opposite of the kind described, and that too in the way we are saying,
in the probable or necessary sequence of events; as it is for instance
in _Oedipus_: here the opposite state of things is produced by the
Messenger, who, coming to gladden Oedipus and to remove his fears as to
his mother, reveals the secret of his birth. And in _Lynceus_: just as
he is being led off for execution, with Danaus at his side to put him to
death, the incidents preceding this bring it about that he is saved and
Danaus put to death. A Discovery is, as the very word implies, a change
from ignorance to knowledge, and thus to either love or hate, in the
personages marked for good or evil fortune. The finest form of Discovery
is one attended by Peripeties, like that which goes with the Discovery
in _Oedipus_. There are no doubt other forms of it; what we have said
may happen in a way in reference to inanimate things, even things of a
very casual kind; and it is also possible to discover whether some one
has done or not done something. But the form most directly connected
with the Plot and the action of the piece is the first-mentioned. This,
with a Peripety, will arouse either pity or fear--actions of that nature
being what Tragedy is assumed to represent; and it will also serve to
bring about the happy or unhappy ending. The Discovery, then, being of
persons, it may be that of one party only to the other, the latter being
already known; or both the parties may have to discover themselves.
Iphigenia, for instance, was discovered to Orestes by sending the
letter; and another Discovery was required to reveal him to Iphigenia.
Two parts of the Plot, then, Peripety and Discovery, are on matters of
this sort. A third part is Suffering; which we may define as an action
of a destructive or painful nature, such as murders on the stage,
tortures, woundings, and the like. The other two have been already
explained.
12
The parts of Tragedy to be treated as formative elements in the whole
were mentioned in a previous Chapter. From the point of view, however,
of its quantity, i.e. the separate sections into which it is divided, a
tragedy has the following parts: Prologue, Episode, Exode, and a choral
portion, distinguished into Parode and Stasimon; these two are common to
all tragedies, whereas songs from the stage and Commoe are only found
in some. The Prologue is all that precedes the Parode of the chorus; an
Episode all that comes in between two whole choral songs; the Exode
all that follows after the last choral song. In the choral portion the
Parode is the whole first statement of the chorus; a Stasimon, a song of
the chorus without anapaests or trochees; a Commas, a lamentation sung
by chorus and actor in concert. The parts of Tragedy to be used as
formative elements in the whole we have already mentioned; the above
are its parts from the point of view of its quantity, or the separate
sections into which it is divided.
13
The next points after what we have said above will be these: (1) What is
the poet to aim at, and what is he to avoid, in constructing his Plots?
and (2) What are the conditions on which the tragic effect depends?
We assume that, for the finest form of Tragedy, the Plot must be not
simple but complex; and further, that it must imitate actions arousing
pity and fear, since that is the distinctive function of this kind of
imitation. It follows, therefore, that there are three forms of Plot to
be avoided. (1) A good man must not be seen passing from happiness to
misery, or (2) a bad man from misery to happiness.
The first situation is not fear-inspiring or piteous, but simply odious
to us. The second is the most untragic that can be; it has no one of the
requisites of Tragedy; it does not appeal either to the human feeling in
us, or to our pity, or to our fears. Nor, on the other hand, should (3)
an extremely bad man be seen falling from happiness into misery. Such
a story may arouse the human feeling in us, but it will not move us to
either pity or fear; pity is occasioned by undeserved misfortune, and
fear by that of one like ourselves; so that there will be nothing either
piteous or fear-inspiring in the situation. There remains, then, the
intermediate kind of personage, a man not pre-eminently virtuous and
just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice and
depravity but by some error of judgement, of the number of those in the
enjoyment of great reputation and prosperity; e.g. Oedipus, Thyestes,
and the men of note of similar families. The perfect Plot, accordingly,
must have a single, and not (as some tell us) a double issue; the change
in the hero's fortunes must be not from misery to happiness, but on the
contrary from happiness to misery; and the cause of it must lie not
in any depravity, but in some great error on his part; the man himself
being either such as we have described, or better, not worse, than that.
