FROM ARISTOTLE'S TREATISE ON POETRY, (TWINING'S TRANSLATION.) PART I. INTRODUCTION. My design is to treat of Poetry in general, and of its several species—to inquire, what is the proper effect of each—what construction of a fable, or plan, is essential to a good poem-of what, and how many, parts, each species consists; with whatever else belongs to the same subject; which I shall consider in the order that most naturally presents itself. I. (Poetry a species of Imitation.) Epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambics, as also, for the most part, the music of the flute, and of the lyre-all these are, in the most general view of them, Imitations1 (ovoaι μiunois To 1. Twining prefixed two dissertations to his translation of Aristotle's Poetics; the first upon poetic, the second upon musical imitation. The result of his first investigation is, that generally "poetry can be justly considered as imitation only by sound, by description, by fiction, or by personation" (Vol. I. p. 32); and that Aristotle's notion of poetic imitation "seems, as far as he has explained it, to have been simply that of the imitation of human actions, manners, passions, events, &c. in a feigned story, and that principally when conveyed in a dramatic form" (p. 40). In his second dissertation Twining remarks, "It appears, then, in the first place, that music, considered as affecting, or raising emotions, was called imitation by the ancients, because they perceived in it that which is essential to all imitation-resemblance. This resemblance, however, as stated by Aristotle, cannot be immediate; for between sounds themselves, and mental affections, there can be no resemblance. The resemblance can only be a resemblance of effect: the general emotions, tempers, or feelings produced in us by certain sounds, are like those that accompany actual grief, joy, anger,' &c. (p. 71). In this the ancients differ from the moderns. We generally consider that music alone imitative which raises certain ideas by direct resemblance. On the contrary, by imitation they mean what we commonly distinguish from imitation, and oppose to it under the I 2 general 99 66 avvoλov); differing, however, from each other in three respects, according to the different means, the different objects, or the different manner, of their imitation. II. (Different means of Imitation.) For as men, some through art, and some through habit, imitate various objects, by means of colour and figure, and others again, by voice; so with respect to the arts above-mentioned, rhythm, words, and melody (ovuos, λóyos, ápμovía1), are the different means by which, either single, or variously combined, they all produce their imitation. The Epopoeia imitates by words alone, or by verse; and that verse may either be composed of various metres, or confined, according to the practice hitherto established, to a single species. For we should otherwise have no general name, which would comprehend the 2 Mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus, and the Sogeneral term of expression" (p. 69). In the second place, Twining goes on to observe, that among the ancients poetry was almost invariably combined with music. "When an ancient writer speaks of music, he is almost always to be understood to mean vocal music music and poetry united" (p. 73). Hence the vague, general, and equivocal assimilations of music were made distinct and specific by the ideas, circumstances, and objects suggested by the accompanying words. "There is now a precise object of comparison presented to the mind; the resemblance is pointed out; the thing imitated is before us. Further, one principal use of music in the time of Aristotle was to accompany dramatic poetry-that poetry which is most peculiarly and strictly imitative, and where the manners and passions are peculiarly the objects of imitation. It is then no wonder that the ancients, accustomed to hear the expressions of music thus constantly specified, determined, and referred to a precise object by the ideas of poetry, should view them in the light of imitations; and that even in speaking of music, properly so called, as Aristotle does, they should be led by this association to speak of it in the same terms, and to attribute to it powers which in its separate state do not in strictness belong to it" (p. 75). 1. These instruments of poetic imitation are afterwards termed by Aristotle, pvlμòs καὶ μέλος καὶ μέτρον; where μέλος is substituted for άρμονία, and μέτρον for Aoyos. It is to be observed, that there are two species of Melos with Aristotle ;—one, in a stricter sense, answering to harmony, or bare modulation; the other, which Aristides Quinctilian denominates perfect (TÉλetov), consisting of harmony, rhythm, and words. -Tyrwhitt, p. 94. F. E. 2. Tyrwhitt inquires how it has happened that Aristotle should have included the Socratic Dialogues under the head of Metrical Poems, when those which have come down to us, viz. of Xenophon, Plato, and Æschines, are all written in prose; and concludes, after citing a passage of Athenæus, by conjecturing that the Socratic Dialogues here mentioned, are not to be understood of all the Dialogues which bear that name, but of those only which Alexamenus Teius wrote. With respect to Sophron, he meets the assertion of Suidas-that he wrote in prose (kaтaloɣádŋv), by remarking that those fragments of his which have come down to us, have a certain poetical character and rhythm, and that the scholiast upon Gregory Nazianzen expressly asserts, that Sophron made use of certain rhythms and measured periods (ρυθμοῖς τισί καὶ κώλοις ἐχρήσατο), cratic dialogues; or poems in iambic, elegiac, or other metres, in which the epic species of imitation may be conveyed. Custom, indeed, connecting the poetry or making with the metre, has denominated some elegiac poets, i. e. makers of elegiac verse; others, epic poets, i. e. makers of hexameter verse; thus distinguishing poets, not according to the nature of their imitation, but according to that of their metre only. There are, again, other species of poetry, which make use of all the means of imitation, rhythm, melody, and verse. Such are the dithyrambic, that of nomes, tragedy, and comedy: with this difference, however, that, in some of these, they are employed all together, in others, separately. And such are the differences of these arts, with respect to the means by which they imitate. (Different objects of Imitation.) But, as the objects of imitation are the actions of men (étei δὲ μιμοῦνται οἱ μιμούμενοι πράττοντας), and these men must of necessity be either good or bad (for on this does character principally depend; the manners being in all men most strongly marked by virtue and vice), it follows, that we can only represent men, either as better than they actually are, or worse, or exactly as they are: just as, in painting, the pictures of Polyg notus were above the common level of nature; those of Pauson, below it; those of Dionysius, faithful likenesses. Now it is evident that each of the imitations above-mentioned will admit of these differences, and become a different kind of imitation, as it imitates objects that differ in this respect. This may be the case with dancing; with the music of the flute, and of the lyre; and, also, with the poetry which employs words, or verse, only, without melody or rhythm: thus, Homer has drawn men superior to what they are; Cleophon, as they are; Hegemon ExpnoаTO), p. 96. Hermann defends the account given by Suidas, and cites a passage of Aristotle to be found in Athenæus, οὐκοῦν οὐδὲ ἐμμέτρους τοὺς καλουμένους Σώφρονος μίμους μὴ φῶμεν εἶναι λόγους καὶ μιμήσεις, ἤ τοὺς ̓Αλεξαμένου τοῦ Τηΐου τοὺς πρώτους γραφέντας τῶν Σωκρατικῶν διαλόγων. He admits, however, that the prose of Sophron might have been of that metrical kind similar to what Gesner has employed in his Idylls.-Hermann's Arist. Poet. p. 93. It must be remarked, that Twining has translated Aristotle's words, Moyois Vois, not by the usual interpretation of them, prose, but by "words alone." Other commentators on this perplexing passage have understood λoyois lois to mean verse, without music. F. E. |