Poetics - Aristotle (fun to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Aristotle
- Performer: -
Book online «Poetics - Aristotle (fun to read TXT) 📗». Author Aristotle
perhaps employs {omicron upsilon rho eta alpha sigma} not in the sense of
mules, but of sentinels. So, again, of Dolon: ‘ill-favoured indeed he was
to look upon.’ It is not meant that his body was ill-shaped, but that his
face was ugly; for the Cretans use the word {epsilon upsilon epsilon iota
delta epsilon sigma}, ‘well-favoured,’ to denote a fair face. Again,
{zeta omega rho omicron tau epsilon rho omicron nu delta epsilon
kappa epsilon rho alpha iota epsilon}, ‘mix the drink livelier,’ does not
mean `mix it stronger’ as for hard drinkers, but ‘mix it quicker.’
Sometimes an expression is metaphorical, as ‘Now all gods and men were
sleeping through the night,’—while at the same time the poet says:
‘Often indeed as he turned his gaze to the Trojan plain, he marvelled at
the sound of flutes and pipes.’ ‘All’ is here used metaphorically for
‘many,’ all being a species of many. So in the verse,—‘alone she hath no
part . . ,’ {omicron iota eta}, ‘alone,’ is metaphorical; for the best
known may be called the only one.
Again, the solution may depend upon accent or breathing. Thus Hippias of
Thasos solved the difficulties in the lines,—{delta iota delta omicron
mu epsilon nu (delta iota delta omicron mu epsilon nu) delta epsilon /
omicron iota,} and { tau omicron mu epsilon nu omicron upsilon
(omicron upsilon) kappa alpha tau alpha pi upsilon theta epsilon tau
alpha iota / omicron mu beta rho omega}.
Or again, the question may be solved by punctuation, as in Empedocles,—
‘Of a sudden things became mortal that before had learnt to be immortal,
and things unmixed before mixed.’
Or again, by ambiguity of meaning,—as {pi alpha rho omega chi eta kappa
epsilon nu delta epsilon pi lambda epsilon omega / nu upsilon xi},
where the word {pi lambda epsilon omega} is ambiguous.
Or by the usage of language. Thus any mixed drink is called {omicron iota
nu omicron sigma}, ‘wine.’ Hence Ganymede is said ‘to pour the wine to
Zeus,’ though the gods do not drink wine. So too workers in iron are
called {chi alpha lambda kappa epsilon alpha sigma}, or workers in
bronze. This, however, may also be taken as a metaphor.
Again, when a word seems to involve some inconsistency of meaning, we
should consider how many senses it may bear in the particular passage.
For example: ‘there was stayed the spear of bronze’—we should ask in how
many ways we may take ‘being checked there.’ The true mode of
interpretation is the precise opposite of what Glaucon mentions. Critics,
he says, jump at certain groundless conclusions; they pass adverse
judgment and then proceed to reason on it; and, assuming that the poet
has said whatever they happen to think, find fault if a thing is
inconsistent with their own fancy. The question about Icarius has been
treated in this fashion. The critics imagine he was a Lacedaemonian. They
think it strange, therefore, that Telemachus should not have met him when
he went to Lacedaemon. But the Cephallenian story may perhaps be the true
one. They allege that Odysseus took a wife from among themselves, and
that her father was Icadius not Icarius. It is merely a mistake, then,
that gives plausibility to the objection.
In general, the impossible must be justified by reference to artistic
requirements, or to the higher reality, or to received opinion. With
respect to the requirements of art, a probable impossibility is to be
preferred to a thing improbable and yet possible. Again, it may be
impossible that there should be men such as Zeuxis painted. ‘Yes,’ we
say, ‘but the impossible is the higher thing; for the ideal type must
surpass the reality.’ To justify the irrational, we appeal to what is
commonly said to be. In addition to which, we urge that the irrational
sometimes does not violate reason; just as ‘it is probable that a thing
may happen contrary to probability.’
Things that sound contradictory should be examined by the same rules as
in dialectical refutation whether the same thing is meant, in the same
relation, and in the same sense. We should therefore solve the question
by reference to what the poet says himself, or to what is tacitly assumed
by a person of intelligence.
The element of the irrational, and, similarly, depravity of character,
are justly censured when there is no inner necessity for introducing
them. Such is the irrational element in the introduction of Aegeus by
Euripides and the badness of Menelaus in the Orestes.
Thus, there are five sources from which critical objections are drawn.
Things are censured either as impossible, or irrational, or morally
hurtful, or contradictory, or contrary to artistic correctness. The
answers should be sought under the twelve heads above mentioned.
XXVIThe question may be raised whether the Epic or Tragic mode of imitation
is the higher. If the more refined art is the higher, and the more
refined in every case is that which appeals to the better sort of
audience, the art which imitates anything and everything is manifestly
most unrefined. The audience is supposed to be too dull to comprehend
unless something of their own is thrown in by the performers, who
therefore indulge in restless movements. Bad flute-players twist and
twirl, if they have to represent ‘the quoit-throw,’ or hustle the
coryphaeus when they perform the ‘Scylla.’ Tragedy, it is said, has this
same defect. We may compare the opinion that the older actors entertained
of their successors. Mynniscus used to call Callippides ‘ape’ on account
of the extravagance of his action, and the same view was held of
Pindarus. Tragic art, then, as a whole, stands to Epic in the same
relation as the younger to the elder actors. So we are told that Epic
poetry is addressed to a cultivated audience, who do not need gesture;
Tragedy, to an inferior public. Being then unrefined, it is evidently the
lower of the two.
Now, in the first place, this censure attaches not to the poetic but to
the histrionic art; for gesticulation may be equally overdone in epic
recitation, as by Sosi-stratus, or in lyrical competition, as by
Mnasitheus the Opuntian. Next, all action is not to be condemned any more
than all dancing—but only that of bad performers. Such was the fault
found in Callippides, as also in others of our own day, who are censured
for representing degraded women. Again, Tragedy like Epic poetry produces
its effect even without action; it reveals its power by mere reading. If,
then, in all other respects it is superior, this fault, we say, is not
inherent in it.
And superior it is, because it has all the epic elements—it may even use
the epic metre—with the music and spectacular effects as important
accessories; and these produce the most vivid of pleasures. Further, it
has vividness of impression in reading as well as in representation.
Moreover, the art attains its end within narrower limits; for the
concentrated effect is more pleasurable than one which is spread over a
long time and so diluted. What, for example, would be the effect of the
Oedipus of Sophocles, if it were cast into a form as long as the Iliad?
Once more, the Epic imitation has less unity; as is shown by this, that
any Epic poem will furnish subjects for several tragedies. Thus if the
story adopted by the poet has a strict unity, it must either be concisely
told and appear truncated; or, if it conform to the Epic canon of length,
it must seem weak and watery. <Such length implies some loss of unity,>
if, I mean, the poem is constructed out of several actions, like the
Iliad and the Odyssey, which have many such parts, each with a certain
magnitude of its own. Yet these poems are as perfect as possible in
structure; each is, in the highest degree attainable, an imitation of a
single action.
If, then, Tragedy is superior to Epic poetry in all these respects, and,
moreover, fulfils its specific function better as an art for each art
ought to produce, not any chance pleasure, but the pleasure proper to it,
as already stated it plainly follows that Tragedy is the higher art, as
attaining its end more perfectly.
Thus much may suffice concerning Tragic and Epic poetry in general;
their several kinds and parts, with the number of each and their
differences; the causes that make a poem good or bad; the objections of
the critics and the answers to these objections.
*
Comments (0)