The Poetics | Page 5

as a
work of criticism. Certainly if any young writer took this book as a
manual of rules by which to 'commence poet', he would find himself
embarrassed. But, if the book is properly read, not as a dogmatic
text-book but as a first attempt, made by a man of astounding genius, to
build up in the region of creative art a rational order like that which he
established in logic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, psychology, and
almost every department of knowledge that existed in his day, then the
uncertainties become rather a help than a discouragement. The.g.ve
/ us
occasion to think and use our
imagination. They make us, to the best
of our powers, try really to follow and criticize closely the bold
gropings of an extraordinary thinker; and it is in this process, and not in
any mere collection of dogmatic results, that we shall find the true
value and beauty of the Poetics.
The book is of permanent value as a mere intellectual achievement; as a
store of information about Greek literature; and as an original or
first-hand statement of what we may call the classical view of artistic
criticism. It does not regard poetry as a matter of unanalysed inspiration;
it makes no concession to personal whims or fashion or ennui. It tries
by rational methods to find out what is good in art and what makes it
good, accepting the belief that there is just as truly a good way, and
many bad ways, in poetry as in morals or in playing billiards. This is no
place to try to sum up its main conclusions. But it is characteristic of
the classical view that Aristotle lays his greatest stress, first, on the
need for Unity in the work of art, the need that each part should
subserve the whole, while irrelevancies, however brilliant in
themselves, should be cast away; and next, on the demand that great art
must have for its subject the great way of living. These judgements
have often been
misunderstood, but the truth in them is profound and
goes near to the heart of things.
Characteristic, too, is the observation that different kinds of art grow
and develop, but not indefinitely; they develop until they 'attain their

natural form'; also the rule that each form of art should produce 'not
every sort of pleasure but its proper pleasure'; and the sober language in
which Aristotle, instead of speaking about the sequence of events in a
tragedy being 'inevitable', as we bombastic moderns do, merely
recommends that they should be 'either necessary or probable' and
'appear to happen because of one another'.
Conceptions and attitudes of mind such as these constitute what we
may call the classical faith in matters of art and poetry; a faith which is
never perhaps fully accepted in any age, yet, unlike others, is never
forgotten but lives by being constantly criticized, re-asserted, and
rebelled against. For the fashions of the ages vary in this direction and
that, but they vary for the most part from a central road which was
struck out by the imagination of Greece.
G. M
ARISTOTLE ON THE ART OF POETRY
1
Our subject being Poetry, I propose to speak not only of the art in
general but also of its species and their respective capacities; of the
structure of plot required for a good poem; of the number and nature of
the constituent parts of a poem; and likewise of any other matters in the
same line of inquiry. Let us follow the natural order and begin with the
primary facts.
Epic poetry and Tragedy, as also Comedy, Dithyrambic poetry, and
most flute-playing and lyre-playing, are all, viewed as a whole, modes
of imitation. But at the same time they differ from one another in three
ways, either by a difference of kind in their means, or by differences in
the objects, or in the manner of their imitations.
I. Just as form and colour are used as means by some, who (whether by
art or constant practice) imitate and portray many things by their aid,
and the voice is used by others; so also in the above-mentioned group
of arts, the means with them as a whole are rhythm, language, and

harmony--used, however, either singly or in certain combinations. A
combination of rhythm and harmony alone is the means in

flute-playing and lyre-playing, and any other arts there may be of the
same description, e.g. imitative piping. Rhythm alone, without
harmony, is the means in the dancer's imitations; for even he, by the
rhythms of his attitudes, may represent men's characters, as well as
what they do and suffer. There is further an art which imitates by
language alone, without harmony, in prose or in verse, and if in verse,
either in some one or in