Fact also confirms our theory. Though the poets began by accepting any
tragic story that came to hand, in these days the finest tragedies are
always on the story of some few houses, on that of Alemeon, Oedipus,
Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus, or any others that may have been
involved, as either agents or sufferers, in some deed of horror. The
theoretically best tragedy, then, has a Plot of this description. The
critics, therefore, are wrong who blame Euripides for taking this line
in his tragedies, and giving many of them an unhappy ending. It is, as
we have said, the right line to take. The best proof is this: on the
stage, and in the public performances, such plays, properly worked
out, are seen to be the most truly tragic; and Euripides, even if
his elecution be faulty in every other point, is seen to be nevertheless
the most tragic certainly of the dramatists. After this comes the
construction of Plot which some rank first, one with a double story
(like the _Odyssey_) and an opposite issue for the good and the bad
personages. It is ranked as first only through the weakness of the
audiences; the poets merely follow their public, writing as its wishes
dictate. But the pleasure here is not that of Tragedy. It belongs rather
to Comedy, where the bitterest enemies in the piece (e.g. Orestes and
Aegisthus) walk off good friends at the end, with no slaying of any one
by any one.
14
The tragic fear and pity may be aroused by the Spectacle; but they may
also be aroused by the very structure and incidents of the play--which
is the better way and shows the better poet. The Plot in fact should be
so framed that, even without seeing the things take place, he who simply
hears the account of them shall be filled with horror and pity at the
incidents; which is just the effect that the mere recital of the story
in _Oedipus_ would have on one. To produce this same effect by means
of the Spectacle is less artistic, and requires extraneous aid. Those,
however, who make use of the Spectacle to put before us that which is
merely monstrous and not productive of fear, are wholly out of touch
with Tragedy; not every kind of pleasure should be required of a
tragedy, but only its own proper pleasure.
The tragic pleasure is that of pity and fear, and the poet has to
produce it by a work of imitation; it is clear, therefore, that the
causes should be included in the incidents of his story. Let us see,
then, what kinds of incident strike one as horrible, or rather as
piteous. In a deed of this description the parties must necessarily
be either friends, or enemies, or indifferent to one another. Now when
enemy does it on enemy, there is nothing to move us to pity either in
his doing or in his meditating the deed, except so far as the actual
pain of the sufferer is concerned; and the same is true when the parties
are indifferent to one another. Whenever the tragic deed, however, is
done within the family--when murder or the like is done or meditated
by brother on brother, by son on father, by mother on son, or son
on mother--these are the situations the poet should seek after. The
traditional stories, accordingly, must be kept as they are, e.g. the
murder of Clytaemnestra by Orestes and of Eriphyle by Alcmeon. At the
same time even with these there is something left to the poet himself;
it is for him to devise the right way of treating them. Let us explain
more clearly what we mean by 'the right way'. The deed of horror may be
done by the doer knowingly and consciously, as in the old poets, and
in Medea's murder of her children in Euripides. Or he may do it, but in
ignorance of his relationship, and discover that afterwards, as does the
_Oedipus_ in Sophocles. Here the deed is outside the play; but it may
be within it, like the act of the Alcmeon in Astydamas, or that of
the Telegonus in _Ulysses Wounded_. A third possibility is for
one meditating some deadly injury to another, in ignorance of his
relationship, to make the discovery in time to draw back. These exhaust
the possibilities, since the deed must necessarily be either done or not
done, and either knowingly or unknowingly.
The worst situation is when the personage is with full knowledge on the
point of doing the deed, and leaves it undone. It is odious and also
(through the absence of suffering) untragic; hence it is that no one is
made to act thus except in some few instances, e.g. Haemon and Creon in
_Antigone_. Next after this comes the actual perpetration of the deed
meditated. A better situation than that, however, is for the deed to
be done in ignorance, and the relationship discovered afterwards, since
there is nothing odious in it, and the Discovery will serve to astound
us. But the best of all is the last; what we have in _Cresphontes_, for
example, where Merope, on the point of slaying her son, recognizes
him in time; in _Iphigenia_, where sister and brother are in a like
position; and in _Helle_, where the son recognizes his mother, when on
the point of giving her up to her enemy.
