26.5.
mvp-aristotle-comment-130
26.12
IF TRAGEDY THEN EXCELS IN ALL THESE CIRCUMSTANCES, AS WELL AS IN THE EFFECT WHICH IT IS THE PECULIAR END OF THE POETIC ART TO ATTAIN-IT WILL CERTAINLY BE MORE EXCELLENT THAN THE EPOPEE FROM ATTAINING THE END OF THE ART ITSELF MORE EFFECTUALLY.
VOLTAIRE, who is never so happy as when he can with any plausibility of argument oppose any opinion that is generally received by 4 A the
A COMMENTARY ON THE CHAP. XXVI. ، ، the literary world, and especially if it has the sanction of antiquity, has chofen to attack the position laid down here by Aristotle, that the attaining a proposed end effectually, is any fource of beauty or excellence. " “
“ He says, • I was present one day with a philosopher at the performance of a tragedy. "How fine this is!" said he. I replied, " What strikes you as being so fine?" He answered, The author has attained his end." The next day he took phyfic, which did him good. Well," faid I, "it has attained its end. What a beautiful “ dose of phyfic!" He found from this that we could not call a dose of physic beautiful, and that to give the name of beautiful to a thing, it is necessary that it should excite admiration and pleasure. He agreed that the tragedy had infpired him with both those sensations, and that in this confifted τὸ καλὸν, THE BEAUTIFUL. “Ο • We took a voyage to England. We there saw the same piece performed, perfectly translated. It fet all the spectators a yawning. ho," said he, “ I see the τὸ καλὸν is not the same for the English as for the French." After many reflections, he concluded that THE BEAUTIFUL is sometimes very relative, as what is decent at Japan may be indecent at Rome, and what is fashionable at Paris may be un-- fashionable at Pekin. And he saved himself the trouble of writing a long treatise on THE BEAUTIFUL. QUESTIONS SUR L'ENCYCLO- PEDIE, Art. BEAU.. Voltaire then proceeds, that actions and sentiments in themselves apparently virtuous, will meet with universal approbation, but that the beautiful and the excellent, in matters of taste, are merely arbitrary, depending entirely on local manners, habits, and prejudices. Le
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Le Pere Brumoy has examined this subject in the preface to his Théatre des Grecs, where this reasoning of Voltaire may be fairly faid to be answered, and in great measure confuted, though the publication of Brumoy's work was anterior in point of time to this of Voltaire. As the passage of Brumoy is drawn to some length, I shall just state the heads of it, leaving those who wish to fee the whole of the argument to recur to the work itself. He first defines truth and beauty, as far as regards works of genius, like tragedy, to be such an imitation of nature, as shall affect the minds of a polished people so that they may from their natural feelings say of it, This is confonant with truth; this is fine.' He says a polished people, because in fact education varies the interest and objects of the passions. And in this he is certainly right, though Mr. Voltaire chuses to say an action really and eminently virtuous will equally be applauded by a Savage, a Frenchman, and a Chinese. Of the feelings of the first and last I can fay nothing. As to the second, I confefs I entertain no very high opinion of their taste for the fimple and natural truth and beauty of compofition, though I do not say with Voltaire that they are a nation of monkeys and tigers [T]. But if I take the educated and uneducated of my own country, (and the distinction is necessary in all countries, for no man who can read a tragedy will keep sheep upon Salisbury plain,) the first will sympathize with scenes that paint to him events of real exquisite distress, of which the other, however good and honest he may be in his fituation of life, [T] Ne pourrais je sortir au plus vite de ce pays, ou les finges, agacent les tigres.' 4 A 2 CANDIDE, Chap. xxII. can
can no more form an idea, than a critic whose opinions are sophisticated. by false notions of refinement can form of the truth, the beauty, and the fimplicity of natural pictures, of human actions and paffions, unadorned by meretricious ornament. But to return to Brumoy. He exemplifies the difference between natural and local feelings, by an analysis of the tragedy of Alceftes. ، If Euripides,' he says, ' has drawn in that work a true picture of * human nature; if he awakens our sensibility for the tenderness of a • woman, who voluntarily facrifices her own life to prolong that of her ' husband; if my senses are deluded by the most studied exertion of art, • without that art being apparent; if he offers to my view an action at • the same time simple, connected, and probable; if he leads me insen- • sibly, by the clue of my feelings, through a maze of passion, that • continues gradually increasing till the impression is perfect, and I en- ، ، ، tirely deliver up my sensations to the illusion of the scene, I become myfelf an Athenian; I cannot refrain, in spite of a few defects in the piece, which strike me as well as the rest of the spectators, from joining my own applause to those of Greece, since being a man like • the Greeks, I must be necessarily affected by the same truths, and the • same beauties, which have made so lively an impression on them.' ، He then adds, ' If without confidering the general beauties in the piece, which must affect us as men, we look only to the parts which are contrary to our habits and manners as Frenchmen, we may in- • deed exclaim, What can be the propriety of this god, who is the flave • of a man; this infernal deity who seizes his prize; this law autho- • rized by Apollo, that the old should die for the young, the father for • the fon? What, shall a son lose his respect for a father, because he ' refuses
