Aristotle Poetics 22.3

Theodore Alois Buckley (Translator)

Table of Contents

Search the Perseus Catalog for:

View: By Chapter
← Previous Next →
and remote from the vulgar idiom, by employing unusual words. But I call unusual words, such words as are foreign, the metaphorical, the extended, and every word except the 1 proper [name of a thing]. If, however, [a poet wholly employ such words as these, it will be either an enigma, or a barbarism.

Poetics. Aristotle. Theodore Alois Buckley (Translator). London. 1857.

Current edition Experimental

The Poetic of Aristotle (Theodore Alois Buckley) (OCR draft) (English) (Theodore Alois Buckley's English translation, first published in 1850 and represented from the Henry G. Bohn 1857 printing; corrected against a second OCR and aligned to the Kassel reference passage sequence.)

Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.

Editions (4)
Περὶ ποιητικῆς (OCR draft) (Aristotle, Poetics. Immanuel Bekker, editor, Aristotelis Opera, volume 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1837.) — 22 focus
Περὶ ποιητικῆς (OCR draft) Perseus (Aristotle, De arte poetica liber. Rudolf Kassel, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965. Reference edition for passage alignment.) — 22 focus
Poetics, Greek text (Ingram Bywater, 1909) (OCR draft) Experimental (Ingram Bywater's Greek text of Aristotle's Poetics, published in 1909.) — 22 focus
Poetics, Greek text (Franz Ritter, 1839) (OCR draft) Experimental (Franz Ritter's 1839 Greek edition, corrected against OCR of the represented copy and aligned to the conventional Perseus chapter-and-subchapter sequence.) — 22 focus
Translations (13)
Poetics (W. H. Fyfe) (OCR draft) Perseus (William Hamilton Fyfe's English translation of Aristotle's Poetics, Loeb Classical Library, 1939 printing.) — 22 focus
Arabic Poetics (Badawī edition, 1953) (OCR draft) (The ancient Arabic translation of Aristotle's Poetics in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī's 1953 edition.) — 22 focus
Poetics (S. H. Butcher, 1911) (OCR draft) Experimental (S. H. Butcher's English translation from Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, fourth edition, 1911.) — 22 focus
Aristotle on the Art of Poetry (Ingram Bywater, 1909) (OCR draft) Experimental (Ingram Bywater's English translation of Aristotle's Poetics, published in 1909.) — 22 focus
Poetics (Thomas Twining, 1789) (OCR draft) Experimental (Thomas Twining's English translation of Aristotle's Poetics, published in 1789 and aligned to the Kassel reference passage sequence.) — 22.3 focus
That language, on the contrary, is elevated, and remote from the vulgar idiom, which employs unusual words: by unusual, I mean, foreign, metaphorical, extended-all, in short, that are not common words.
The Poetic of Aristotle (Henry James Pye, revised 1792) (OCR draft) Experimental (Henry James Pye's revised 1792 English translation, corrected against the 1788 first edition, aligned to the Kassel reference edition, and supplied with a selective apparatus of substantive 1788 readings.) — 22.3 focus
and be further removed from the vulgar idiom, by the use of uncommon words; by uncommon words I mean the foreign, the metaphorical, the lengthened and all except those in common use.
Poetica Latine conversa (Franciscus Ritter, 1839) (OCR draft) Experimental (Franz Ritter's Latin translation, corrected against OCR of the represented copy and aligned to the conventional Perseus chapter-and-subchapter sequence.) — 22 focus
La poëtique d'Aristote (André Dacier, 1692) (OCR draft) Experimental (André Dacier's French translation of Aristotle's Poetics, published in 1692.) — 22.3 focus
L'expreſſion noble, & qui s'éloigne des façons de parler populaires, eſt celle qui employe des mots empruntez. J'appelle mots empruntez, les mots des Langues étrangeres, les metaphores, les mots allongez, enfin tout ce qui n'eſt pas mot propre.
Poetica d'Aristotile (Bernardo Segni, 1549) (OCR draft) Experimental (Bernardo Segni's 1549 Florentine Italian translation, aligned to the Kassel reference passage sequence.) — 22 focus
De poetica (Antonio Riccobono, 1587) (OCR draft) Experimental (Antonio Riccobono's Latin translation, first published in 1587; text represented from Immanuel Bekker's 1831 edition.) — 22 focus
De arte poetica liber (William of Moerbeke, ca. 1277) (OCR draft) Experimental (William of Moerbeke's medieval Latin translation, represented by the 1953 Aristoteles Latinus edition.) — 22 focus
Arabic Poetics (Abū Bishr Mattā; Tkatsch edition) (OCR draft) Experimental (The Arabic translation attributed to Abū Bishr Mattā, edited by Jaroslaus Tkatsch in 1928 and aligned to the Kassel reference passage sequence.) — 22 focus
Arabic Poetics (Abū Bishr Mattā; Tkatsch edition, unaligned) (OCR draft) Experimental (Tkatsch's edition of the medieval Arabic translation in its original, unaligned segmentation.) — 22 focus

Notes on the current edition

Poetics

1. 2. Results and effects of the different kinds of words.

