"Poetics" by Aristotle

• Since the objects of imitation are men in action, and these men must be either of a higher or a lower type (for moral character mainly answers to these divisions, goodness and badness being the distinguishing marks of moral differences), it follows that we must represent men either as better than in real life, or as worse, or as they are.
• The same distinction marks off tragedy from comedy; for comedy aims at representing men as worse, tragedy as better than in actual life.
• The instinct of imitation is implanted in man from childhood, one difference between him and other animals being that he is the most imitative of living creatures, and through imitation learns his earliest lessons.
• Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature.
• Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower type.
• Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude.
• By ‘diction’ I mean the mere metrical arrangement of the words: as for ‘song,’ it is a term whose sense everyone understands.
• Again, tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action implies personal agents, who necessarily possess certain distinctive qualities both of characters and thought.
• The plot is the imitation of the action: for by plot I here mean the arrangement of the incidents. By character I mean that in virtue of which we ascribe certain qualities to the agents.
• Every tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality -- namely, plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, song.
• But most important of all is the structure of the incidents.
• The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy: character holds the second place. Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of things a man chooses or avoids, Third in order is thought, -- that is, the faculty of saying what is possible and pertinent in given circumstances. Fourth among the elements enumerated comes diction; by which I mean, as has been already said, the expression of the meaning in words. Of the remaining elements song holds the chief place among the embellishments. The spectacle has, indeed, an emotional attraction of its own, but of all the parts, it is the least artistic, and connected least with the art of poetry.
• Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain magnitude. A whole is that which had a beginning, a middle, and an end.
• Of all plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a plot ‘episodic’ in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence.
• Plots are either simple or complex, for the actions in real life, of which the plots are an imitation, obviously show a similar distinction.
• I call simple, when the change of fortune takes place without reversal or the situation and without recognition.
• A complex action is one in which the change is accompanied by such reversal, or by recognition, or by both.
• Reversal of the situation is a change by which the action veers round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability or necessity.
• Recognition, as the name indicates, is a change from ignorance to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poet for good or bad fortune. The best form of recognition is coincident with a reversal of the situation.
• Two parts, then, of the plot -- reversal of the situation and recognition -- turn upon surprises. A third part is the scene of suffering. The scene of suffering is a destructive or painful action, such as death on the stage, bodily agony, wounds and the like.
• We now come to the quantitative parts -- the separate parts into which tragedy is divided -- namely, prologue, episode, exode, choric song; this last being divided into parody and stasimon. These are common to all plays.
• The prologue is that entire part of a tragedy which precedes the parade of the chorus. The episode is that entire part of a tragedy which is between complete choric songs. The exode is that entire part of a tragedy which has no choric song after it. Of the choric part the parade is the first undivided utterance of the chorus: the stasimon is a choric ode without anapaests or trochaic tetrameters: the commons is a joint lamentation of chorus and actors.
• A perfect tragedy should, as we have seen, be arranged not on the simple but on the complex plan. It should, moreover, imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation.
• A well constructed plot should, therefore, be single in its issue, rather than double as some maintain.
• The change of fortune should be not from bad to good, but, reversely, from good to bad. It should come about as the result not of vice, but of some great error or frailty, in a character either such as we have described, or better rather than worse.
• For the plot ought to be so constructed that, even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place.
• These are the only possible ways. For the deed must either be done or not done, -- and that wittingly or unwittingly. But of all these ways, to be about to act knowing the persons, and then not to act, is the worst.
• The next and better way is that the deed should be perpetrated. Still better, that it should be perpetrated in ignorance, and the discovery made afterwards. There is then nothing to shock us, while the discovery produces a startling effect. The last case is the best, as when in the Cresphontes Merope is about to slay er son, but, recognizing who he is, spares his life.
• In respect of character there are four things to be aimed at. First, and most important, it must be good. The character will be good if the purpose is good. The second thing to aim at is proprietary. Thirdly, character must be true to life. The fourth point is consistency.
• As in the structure of the plot, so too in the portraiture of character, the poet should always aim either at the necessary or the probable.
• The Deus ex Machina should be employed only for events external to the drama, -- for antecedent or subsequent events, which lie beyond the range of human knowledge, and which require to be reported or foretold; for to the gods we ascribe the power of seeing all things.
• What recognition is has been already explained. We will now enumerate its kinds. First, the least artistic form, which, from poverty of wit, is most commonly employed -- recognition by signs. Next come the recognitions invented at will by the poet, and on the account wanting in art. The third kind of depends on memory when the sight of some object awakens a feeling. The fourth kind is by process of reasoning. But, of all recognitions, the best is that which arises from the incidents themselves, where the startling discovery is made by natural means.
• Every tragedy falls into two parts, -- complication and unravelling or denouement.
• By the complication I mean all that extends from the beginning of the action to the part which marks the turning-point to good or bad fortune. The unravelling is that which extends from the beginning of the change to the end.
• There are four kinds of tragedy, the complex, depending entirely on reversal of the situation and recognition; the pathetic (where the motive is passion), -- such as the tragedies on ajax and ixion; the ethical (where the motives are ethical), -- such as the Phthiotis and the Peleus. The fourth kind is the simple.
• Language in general includes the following parts: letter, syllable, connecting word, noun, verb, inflexion or case, sentence or phrase.
• A letter is an indivisible sound, yet not every such sound, but only one which can form part of a group of sounds.
• A syllable is a non-significant sound, composed of a mute and a vowel.
• A connecting word is a non-significant sound, which neither causes nor hinders the union of many sounds into one significant sound; it may be placed at either end or in the middle of a sentence.
• A noun is a composite significant sound, not marking time, of which no part is in itself significant: for in double or compound words we do not employ the separate parts as if each were in itself significant.
• A verb is a composite significant sound, marking time, in which, as in the noun, no part is in itself significant.
• Inflexion belongs both to the noun and verb, and expresses either the relation ‘of,’ ‘to,’ or the like; or that of number, whether one or many, as ‘man’ or ‘men’; or the modes or tones in actual delivery.
• A sentence or phrase is a composite significant sound, some at least of whose parts are in themselves significant.
• Words are of two kinds, simple and double.
• Every word is either current, or strange, or metaphorical, or ornamental, or newly-coined, or lengthen, or contracted, or altered.
• By a current or proper word I mean one which is in general use among a people; by a strange word, one which is in use in another country.
• A newly-coined word is one which has never been even in local use, but is adopted by the poet himself.
• A word is lengthened when its own vowel is exchanged for a longer, or when a syllable is inserted. A word is contracted when some part of it is removed.
• The greatest thing be far is to have a command of metaphor. It is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
• As to that poetic imitation which is narrative in form and employs a single metre, the plot manifestly ought, as in tragedy, to be constructed on dramatic principle. It should have for its subject a single action, whole and complete, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
• Epic poetry differs from Tragedy in the scale on which it is constructed, and in its metre.
• The poet should speak as little as possible in his own person, for it is not this that makes him an imitator.
• The poet being an imitator, like a pointer or any other artist, must of necessity imitate one of three objects, -- things as they were or are, things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they ought to be.
• Thus, there are five sources from which critical objections are drawn. Things are censured either as impossible, or irrational, or morally harmful, or contradictory, or contrary to artistic correctness.