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. • refuses to submit to such a law [u]? What shall we say of Hercules getting drunk while the funeral rites of Alcestes are performing? Is • there any sense in the combat between Hercules and Death, and his • recovering Alcestes from him, and her continuing dumb for three days ' afterwards? All this will, undoubtedly, appear ridiculous and abfurd. But what would Euripides say, were he to be present at the reprefen- • tation of Racine's Iphigenia. He would be charmed with the copy • of what Greece had admired in the original. But what would he • have faid of the episode of Eriphyle; of the French gallantry of • Achilles; of the threatened duel; of the tête-a-tête between a prince • and princess; and Clytemnestra falling at the feet of Achilles?' He concludes the argument by saying, 'that we have no more real reason to be shocked at the painting of Grecian manners as they were, however strange they may feem to us, than succeeding times will have to ⚫ think our customs extravagant, because they may become obsolete. • The decision of justice, by the fword, was once as prevalent in Europe ، as the decifion of honor. Why may they not in succeeding times be confidered as equally absurd?' In all probability the passages in the French writers, which occur so frequently in deification of monarchy, will be as disgusting to a French audience as the extraordinary effusions of a blind loyalty, expressed in the Maid's Tragedy, the Loyal Subject, and Valentinian of Beaumont and Fletcher are now to an English one. To the honor of Shakespear and his royal patroness, few fuch degrading fentiments occur in his works. He makes a virtuous prince hefitate even to extend mercy to one he thinks an object of it, [u] The scene alluded to here certainly can never fall under the circumstance of local impropriety only. The perusal of it must equally shock the feelings of all mankind, whatever their country or education. It is a gross and radical defect, in a tragedy which on the whole I prefer to every other production of the Greek drama. Because
• Because it is against his laws, Against his crown, his oath, his dignity, 'Which princes, would they, may not difannul.' COMEDY OF ERRORS. ، I As le Pere Brumoy has not chosen to give the decifion of Euripides as to Iphigenia of Racine, I will take the liberty of doing it for him. confefs,' we may suppose him to say, that fome of your customs and manners seem strange to me, as I have no doubt some of ours do to you : and had you laid the scene at Paris, as I did in Greece, adopting ، ، the radical manners of the persons and the essential parts of the fable, • but changing the names and local customs, as an English poet did in ، regard to my Alcestes [u], I could have found no fault; but as you have ⚫ chosen to keep the same story and names, you ought to have given the piece also Greek manners. The customs of Greece are too well known ⚫ in modern Europe, and especially in a neighbouring island, a formidable • rival to you in arts as well as in arms, not to make this conduct in ge- • neral ridiculous, though your extreme partiality for your own manners ، may blind you to it [x]. You have broken one of the rules of Ari- • stotle, to which you affect to pay so much deference, and which deserve • it when they are, as in this instance, drawn from truth and nature, exemplified in the works of the best poets. You have committed an T [U] Thomson's Edward and Eleonora. [x] Those who will be more inclined to believe the character of his countrymen given by a Frenchman, as to this particular, than by Euripedes, may turn to the eleventh letter of M. Guy's VOYAGE LITTERAIRE DE LA GRECE. Speaking of Tournefort's attempt to teach a Greek, chief interpreter to the Sultan, the true pronunciation of his own language, he fays, • I here see a Frenchman, who would give the TON to a stranger in every thing.' ' effential
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. • essential error in point of manners; you have not made them [v] like; 'you might with as much propriety have dressed Achilles like a captain ' of grenadiers, and armed his Myrmidons with firelocks.' To return to the position of Voltaire, that the fitness of a thing to fulfil its end effectually has no influence on its beauty; I shall oppose to it an opinion from the writings of a man, which perhaps may have as much weight with some of my readers as those of the philosopher of Ferney, though they may not be in general quite so popular at present. Cicero, in his third book de Oratore, fays, [z] ' In most things it is wonderfully contrived by nature, that those objects which are of the ، greatest utility, should possess also, not only the greatesst dignity but often • also the greatest beauty and elegance.' And again speaking of art [A], • What are so necessary in navigation as the fides of the vessel, the keel, • the prow, the stern, the yards, the fails, the masts, &c.? And yet all . these have fo much beauty and elegance in their form, that they seem. as much invented for pleasure as for utility.' To leave authority let us confult our own observation. What is it that pleases us in the Farnese Hercules, or the Apollo Belvidere, but the appearance of strength in the one, and dignity of expreffion with symmetry I [Υ] Τὸ ὅμοιον. Famam fequere.' See Chap. xv. [z] In plerifque rebus incredibiliter hoc natura est ipfa fabricata-ut ea quæ maximum • utilitatem in se continerent, eadem haberent plurimum vel dignitatis vel fæpe etiam venuf-
