I
I propose to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting
the essential quality of each; to inquire into the structure of the plot
as requisite to a good poem; into the number and nature of the parts of
which a poem is composed; and similarly into whatever else falls within
the same inquiry. Following, then, the order of nature, let us begin
with the principles which come first.
Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic: poetry, and the
music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in
their general conception modes of imitation. They differ, however, from
one: another in three respects,--the medium, the objects, the manner or
mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.
For as there are persons who, by conscious art or mere habit, imitate
and represent various objects through the medium of colour and form, or
again by the voice; so in the arts above mentioned, taken as a whole,
the imitation is produced by rhythm, language, or 'harmony,' either
singly or combined.
Thus in the music of the flute and of the lyre, 'harmony' and rhythm
alone are employed; also in other arts, such as that of the shepherd's
pipe, which are essentially similar to these. In dancing, rhythm alone
is used without 'harmony'; for even dancing imitates character, emotion,
and action, by rhythmical movement.
There is another art which imitates by means of language alone, and
that either in prose or verse--which, verse, again, may either combine
different metres or consist of but one kind--but this has hitherto been
without a name. For there is no common term we could apply to the mimes
of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogues on the one hand;
and, on the other, to poetic imitations in iambic, elegiac, or any
similar metre. People do, indeed, add the word 'maker' or 'poet' to
the name of the metre, and speak of elegiac poets, or epic (that is,
hexameter) poets, as if it were not the imitation that makes the poet,
but the verse that entitles them all indiscriminately to the name. Even
when a treatise on medicine or natural science is brought out in verse,
the name of poet is by custom given to the author; and yet Homer and
Empedocles have nothing in common but the metre, so that it would be
right to call the one poet, the other physicist rather than poet. On the
same principle, even if a writer in his poetic imitation were to combine
all metres, as Chaeremon did in his Centaur, which is a medley composed
of metres of all kinds, we should bring him too under the general term
poet. So much then for these distinctions.
There are, again, some arts which employ all the means above mentioned,
namely, rhythm, tune, and metre. Such are Dithyrambic and Nomic poetry,
and also Tragedy and Comedy; but between them the difference is, that in
the first two cases these means are all employed in combination, in the
latter, now one means is employed, now another.
Such, then, are the differences of the arts with respect to the medium
of imitation.