The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

be
presented; and these, if relevant to the subject, add mass and
dignity to the poem. The Epic has here an advantage, and one that
conduces to grandeur of effect, to diverting the mind of the
hearer, and relieving the story with varying episodes. For sameness
of incident soon produces satiety, and makes tragedies fail on the
stage.
    As for the meter, the heroic measure has proved its fitness by
hexameter test of experience. If a narrative poem in any other
meter or in many meters were now composed, it would be found
incongruous. For of all measures the heroic is the stateliest and
the most massive; and hence it most readily admits rare words and
metaphors, which is another point in which the narrative form of
imitation stands alone. On the other hand, the iambic and the
trochaic tetrameter are stirring measures, the latter being akin to
dancing, the former expressive of action. Still more absurd would
it be to mix together different meters, as was done by Chaeremon.
Hence no one has ever composed a poem on a great scale in any other
than heroic verse. Nature herself, as we have said, teaches the
choice of the proper measure.
    Homer, admirable in all respects, has the special merit of being
the only poet who rightly appreciates the part he should take
himself. The poet should speak as little as possible in his own
person, for it is not this that makes him an imitator. Other poets
appear themselves upon the scene throughout, and imitate but little
and rarely. Homer, after a few prefatory words, at once brings in a
man, or woman, or other personage; none of them wanting in
characteristic qualities, but each with a character of his own.
    The element of the wonderful is required in Tragedy. The
irrational, on which the wonderful depends for its chief effects,
has wider scope in Epic poetry, because there the person acting is
not seen. Thus, the pursuit of Hector would be ludicrous if placed
upon the stage—the Greeks standing still and not joining in the
pursuit, and Achilles waving them back. But in the Epic poem the
absurdity passes unnoticed. Now the wonderful is pleasing, as may
be inferred from the fact that every one tells a story with some
addition of his knowing that his hearers like it. It is Homer who
has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skilfully.
The secret of it lies in a fallacy For, assuming that if one thing
is or becomes, a second is or becomes, men imagine that, if the
second is, the first likewise is or becomes. But this is a false
inference. Hence, where the first thing is untrue, it is quite
unnecessary, provided the second be true, to add that the first is
or has become. For the mind, knowing the second to be true, falsely
infers the truth of the first. There is an example of this in the
Bath Scene of the Odyssey.
    Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to
improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of
irrational parts. Everything irrational should, if possible, be
excluded; or, at all events, it should lie outside the action of
the play (as, in the Oedipus, the hero’s ignorance as to the manner
of Laius’ death); not within the drama—as in the Electra, the
messenger’s account of the Pythian games; or, as in the Mysians,
the man who has come from Tegea to Mysia and is still speechless.
The plea that otherwise the plot would have been ruined, is
ridiculous; such a plot should not in the first instance be
constructed. But once the irrational has been introduced and an air
of likelihood imparted to it, we must accept it in spite of the
absurdity. Take even the irrational incidents in the Odyssey, where
Odysseus is left upon the shore of Ithaca. How intolerable even
these might have been would be apparent if an inferior poet were to
treat the subject. As it is, the absurdity is veiled by the poetic
charm with which the poet invests it.
    The diction should be elaborated in the pauses of the action,
where there is no expression of character or thought. For,
conversely, character and thought are merely obscured by a diction
that is over-brilliant
XXV
    With respect to critical difficulties and their solutions, the
number and nature of the sources from which they may be drawn may
be thus exhibited.
    The poet being an imitator, like a painter 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. The vehicle of expression is