of forın indicating activity in the other? The same may be applied to animals. When we admire the hunter, the charger, and the racehorse, the greyhound and the mastiff, do we not confider their fitness to excel in the several exercises to which they are appropriated, as the principal fource of their beauty? When we speak of a fine regiment do we consider the rapidity yet regularity of its movement, the steadiness of its position, the closeness of the fire, and the exactness of the aim as beautiful only in themselves, or do we not take into our ideas at the fame time their use, and confider them as carrying destruction and terror into the ranks of the enemies of their country? Perhaps this is no where more evident than in the judgement we pass on female beauty. It has been already flightly alluded [B] to. It is a delicate fubject to investigate; and I shall rather chuse to rest my argument again in great measure on authority, than entirely hazard my own opinion. The elegant author of the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful [c] has partly adopted the same notion with Voltaire. He says our notion • of fitness has nothing to do with beauty. But I think, on examining what he says of female beauty, it will be found that fitness has more connection with our conceptions of it, even on Mr. Burke's own principles, than he chuses to allow. • If beauty (he says) in our own species was annexed to use, men would be much more lovely than ، [B] Note II. Chap. VII. [C] THE BEAUTIFUL, LE BEAU, τὸ καλὸν, taken in the general sense in which the exprefsion is usually employed in speaking of poetry and the other congenial arts, comprehends both the SUBLIME and BEAUTIFUL, as diftinguished by Mr. Burke. women;
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. women; and strength and agility would be confidered as the only • beauties. ESSAY ON THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL, Part III. Sect. IV. I do not think the author has exactly confidered the different lights in which we see male and female beauty; if he had, perhaps he would not have been so decided in this opinion. I conceive a young officer sees his company and his mistress exactly as to beauty according to their fitness, as far as he is concerned with it. Strength, activity, and height are the chief beauties that he admires in the men whom he is to lead on to danger, and on whose exertions he must depend for fafety, honor and victory: delicacy, softness, in a word, beauty, as applied by way of eminence to perfection in the female form, in the woman who is the object of that passion which is stronger and dearer than safety, honor, or victory. Mr. Burke proceeds. * I appeal to the first and most natural feelings * of mankind, whether on beholding a beautiful eye, or a well-fashioned * mouth, or a well-turned leg, any ideas of their being well fitted for • seeing, eating, or running ever present themselves. Certainly no. But if I have not sufficiently explained myself in the observation immediately preceding this quotation, Dryden shall do it for me. Celadon in the Maiden Queen, after kissing a lady, says, ' Ay, marry! this was the • original use of lips; talking, eating, and drinking came in by the bye.' Mr. Burke says again, Part III. Sect. xv. * Observe that part of a • beautiful woman where perhaps she is most beautiful, about her neck • and breasts: the smoothness, the softness, the easy and insensible swell, ⚫ the variety of the surface which is never for the smallest space the fame, • the deceitful maze through which the unsteady eye flides giddily with- • out knowing where to fix, or whither it is carried!' 4 B This
This is warm painting, and speaks to the feelings, I believe, both of reader and writer. But Ovid I think has clearly shewn its end by this verse, Forma papillarum quam fuit apta premi.' If the beauty of this enchanting object depended on the circumstances of its form only, as described in the glowing colors of the writer, independent of any other sensation, it would in every cafe be equally pleasing. But I conceive it will be sufficiently obvious to every man who will ask himself the question, that this form lovely and enchanting as it is where nature has placed it, would have no fuch extraordinary and self-evident beauty as the critic has ascribed to it, in any other situation. ، ، The subject is refumed in Part 111. Sect. xvI. • The beauty of women is [D] confiderably owing to their weakness and delicacy, and is ever enhanced by their timidity, a quality of mind analogous to it. I ⚫ would not here be understood, that weakness betraying very bad health ⚫ has any share in beauty; but the ill effect of this is not because it is ، weakness, but because the ill state of health which produces such weakness alters the other conditions of beauty. The parts in such a state collapse, the bright color, the lumen purpureum juventæ, is gone, and • the fine variation is lost in wrinkles, fudden breaks, and right lines.' I think if Mr. Burke had not been led away by hypothesis he would not have ended his argument by that figure which is now called a trueism. If ill health produces the consequences of old age, the effects will be the fame on the beauty of a female form. But I contend, that without [D] See Note 11. Chap. VII. this