This will explain why our tragedies are restricted (as we said just now)
to such a small number of families. It was accident rather than art that
led the poets in quest of subjects to embody this kind of incident in
their Plots. They are still obliged, accordingly, to have recourse to
the families in which such horrors have occurred.
On the construction of the Plot, and the kind of Plot required for
Tragedy, enough has now been said.
15
In the Characters there are four points to aim at. First and foremost,
that they shall be good. There will be an element of character in the
play, if (as has been observed) what a personage says or does reveals a
certain moral purpose; and a good element of character, if the
purpose so revealed is good. Such goodness is possible in every type
of personage, even in a woman or a slave, though the one is perhaps an
inferior, and the other a wholly worthless being. The second point is to
make them appropriate. The Character before us may be, say, manly; but
it is not appropriate in a female Character to be manly, or clever. The
third is to make them like the reality, which is not the same as their
being good and appropriate, in our sense of the term. The fourth is to
make them consistent and the same throughout; even if inconsistency
be part of the man before one for imitation as presenting that form
of character, he should still be consistently inconsistent. We have an
instance of baseness of character, not required for the story, in
the Menelaus in _Orestes_; of the incongruous and unbefitting in the
lamentation of Ulysses in _Scylla_, and in the (clever) speech of
Melanippe; and of inconsistency in _Iphigenia at Aulis_, where Iphigenia
the suppliant is utterly unlike the later Iphigenia. The right thing,
however, is in the Characters just as in the incidents of the play to
endeavour always after the necessary or the probable; so that whenever
such-and-such a personage says or does such-and-such a thing, it shall
be the probable or necessary outcome of his character; and whenever
this incident follows on that, it shall be either the necessary or the
probable consequence of it. From this one sees (to digress for a moment)
that the Denouement also should arise out of the plot itself, arid
not depend on a stage-artifice, as in _Medea_, or in the story of the
(arrested) departure of the Greeks in the _Iliad_. The artifice must
be reserved for matters outside the play--for past events beyond human
knowledge, or events yet to come, which require to be foretold or
announced; since it is the privilege of the Gods to know everything.
There should be nothing improbable among the actual incidents. If it
be unavoidable, however, it should be outside the tragedy, like the
improbability in the _Oedipus_ of Sophocles. But to return to the
Characters. As Tragedy is an imitation of personages better than
the ordinary man, we in our way should follow the example of good
portrait-painters, who reproduce the distinctive features of a man, and
at the same time, without losing the likeness, make him handsomer than
he is. The poet in like manner, in portraying men quick or slow to
anger, or with similar infirmities of character, must know how to
represent them as such, and at the same time as good men, as Agathon and
Homer have represented Achilles.
All these rules one must keep in mind throughout, and further, those
also for such points of stage-effect as directly depend on the art
of the poet, since in these too one may often make mistakes. Enough,
however, has been said on the subject in one of our published writings.
