Poetics

THE POETICS OF ARISTOTLE
A TRANSLATION BY S. H. BUTCHER

[Transcriber's Annotations and Conventions: the translator left intact
some Greek words to illustrate a specific point of the original discourse.
In this transcription, in order to retain the accuracy of this text, those
words are rendered by spelling out each Greek letter individually, such
as {alpha beta gamma delta ...}. The reader can distinguish these words
by the enclosing braces {}. Where multiple words occur together, they
are separated by the "/" symbol for clarity. Readers who do not speak
or read the Greek language will usually neither gain nor lose
understanding by skipping over these passages. Those who understand
Greek, however, may gain a deeper insight to the original meaning and
distinctions expressed by Aristotle.]

Analysis of Contents
I 'Imitation' the common principle of the Arts of Poetry.
II The Objects of Imitation.
III The Manner of Imitation.
IV The Origin and Development of Poetry.
V Definition of the Ludicrous, and a brief sketch of the rise of Comedy.
VI Definition of Tragedy.
VII The Plot must be a Whole.
VIII The Plot must be a Unity.

IX (Plot continued.) Dramatic Unity.
X (Plot continued.) Definitions of Simple and Complex Plots.
XI (Plot continued.) Reversal of the Situation, Recognition, and Tragic
or disastrous Incident defined and explained.
XII The 'quantitative parts' of Tragedy defined.
XIII (Plot continued.) What constitutes Tragic Action.
XIV (Plot continued.) The tragic emotions of pity and fear should
spring out of the Plot itself.
XV The element of Character in Tragedy.
XVI (Plot continued.) Recognition: its various kinds, with examples.
XVII Practical rules for the Tragic Poet.
XVIII Further rules for the Tragic Poet.
XIX Thought, or the Intellectual element, and Diction in Tragedy.
XX Diction, or Language in general.
XXI Poetic Diction.
XXII (Poetic Diction continued.) How Poetry combines elevation of
language with perspicuity.
XXIII Epic Poetry.
XXIV (Epic Poetry continued.) Further points of agreement with
Tragedy.
XXV Critical Objections brought against Poetry, and the principles on
which they are to be answered.

XXVI A general estimate of the comparative worth of Epic Poetry and
Tragedy.

ARISTOTLE'S POETICS
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 colour 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 metres 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 metre. People do, indeed, add the word 'maker' or 'poet' to
the name of the metre, 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 indiscriminately 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 metre, 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 metres, as Chaeremon did in his Centaur, which is a medley
composed of metres of all kinds, we