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. this effect languor produced by sickness will destroy female beauty. [E] Delicacy, foftness, effeminacy, are great and effential beauties in a woman, both in her form and manners; even languor has its enchantments: but the instant we know, or fancy even, that these proceed from ill health, the charm is broken; the perfon may be an object of our pity, our esteem, or even our love, taken in its cooler sense, but ceases to be the object of our paffion. Shenstone justly observes, ‘Health is beauty, * and the most perfect health the most perfect beauty. A florid look to appear beautiful must be the bloom of health and not the glow of a • fever.' Whence arises it, that the fame appearance should be either beautiful or disgusting according to the causes from which it arises? The answer I think compleatly establishes, in this case at least, the position of Aristotle. For fickness must always be attended with circumstances very unfavourable to the ideas of a lover. The ladies are sometimes apt to
[E] Voici une consequence de la constitution des sexes; c'est que le plus fort soit le maitre 'en apparence, et dépende en effet du plus foible, et cela, non par un frivole usage de galan- ' terie, ni par une orgueilleuse générofité, de protecteur, mais par une invariable loi de la nature qui donnant a la femme plus de facilité d'exciter les desirs qu'à l'homme de les satisfaire, fait dependre celui ci malgré qu'il en ait, du bon plaifir de l'autre, et le contraint de chercher ' a fon tour a lui plaire, pour obtenir qu'elle consente a le laisser être le plus fort. Alors ce < qu'il y a de plus doux pour l'homme dans sa victoire, est de douter si c'est la foiblesse qui • cede á la force, ou si c'est la volonté qui se rende; et la ruse ordinaire de la femme est de • laiffer toujours ce doute entre elle et lui. L'esprit des femmes réponde en ceci parfaitement < a leur constitution: loin de rougir de leur foiblesse, elles en font gloire; leurs tendres muscles ' sont sans resistance; elles affectent de ne pouvoir foulever les plus legers fardeaux; elles au- ' roient honte d'étre fortes; pourquoi cela? ce n'est pas seulement pour paroitre délicates, • c'est par une precaution plus adroite; elles se ménagent de loin des excuses, et le droit d'étre ' foibles au besoin.' EMILE, Tome II. Partie II. 4 B2 mistake
mistake this in regard to themselves, but I believe it never escapes their observation with respect to our sex [F]. After all, there is something so problematical in this subject, and fo many circumstances occur that militate against the hypothefis I have advanced, that I by no means hazard what I have faid as a decided opinion. That all utility is not beauty will be obvious from many circumstances. That sometimes even it is in direct opposition to it is equally obvious. There is perhaps no prospect so displeasing as that of a newly enclosed country, especially if enclosed by stone walls, which are particularly calculated to answer their purpose. Every man of taste will exclaim with the poet, • What joy the country's native form to fee, • From ploughs, and aught of human culture free [G]." Enclosures have their beauties, but it is when the scene of cultivation is concealed by the luxuriant foliage of the irregular hedges, and the trees whose shade injures the growth of the fences, but gives to the whole country an appearance of forest. I a [F] We must however here take into our account the disgust we receive from weakness and delicacy in men from whatever cause it arises; but this is because, like rough manners in a woman, they are out of character. Effeminacy in the form of a man can only be fully obviated by behaviour perfectly manly, and a profession of danger and fatigue, the merit of which may then even be heightened by the contrast. We view with particular complacency the conduct of a youth, who, When he might act the woman in the scene, - Has proved best man i' the field.' [G]
، Juvat arva videre CORIOLANUS.. 'Non raftris, hominum non ulli obnoxia curæ. VIRGIL. The intended alteration of New Forest may add to its utility, but it certainly will be at the expence of its beauty. In