16
Discovery in general has been explained already. As for the species of
Discovery, the first to be noted is (1) the least artistic form of
it, of which the poets make most use through mere lack of invention,
Discovery by signs or marks. Of these signs some are congenital, like
the 'lance-head which the Earth-born have on them', or 'stars', such as
Carcinus brings in in his _Thyestes_; others acquired after birth--these
latter being either marks on the body, e.g. scars, or external tokens,
like necklaces, or to take another sort of instance, the ark in the
Discovery in _Tyro_. Even these, however, admit of two uses, a better
and a worse; the scar of Ulysses is an instance; the Discovery of
him through it is made in one way by the nurse and in another by the
swineherds. A Discovery using signs as a means of assurance is less
artistic, as indeed are all such as imply reflection; whereas one
bringing them in all of a sudden, as in the _Bath-story_, is of a better
order. Next after these are (2) Discoveries made directly by the poet;
which are inartistic for that very reason; e.g. Orestes' Discovery of
himself in _Iphigenia_: whereas his sister reveals who she is by the
letter, Orestes is made to say himself what the poet rather than
the story demands. This, therefore, is not far removed from the
first-mentioned fault, since he might have presented certain tokens
as well. Another instance is the 'shuttle's voice' in the _Tereus_ of
Sophocles. (3) A third species is Discovery through memory, from a man's
consciousness being awakened by something seen or heard. Thus in _The
Cyprioe_ of Dicaeogenes, the sight of the picture makes the man burst
into tears; and in the _Tale of Alcinous_, hearing the harper Ulysses is
reminded of the past and weeps; the Discovery of them being the
result. (4) A fourth kind is Discovery through reasoning; e.g. in _The
Choephoroe_: 'One like me is here; there is no one like me but Orestes;
he, therefore, must be here.' Or that which Polyidus the Sophist
suggested for _Iphigenia_; since it was natural for Orestes to reflect:
'My sister was sacrificed, and I am to be sacrificed like her.' Or that
in the _Tydeus_ of Theodectes: 'I came to find a son, and am to die
myself.' Or that in _The Phinidae_: on seeing the place the women
inferred their fate, that they were to die there, since they had also
been exposed there. (5) There is, too, a composite Discovery arising
from bad reasoning on the side of the other party. An instance of it is
in _Ulysses the False Messenger_: he said he should know the bow--which
he had not seen; but to suppose from that that he would know it again
(as though he had once seen it) was bad reasoning. (6) The best of all
Discoveries, however, is that arising from the incidents themselves,
when the great surprise comes about through a probable incident, like
that in the _Oedipus_ of Sophocles; and also in _Iphigenia_; for it was
not improbable that she should wish to have a letter taken home. These
last are the only Discoveries independent of the artifice of signs and
necklaces. Next after them come Discoveries through reasoning.
17
At the time when he is constructing his Plots, and engaged on the
Diction in which they are worked out, the poet should remember (1) to
put the actual scenes as far as possible before his eyes. In this way,
seeing everything with the vividness of an eye-witness as it were,
he will devise what is appropriate, and be least likely to overlook
incongruities. This is shown by what was censured in Carcinus, the
return of Amphiaraus from the sanctuary; it would have passed unnoticed,
if it had not been actually seen by the audience; but on the stage his
play failed, the incongruity of the incident offending the spectators.
(2) As far as may be, too, the poet should even act his story with the
very gestures of his personages. Given the same natural qualifications,
he who feels the emotions to be described will be the most convincing;
distress and anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one
who is feeling them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man
with special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him;
the former can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may
be actually beside himself with emotion. (3) His story, again, whether
already made or of his own making, he should first simplify and reduce
to a universal form, before proceeding to lengthen it out by the
insertion of episodes. The following will show how the universal element
in _Iphigenia_, for instance, may be viewed: A certain maiden having
been offered in sacrifice, and spirited away from her sacrificers into
another land, where the custom was to sacrifice all strangers to the
Goddess, she was made there the priestess of this rite. Long after that
the brother of the priestess happened to come; the fact, however, of the
oracle having for a certain reason bidden him go thither, and his
object in going, are outside the Plot of the play. On his coming he
was arrested, and about to be sacrificed, when he revealed who he
was--either as Euripides puts it, or (as suggested by Polyidus) by the
not improbable exclamation, 'So I too am doomed to be sacrificed, as
my sister was'; and the disclosure led to his salvation. This done, the
next thing, after the proper names have been fixed as a basis for the
story, is to work in episodes or accessory incidents. One must mind,
however, that the episodes are appropriate, like the fit of madness in
Orestes, which led to his arrest, and the purifying, which brought about
his salvation. In plays, then, the episodes are short; in epic poetry
they serve to lengthen out the poem. The argument of the _Odyssey_ is
not a long one.
