fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead

  bodies. The cause of this again is, that to learn gives the

  liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general;

  whose capacity, however, of learning is more limited. Thus the

  reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in contemplating it

  they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying perhaps, 'Ah,

  that is he.' For if you happen not to have seen the original, the

  pleasure will be due not to the imitation as such, but to the

  execution, the coloring, or some such other cause.

  Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the

  instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of

  rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift

  developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude

  improvisations gave birth to Poetry.

  Poetry now diverged in two directions, according to the individual

  character of the writers. The graver spirits imitated noble actions,

  and the actions of good men. The more trivial sort imitated the

  actions of meaner persons, at first composing satires, as the former

  did hymns to the gods and the praises of famous men. A poem of the

  satirical kind cannot indeed be put down to any author earlier than

  Homer; though many such writers probably there were. But from Homer

  onward, instances can be cited- his own Margites, for example, and

  other similar compositions. The appropriate meter was also here

  introduced; hence the measure is still called the iambic or lampooning

  measure, being that in which people lampooned one another. Thus the

  older poets were distinguished as writers of heroic or of lampooning

  verse.

  As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets, for he

  alone combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation so he too

  first laid down the main lines of comedy, by dramatizing the ludicrous

  instead of writing personal satire. His Margites bears the same

  relation to comedy that the Iliad and Odyssey do to tragedy. But

  when Tragedy and Comedy came to light, the two classes of poets

  still followed their natural bent: the lampooners became writers of

  Comedy, and the Epic poets were succeeded by Tragedians, since the

  drama was a larger and higher form of art.

  Whether Tragedy has as yet perfected its proper types or not; and

  whether it is to be judged in itself, or in relation also to the

  audience- this raises another question. Be that as it may, Tragedy- as

  also Comedy- was at first mere improvisation. The one originated

  with the authors of the Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic

  songs, which are still in use in many of our cities. Tragedy

  advanced by slow degrees; each new element that showed itself was in

  turn developed. Having passed through many changes, it found its

  natural form, and there it stopped.

  Aeschylus first introduced a second actor; he diminished the

  importance of the Chorus, and assigned the leading part to the

  dialogue. Sophocles raised the number of actors to three, and added

  scene-painting. Moreover, it was not till late that the short plot was

  discarded for one of greater compass, and the grotesque diction of the

  earlier satyric form for the stately manner of Tragedy. The iambic

  measure then replaced the trochaic tetrameter, which was originally

  employed when the poetry was of the satyric order, and had greater

  with dancing. Once dialogue had come in, Nature herself discovered the

  appropriate measure. For the iambic is, of all measures, the most

  colloquial we see it in the fact that conversational speech runs

  into iambic lines more frequently than into any other kind of verse;

  rarely into hexameters, and only when we drop the colloquial

  intonation. The additions to the number of 'episodes' or acts, and the

  other accessories of which tradition tells, must be taken as already

  described; for to discuss them in detail would, doubtless, be a

  large undertaking.

  POETICS|5

  V

  Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower

  type- not, however, in the full sense of the word bad, the ludicrous

  being merely a subdivision of the ugly. It consists in some defect

  or ugliness which is not painful or destructive. To take an obvious

  example, the comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not imply

  pain.

  The successive changes through which Tragedy passed, and the authors

  of these changes, are well known, whereas Comedy has had no history,

  because it was not at first treated seriously. It was late before

  the Archon granted a comic chorus to a poet; the performers were

  till then voluntary. Comedy had already taken definite shape when

  comic poets, distinctively so called, are heard of. Who furnished it

  with masks, or prologues, or increased the number of actors- these and

  other similar details remain unknown. As for the plot, it came

  originally from Sicily; but of Athenian writers Crates was the first

  who abandoning the 'iambic' or lampooning form, generalized his themes

  and plots.

  Epic poetry agrees with Tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in

  verse of characters of a higher type. They differ in that Epic

  poetry admits but one kind of meter and is narrative in form. They

  differ, again, in their length: for Tragedy endeavors, as far as

  possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or

  but slightly to exceed this limit, whereas the Epic action has no

  limits of time. This, then, is a second point of difference; though at

  first the same freedom was admitted in Tragedy as in Epic poetry.

  Of their constituent parts some are common to both, some peculiar to

  Tragedy: whoever, therefore knows what is good or bad Tragedy, knows

  also about Epic poetry. All the elements of an Epic poem are found

  in Tragedy, but the elements of a Tragedy are not all found in the

  Epic poem.

  POETICS|6

  VI

  Of the poetry which imitates in hexameter verse, and of Comedy, we

  will speak hereafter. Let us now discuss Tragedy, resuming its

  formal definition, as resulti
ng from what has been already said.

  Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious,

  complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with

  each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in

  separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative;

  through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these

  emotions. By 'language embellished,' I mean language into which

  rhythm, 'harmony' and song enter. By 'the several kinds in separate

  parts,' I mean, that some parts are rendered through the medium of

  verse alone, others again with the aid of song.

  Now as tragic imitation implies persons acting, it necessarily

  follows in the first place, that Spectacular equipment will be a

  part of Tragedy. Next, Song and Diction, for these are the media of

  imitation. By 'Diction' I mean the mere metrical arrangement of the

  words: as for 'Song,' it is a term whose sense every one understands.

  Again, Tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action

  implies personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive

  qualities both of character and thought; for it is by these that we

  qualify actions themselves, and these- thought and character- are

  the two natural causes from which actions spring, and on actions again

  all success or failure depends. Hence, the Plot is the imitation of

  the action- for by plot I here mean the arrangement of the

  incidents. By Character I mean that in virtue of which we ascribe

  certain qualities to the agents. Thought is required wherever a

  statement is proved, or, it may be, a general truth enunciated.

  Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine

  its quality- namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle,

  Song. Two of the parts constitute the medium of imitation, one the

  manner, and three the objects of imitation. And these complete the