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. In this concluding passage Aristotle fairly avows that predilection for tragedy, which he partly opened very early in this treatise [H], and which he has been gradually preparing us for, throughout the whole course of the work. Nevertheless, the decided superiority over the epopee which Aristotle has here given to tragedy, has not been confirmed by the general fuffrage of mankind. But then it must be allowed, they have not judged it on the same principles. General criticism has pronounced (and I think very justly) that a good epopee is the highest effort of human genius. It is certain that an epic poem affords room for the exertion of every power of the mind; and, as Johnson observes in his life of Milton, 'The first praise ، • of genius is due to the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assemblage of all the powers which are fingly sufficient for other composition.' To account for Aristotle's decision, I imagine he confidered the comparative merit of the epopee in a different light; that, I mean, of its ability to attain effectually its purposed end. What this end is, has no where been mentioned. Mr. Twining supposes it to be the production of admiration by a grandeur of design, and variety of important • incidents sustained by all the energy and minute particularity of description' (note 277). I readily agree that these are the means of adorning the parts which, taken together, conduce to the end, and which may be compared with the mufic and the [1] scenery of tragedy. But [H] See the conclufion of the fifth chapter. on [1] Fielding puts this analogy into the mouth of Parfon Adams. • I shall mention but one ⚫ thing more which that great critic (Ariftotle, Ch. vI.) in his division of tragedy, called the ' opfis
on examining the words of Aristotle, we can I think by no means consider them in his idea, as being the end of the epopee in the fame manner that the exciting pity and terror is the end of tragedy (K). If the end to be attained by each poem were to be distinct, how could we possibly judge of their comparative merit, unless he had shewn us particularly what was the distinct end of the epopee? In which cafe their excellence must have been determined by one of these circumstances. Either the epopee must have been shewn not to have powers so adequate to execute its own peculiar design, as those of tragedy were to excite pity and terror: or else fome reason must be given, why the end of one was in itself superior to the other. But the argument all along rests on the deficiency of the means; and this deficiency of the means is expreffly said to arife from the epopee not being so compressed as tragedy; on which account tragedy becomes more interesting [L] than if it were extended through a longer space of time. This manifeftly proves a great similarity, if not an absolute identity in the end of both. And if grandeur of design, variety of incidents, and minuteness of description were confidered as the destined object of the epopee, there could have been no opposition between their • opfis or scenery, and which is as proper to the epic as to the drama with this difference, that in • the former it falls to the share of the poet, and in the latter to that of the painter.' JOSEPH ANDREWS, Book 111. Chap. II. In the same speech he says, 'neither Aristotle nor Horace ' give it (the Iliad) any preference, as I remember, to the Odyssey.' See Note 1. on Chap. XXIV. [K] Ariftotle expressly says in the beginning of the twenty-fourth chapter, that except the music and scenery, the parts of the epopee and tragedy are the fame; and that they both should possess peripetía, discovery and pathos: now it is obvious that pity and terror, the production of which is declared to be the design and end of tragedy, must be derived from these three circumstances. [L] ἥδιον. See Note III. Chap. xix. merits
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. merits in this case, since dilation would be as absolutely and indispenfibly necessary to produce the pleasure which [M] ought to rise from one species of imitation, as compreffion would to that of the other. I think the last paragraph of what may be called the work itself, establishes, almost beyond a doubt, that Aristotle confidered the end of both kinds of compofition as the fame. This I will quote in the words of Mr. Twining's tranflation, as it not only gives a stronger support to this opinion than mine, but must be entirely free from any supposed bias towards an hypothesis which he himself oppofes. • If then tragedy be superior to the epic in all these respects, and also ⚫ in the peculiar end at which it aims [N] (for each species ought to af- • ford, not any kind of pleasure indiscriminately, but fuch only as has • been pointed out) it evidently follows, that tragedy, as it attains more • effectually the end of the art itself, must deserve the preference.' As we are referred here to what has been before pointed out, what can this be, except that mentioned in Mr. Twining's note ? or how can it EVIDENTLY FOLLOW, that tragedy deserves the preference from attaining the end of the [0] ART ITSELF more effectually, if Aristotle has not [Μ] Δεῖ γὰρ ἐ τὴν τυχᾶσαν ἡδονὴν ποιεῖν αὐτὰς, ἀλλὰ τὴν ἐιρημενὴν. [N] That is, 'according to Aristotle's principles, to give "THAT PLEASURE WHICH ARISES " FROM PITY AND TERROR THROUGH IMITATION." ' See p. 90. (Ch. xIv, of the original ، and my tranflation). This is MR. TWINING'S NOTE. [o] Either of the poetic art in general, or of tragedy alone, Mr. Twining I imagine understands it here in the last senfe.