Commentary

Commentary on the Poetics (Ingram Bywater, 1909) (OCR draft) (Ingram Bywater's English commentary on Aristotle's Poetics.) focus

3. mvp-aristotle-comment-803

ἐξαλλάττουσα τὸ ἰδιωτικὸν: Rhet. 3. 3, 1406 a 15
ἐξαλλάττει γὰρ τὸ εἰωθός [scil. τὰ ἐπίθετα], καὶ ξενικὴν ποιεῖ τὴν λέξιν
. It will be observed that Aristotle is now using ἐξαλλάττειν in a large sense, to denote all possible deviations from the ordinary forms of expression ( πᾶν τὸ παρὰ τὸ κύριον, a 23 ), instead of restricting it to the kind of deviation presented in the ἐξηλλαγμένον ὄνομα ( 21, 1458 a 6 ). τὸ ἰδιωτικόν = τὸ εἰωθός or τὸ κύριον; but the point of view is not quite the same. τὸ ἰδιωτικόν is the language of the ordinary man, the prosaic as opposed to the poetic mode of expression; the antithesis of ἰδιώτης and ποιητής is already in Plato ( Phaedr. 258 D , Symp. 178 B , Laws 890 A ). Isocrates 203 D has ἰδιωτικὰ ὀνόματα, but in a different sense.

3. mvp-aristotle-comment-804

22 ξενικοῖς. In Plato (e. g. in Crat. 401 B, 417 C ) a ξενικὸν ὄνομα is a non-Attic word or form, what Aristotle calls a γλώττα (see on 21, 1457 b 4 ); Isocrates 190 D (quoted above on 21, 1457 b 1 ) uses ξένα ὀνόματα in the same sense. Aristotle's ξενικὰ ὀνόματα, however, is a wider term; it comprises all the various deviations from the usual form of expression ( πᾶν τὸ παρὰ τὸ κύριον a 23 )—the μεταφορά, the ἐπεκτεταμένον ὄνομα, etc., as well as the γλώττα. In the Rhetoric also τὸ ξενικόν is the general opposite of τὸ εἰωθός : Rhet. 3. 3, 1406 a 15
ἐξαλλάττει τὸ εἰωθός, καὶ ξενικὴν ποιεῖ τὴν λέξιν
.— 3. 12, 1414 a 26
τὸ εἰωθὸς καὶ ξενικόν
. The attraction such unfamiliar words have for us is explained in Rhet. 3. 2, 1404 b 8 :
τὸ ἐξαλλάξαι ποιεῖ φαίνεσθαι σεμνοτέραν [scil. τὴν λέξιν]· ὥσπερ γὰρ πρὸς τοὺς ξένους οἱ ἄνθρωποι καὶ πρὸς τοὺς πολίτας, τὸ αὐτὸ πάσχουσι καὶ πρὸς τὴν λέξιν. διὸ δεῖ ποιεῖν ξένην τὴν διάλεκτον· θαυμασταὶ γὰρ τῶν ἀπόντων εἰσίν, ἡδὺ δὲ τὸ θαυμαστόν
.
24

Commentarius in Aristotelis Poeticam (Franciscus Ritter, 1839) (OCR draft) (Ritter's Latin commentary, extracted from the 1839 volume, divided by Ritter's chapters and sections, and linked to the corresponding Perseus reference subsections.) focus

1. mvp-aristotle-comment-159

Ritter, cap. 22 § 1

Poeticae dictionis virtus et vitium. Quae hoc capite breviter quidem sed peracute docteque de vitiis et virtutibus poeticae dictionis explicata legimus, ea respexit Aristoleles in Rhetoricis III, 1 extr. et 2 init. his verbis: περὶ δ' ἐκείνης (de dictione poetica) εἴρηται ἐν τοῖς περὶ ποιητικῆς. ἔστω οὖν ἐκεῖνα τεθεωρημένα, καὶ ὡρίσθω λέξεως ἀρετὴ σαφῆ εἶναι. quibus locis omnem de hac disputatione dubitationem amoveri liquet. σαφεστάτη μὲν οὖν ἐστὶν ἡ ἐκ τῶν κυρίων ὀνομάτων: per ὀνόματα hic tam ὀνόματa quae proprie dicuntur quam ῥήματα complectitur, et idem constanter facit per caput hoc 22 et antecedens 21, quod ipsum signum est haec non esse illius qui c. 20 intertexuit. eadem quae22. §. 1. 237 hic sententia profertur Rhetor. III, 2 sub initium: τῶν δ᾽ ὀνομάτων καὶ ῥημάτων σαφῆ μὲν ποιεῖ τὰ κύρια. pro exemplo humilis dictionis Cleophontis poesis et Stheneli affertur. de Chleophonte dictum ad c. 2, 3. Sthenelus tragicus erat temporibus Aristophanis, abs quo irrisus est in Gerytade, ut ex Athenaeo (collato scholiasta ad Aristoph. Vesp. 1303) IX. p. 367 B discimus, in hunc modum: καὶ πῶς ἐγὼ Σθενέλου φάγοιμ᾽ ἂν ῥήματα; εἰς ὅξος ἐμβαπτόμενος ἢ λεπτοὺς ἅλας. alterum versum etiam Pollux VI, 65. laudavit. cf. Harpocratio s. v. Σθένελος. Athenaeus unum Stheneli fragmentum servavit X. p. 428 Α, Σθένελός τε ὁ ποιητὴς οὐ κακῶς εἴρηκεν οἶνος καὶ φρονέοντας ἐς ἀφροσύνας ἀναβάλλει. σεμνὴ δὲ καὶ ἐξαλλάττουσα τὸ ἰδιωτικὸν ἡ τοῖς ξενικοῖς κεχρημένη: quidquid contrarium est τῷ κυρίῳ, una voce τοῦ ξενικοῦ significavit. causam cur peregrinis admixtis splendida dictio fiat exposuit in Rhetoricis III, 2 sub initium.