Poetics | Page 3

seen the original,
the pleasure will be due not to the imitation as such, but to the
execution, the colouring, or some such other cause.
Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the instinct
for 'harmony' and rhythm, metres 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 metre 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 dramatising 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
affinities 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.

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, generalised 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 metre, and is narrative in form. They differ, again, in
their length: