Aristotle The Poetics

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is angry rages, with the most lifelike reality. Hence poetry im- these that give extension to Epic poetry. Thus the story of the
plies either a happy gift of nature or a strain of madness. In the Odyssey can be stated briefly. A certain man is absent from
one case a man can take the mould of any character; in the home for many years; he is jealously watched by Poseidon, and
other, he is lifted out of his proper self. left desolate. Meanwhile his home is in a wretched plight
As for the story, whether the poet takes it ready made or suitors are wasting his substance and plotting against his son.
constructs it for himself, he should first sketch its general out- At length, tempest-tost, he himself arrives; he makes certain
line, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail. The persons acquainted with him; he attacks the suitors with his
general plan may be illustrated by the Iphigenia. A young girl own hand, and is himself preserved while he destroys them.
is sacrificed; she disappears mysteriously from the eyes of those This is the essence of the plot; the rest is episode.
who sacrificed her; she is transported to another country, where
the custom is to offer up an strangers to the goddess. To this
18.
ministry she is appointed. Some time later her own brother
chances to arrive. The fact that the oracle for some reason or-
dered him to go there, is outside the general plan of the play.
Every tragedy falls into two parts Complication and Un-
The purpose, again, of his coming is outside the action proper.
raveling or Denouement. Incidents extraneous to the action
However, he comes, he is seized, and, when on the point of
are frequently combined with a portion of the action proper,
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Aristotle. The Poetics.
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to form the Complication; the rest is the Unraveling. By the Again, the poet should remember what has been often said,
Complication I mean all that extends from the beginning of and not make an Epic structure into a tragedy by an Epic
the action to the part which marks the turning-point to good structure I mean one with a multiplicity of plots as if, for
or bad fortune. The Unraveling is that which extends from the instance, you were to make a tragedy out of the entire story of
beginning of the change to the end. Thus, in the Lynceus of the Iliad. In the Epic poem, owing to its length, each part
Theodectes, the Complication consists of the incidents pre- assumes its proper magnitude. In the drama the result is far
supposed in the drama, the seizure of the child, and then again from answering to the poet s expectation. The proof is that the
... [the Unraveling] extends from the accusation of murder to poets who have dramatized the whole story of the Fall of Troy,
the end. instead of selecting portions, like Euripides; or who have taken
There are four kinds of Tragedy: the Complex, depending the whole tale of Niobe, and not a part of her story, like
entirely on Reversal of the Situation and Recognition; the Pa- Aeschylus, either fail utterly or meet with poor success on the
thetic (where the motive is passion) such as the tragedies on stage. Even Agathon has been known to fail from this one
Ajax and Ixion; the Ethical (where the motives are ethical) defect. In his Reversals of the Situation, however, he shows a
such as the Phthiotides and the Peleus. The fourth kind is the marvelous skill in the effort to hit the popular taste to pro-
Simple. [We here exclude the purely spectacular element], ex- duce a tragic effect that satisfies the moral sense. This effect is
emplified by the Phorcides, the Prometheus, and scenes laid produced when the clever rogue, like Sisyphus, is outwitted, or
in Hades. The poet should endeavor, if possible, to combine all the brave villain defeated. Such an event is probable in
poetic elements; or failing that, the greatest number and those Agathon s sense of the word: is probable, he says, that many
the most important; the more so, in face of the caviling criti- things should happen contrary to probability.
cism of the day. For whereas there have hitherto been good The Chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it
poets, each in his own branch, the critics now expect one man should be an integral part of the whole, and share in the ac-
to surpass all others in their several lines of excellence. tion, in the manner not of Euripides but of Sophocles. As for
In speaking of a tragedy as the same or different, the best the later poets, their choral songs pertain as little to the subject
test to take is the plot. Identity exists where the Complication of the piece as to that of any other tragedy. They are, therefore,
and Unraveling are the same. Many poets tie the knot well, sung as mere interludes a practice first begun by Agathon.
but unravel it Both arts, however, should always be mastered. Yet what difference is there between introducing such choral
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