Poetry in general seems to have sprung from two causes, each of them
lying deep in our nature. First, 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; and no less universal is the
pleasure felt in things imitated. We have evidence of this in the facts
of experience. Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight
to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms
of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. The cause of this again
is, that to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers
but to men in general; whose capacity, however, of learning is more
limited. Thus the reason why men enjoy seeing a likeness is, that in
contemplating it they find themselves learning or inferring, and saying
perhaps, 'Ah, that is he.' For if you happen not to have seen the
original, the pleasure will be due not to the imitation as such, but to
the execution, the colouring, or some such other cause.
Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the
instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, metres being manifestly sections of
rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed
by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave
birth to Poetry.
Poetry now diverged in two directions, according to the individual
character of the writers. The graver spirits imitated noble actions, and
the actions of good men. The more trivial sort imitated the actions of
meaner persons, at first composing satires, as the former did hymns to
the gods and the praises of famous men. A poem of the satirical kind
cannot indeed be put down to any author earlier than Homer; though many
such writers probably there were. But from Homer onward, instances
can be cited,--his own Margites, for example, and other similar
compositions. The appropriate metre was also here introduced; hence the
measure is still called the iambic or lampooning measure, being that
in which people lampooned one another. Thus the older poets were
distinguished as writers of heroic or of lampooning verse.
As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets, for he alone
combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation, so he too first
laid down the main lines of Comedy, by dramatising the ludicrous instead
of writing personal satire. His Margites bears the same relation to
Comedy that the Iliad and Odyssey do to Tragedy. But when Tragedy and
Comedy came to light, the two classes of poets still followed their
natural bent: the lampooners became writers of Comedy, and the Epic
poets were succeeded by Tragedians, since the drama was a larger and
higher form of art.
Whether Tragedy has as yet perfected its proper types or not; and
whether it is to be judged in itself, or in relation also to the
audience,--this raises another question. Be that as it may, Tragedy--as
also Comedy--was at first mere improvisation. The one originated with
the authors of the Dithyramb, the other with those of the phallic songs,
which are still in use in many of our cities. Tragedy advanced by slow
degrees; each new element that showed itself was in turn developed.
Having passed through many changes, it found its natural form, and there
it stopped.
Aeschylus first introduced a second actor; he diminished the importance
of the Chorus, and assigned the leading part to the dialogue. Sophocles
raised the number of actors to three, and added scene-painting.
Moreover, it was not till late that the short plot was discarded for
one of greater compass, and the grotesque diction of the earlier satyric
form for the stately manner of Tragedy. The iambic measure then replaced
the trochaic tetrameter, which was originally employed when the poetry
was of the Satyric order, and had greater affinities with dancing. Once
dialogue had come in, Nature herself discovered the appropriate measure.
For the iambic is, of all measures, the most colloquial: we see it
in the fact that conversational speech runs into iambic lines more
frequently than into any other kind of verse; rarely into hexameters,
and only when we drop the colloquial intonation. The additions to
the number of 'episodes' or acts, and the other accessories of which
tradition; tells, must be taken as already described; for to discuss
them in detail would, doubtless, be a large undertaking.
V
Comedy is, as we have said, an imitation of characters of a lower type,
not, however, in the full sense of the word bad, the Ludicrous being
merely a subdivision of the ugly. It consists in some defect or ugliness
which is not painful or destructive. To take an obvious example, the
comic mask is ugly and distorted, but does not imply pain.
The successive changes through which Tragedy passed, and the authors
of these changes, are well known, whereas Comedy has had no history,
because it was not at first treated seriously. It was late before the
Archon granted a comic chorus to a poet; the performers were till then
voluntary. Comedy had already taken definite shape when comic poets,
distinctively so called, are heard of. Who furnished it with masks, or
prologues, or increased the number of actors,--these and other similar
details remain unknown. As for the plot, it came originally from
Sicily; but of Athenian writers Crates was the first who, abandoning the
'iambic' or lampooning form, generalised his themes and plots.
Epic poetry agrees with Tragedy in so far as it is an imitation in verse
of characters of a higher type. They differ, in that Epic poetry admits
but one kind of metre, and is narrative in form. They differ, again,
in their length: for Tragedy endeavours, as far as possible, to confine
itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but slightly to exceed this
limit; whereas the Epic action has no limits of time. This, then, is
a second point of difference; though at first the same freedom was
admitted in Tragedy as in Epic poetry.
Of their constituent parts some are common to both, some peculiar to
Tragedy, whoever, therefore, knows what is good or bad Tragedy, knows
also about Epic poetry. All the elements of an Epic poem are found in
Tragedy, but the elements of a Tragedy are not all found in the Epic
poem.