informed us of what he esteems to be the peculiar end of the epic imitation? This ultimate decision of Aristotle in favor of tragedy, does not however fatisfy Metastasio, who certainly ranks very high among the dramatic writers of the present age. He says, 'I do not know why Ari- < ، stotle has been here filent on the greatest merit of the tragic poet: I mean that of fulfilling while he is writing, the indispensible duty of • divesting himself entirely of his own ideas, and never speaking from • his own heart, but always from that of another: an art which implies a knowledge very difficult to acquire, and an uncommon activity of powers to assume at pleasure the character, that is to say, the dispo- • sition of mind of the perfon introduced: an art that produces the most e ' exquisite of all pleasures, while it renders visible the different internal changes of the affections of the human foul in different individuals, • with which the poet, being himself thoroughly possessed accordingly as the particular case happens to require, has the power also of possessing • the minds of his spectators, and drawing them with him, by a kind of • pleasing enchantment, wherever he chuses: an art taught us in a • masterly manner by Horace, in his Art of Poetry. [P] " Non fatis pulchra esse poemata dulcia funto, "Et quocunque volent animum auditoris agunto." < An [P] See Note III. Chap. XIX. It is something whimsical that the Roman poet should include this precept in a rhymed couplet; and an Italian, a professed enemy to blank verse, should have adopted that verse in his translation. Is not this a strong instance of possible improbability? Metastasio's tranflation is • Che la sola beltà pregio bastante • D'un Poema non è, senza quel dolce ، In
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. • An art indeed so necessary to the tragic poet, that its being neglected • himself in his Torismond, as in his immortal Godfrey he is fuperior ، by the great Torquato Tasso, has rendered him as much inferior to ، to every other poet.' ESTRATTO DELLA POETICA, page 361. But though Aristotle has omitted to mention this requisite in his concluding comparison, he has not forgot it in the course of the Poetic. In Chap. XVII. he insists strongly on this essential duty of the tragic poet, but the reason why he does not mention it here may be his esteeming it equally essential to, and equally attainable by, the epic poet: fince in Chap. xxiv. he particularly commends Homer for divesting himself of his own character in his poems. And his words [P], taken by themselves in their obvious and literal sense, give him the preference in this respect to all poets whatever, whether epic, or dramatic, though the context I think confines it to the former. Experience however seems to confirm, in some degree, the distinction of Metastafio. We have no opportunity of judging how Homer would have fucceeded in the drama, as that species of imitation was not invented when he lived; but undoubtedly we may pronounce from our own feelings that the most pathetic parts of his epopees, beautiful as
• Incanto seduttor, che in mille affetti • A voglio fuo lo spettator trasporta.' This tranflation affords a strong proof of the power the Italian language possesses beyond our own in inverting the order of the words: a great advantage in versification, and especially in blank verse. See Note vI. Chap. xxır. [P] μόνος τῶν ποιητῶν, ἐκ αγνοῖι ὁ δεῖ ποιῖιν αυτόν.