A certain man has been abroad many years; Poseidon is ever on the watch
for him, and he is all alone. Matters at home too have come to this,
that his substance is being wasted and his son's death plotted by
suitors to his wife. Then he arrives there himself after his grievous
sufferings; reveals himself, and falls on his enemies; and the end is
his salvation and their death. This being all that is proper to the
_Odyssey_, everything else in it is episode.
18
(4) There is a further point to be borne in mind. Every tragedy is
in part Complication and in part Denouement; the incidents before the
opening scene, and often certain also of those within the play, forming
the Complication; and the rest the Denouement. By Complication I mean
all from the beginning of the story to the point just before the change
in the hero's fortunes; by Denouement, all from the beginning of the
change to the end. In the _Lynceus_ of Theodectes, for instance, the
Complication includes, together with the presupposed incidents, the
seizure of the child and that in turn of the parents; and the Denouement
all from the indictment for the murder to the end. Now it is right, when
one speaks of a tragedy as the same or not the same as another, to do so
on the ground before all else of their Plot, i.e. as having the same or
not the same Complication and Denouement. Yet there are many dramatists
who, after a good Complication, fail in the Denouement. But it is
necessary for both points of construction to be always duly mastered.
(5) There are four distinct species of Tragedy--that being the number
of the constituents also that have been mentioned: first, the complex
Tragedy, which is all Peripety and Discovery; second, the Tragedy
of suffering, e.g. the _Ajaxes_ and _Ixions_; third, the Tragedy of
character, e.g. _The Phthiotides_ and _Peleus_. The fourth constituent
is that of 'Spectacle', exemplified in _The Phorcides_, in _Prometheus_,
and in all plays with the scene laid in the nether world. The poet's
aim, then, should be to combine every element of interest, if possible,
or else the more important and the major part of them. This is now
especially necessary owing to the unfair criticism to which the poet is
subjected in these days. Just because there have been poets before him
strong in the several species of tragedy, the critics now expect the
one man to surpass that which was the strong point of each one of his
predecessors. (6) One should also remember what has been said more than
once, and not write a tragedy on an epic body of incident (i.e. one with
a plurality of stories in it), by attempting to dramatize, for instance,
the entire story of the _Iliad_. In the epic owing to its scale every
part is treated at proper length; with a drama, however, on the same
story the result is very disappointing. This is shown by the fact that
all who have dramatized the fall of Ilium in its entirety, and not part
by part, like Euripides, or the whole of the Niobe story, instead of a
portion, like Aeschylus, either fail utterly or have but ill success
on the stage; for that and that alone was enough to ruin a play by
Agathon. Yet in their Peripeties, as also in their simple plots, the
poets I mean show wonderful skill in aiming at the kind of effect they
desire--a tragic situation that arouses the human feeling in one, like
the clever villain (e.g. Sisyphus) deceived, or the brave wrongdoer
worsted. This is probable, however, only in Agathon's sense, when he
speaks of the probability of even improbabilities coming to pass. (7)
The Chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an
integral part of the whole, and take a share in the action--that which
it has in Sophocles rather than in Euripides. With the later poets,
however, the songs in a play of theirs have no more to do with the Plot
of that than of any other tragedy. Hence it is that they are now singing
intercalary pieces, a practice first introduced by Agathon. And yet what
real difference is there between singing such intercalary pieces, and
attempting to fit in a speech, or even a whole act, from one play into
another?
19
The Plot and Characters having been discussed, it remains to consider
the Diction and Thought. As for the Thought, we may assume what is
said of it in our Art of Rhetoric, as it belongs more properly to
that department of inquiry. The Thought of the personages is shown in
everything to be effected by their language--in every effort to prove
or disprove, to arouse emotion (pity, fear, anger, and the like), or
to maximize or minimize things. It is clear, also, that their mental
procedure must be on the same lines in their actions likewise, whenever
they wish them to arouse pity or horror, or have a look of importance or
probability. The only difference is that with the act the impression has
to be made without explanation; whereas with the spoken word it has to
be produced by the speaker, and result from his language. What, indeed,
would be the good of the speaker, if things appeared in the required
light even apart from anything he says?