they are, can by no means bear any comparison as to their effect on the passions with the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, however superior we must allow them to be in every other respect. Metastasio has just shewn the inferiority of Tasso to himself in his attempt at the drama. Milton seems strongly to suggest the same idea as well in Sampson Agonistes as in the mode he recommends to be pursued in the arrangement of fome of those stories which he has selected from our own annals as proper subjects for tragedy [2]. And as to the comic epopee, and comedy, we have such an instance of this deficiency in one composition with the highest degree of excellence in the other, in one of our own writers, as to be quite wonderful. I mean Fielding. Who to read his novels would suppose him not capable of entering enough into the characters of the persons he delineates for the purpose of the drama? Yet that it is so, seems absolutely certain from his dramatic attempts, Since therefore nothing but experience could have shewn us the inability of Fielding to produce dramatic effect (R), it is impossible for us to infer what might have been the success of Homer or Virgil had they attempted tragedy; for who could have believed, had not the proof been before our eyes, that the author of Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones was incapable of writing a tolerable comedy? [Q] Of all these, he enters most in detail on the story of Alfred, which he observes with a natural bias to his own peculiar excellence, would be a proper subject for an heroic poem. [R] See Beattie on Music and Poetry, Part 1. Chap. v. p. III, note. A French critic has made the fame observation on Voltaire. M. Linguet, in his Critical Analysis of his Works, says, speaking of his comedies, ' In his romances, in his tales, in his discussions, ' apparently of the most serious nature, we meet with sallies which excite bursts of laughter, • or fly strokes of wit which afford a more refined, though a less sensible gratification. But ' his comedies are very far from possessing either of these excellencies.' Yet
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Yet though the drama has the superiority in point of interest, perhaps the epopee has it in many other instances. And certainly it requires greater skill in the poet to excite the necessary interest, however inferior, in so long and various a composition as the epopee, than the strongest degree of it in the shorter and simpler form of the drama. Besides, the epopee depends more on itself; the poet is at the same time poet, actor, and manager. He not only furnishes the piece, but the theatrical apparatus. If the dramatic poet attains his end more effectually, he also attains it more easily. It undoubtedly requires a greater genius to write a good epic poem than a good tragedy. The examples of one are beyond comparison more frequent than those of the other. A drama may be very affecting and very ill written. As Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, are never mentioned in competition with Homer, or Seneca with Virgil, so neither are Southern, Otway, or Rowe with Milton, with Dryden, (who could not, or at least did not, write a good play) or with Pope. Shakespear is indeed almost an exception to this rule as he is to every other. Like the phenix he is himself a species and not an individual. To compare him, in point of general merit, with any of our other dramatic writers, would be absurdity in the highest degree. Yet if merit is to be decided even in one drama compared with another, solely on its producing its destined end by exciting the passions in the strongest degree, I believe Mrs. Siddons has affected the feelings of the audience in a much higher degree in the Isabella of Southern, and the Belvidera of Otway, than Garrick ever could in the Lear, or Mrs. Siddons in the Constance, or the Desdemona of Shakespear. Of the other writings of Shakespear we can only say they are in no degree to be mentioned with his dramatic writings. But his dramatic writings, if they do not come up to that point of pathetic intereft, which inferior writers are sometimes able to attain, and in which Aristotle gives the preference 4 C2
A COMMENTARY, &c. preference to Euripides over all the other dramatic writers of Greece, (though strongly as he insists on this particular species of excellence, he seems in general to esteem him inferior to Sophocles,) they possess excellence of another kind in a very superior degree. The dramatic writings of Shakespear contain all the variety, the minute description, and the scenery, independent of representation, which we find in the epopee, both ferious and comic united. And to this is joined the interesting detail, and exact delineation of the drama, as well as that compression both of composition and incident, by which the connexion of the events is so much more clearly comprehended, and their effect so much less divided in the drama than the epopee. And possessing in a high degree the qualities of the epic poet, he has been able to exhibit models to future dramatic poets both in comedy and tragedy, without having read the Iliad or the Odyssey, or heard of the Margites.
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.)
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5.
mvp-aristotle-comment-208
Ritter, cap. 26 § 5
ἔτι τῷ ἐν ἐλάττονι μήκει τὸ τέλος τῆς μιμήσεως εἶναι: h. e. tragoedia epopoeiam etiam co superat quod citius finitur. vide mihi hunc hominem rursus ad normam et ulnam tamquam unicam mensuram profugientem. hic illud fit quod Aristophanes iocose descripsit in Ranis 798- 802.
τί δέ;
μειαγωγήσουσι τὴν τραγῳδίαν cet. exemplum illud,
λέγω δὲ οἷον εἴ τις τὸν Οἰδίπουν θείη τὸν Σοφοκλέους ἐν ἔπεσιν ὅσοις ἡ Ἰλιάς, pueris sane utile erit ad sententiam antegressam recte intelligendam.
