Aristote Poetics 22.11

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Car il y a une meſure qui eſt commune à toutes ces differentes eſpeces, & qu'il ne faut jamais paſſer. Cela eſt ſi vray, que ſi l'on ſe ſervoit de la mème maniére des metaphores, des mots étrangers, & de toutes les autres figures, que j'ay expliquées, & qu'on les employât à tout propos ſans grace, & à deſſein de les faire paroître ridicules, on y réüſſiroit avec la mème facilité,

Poetics. Aristote. Paris. 1692.

Current edition Experimental

La poëtique d'Aristote (André Dacier, 1692) (OCR draft) (fra) (André Dacier's French translation of Aristotle's Poetics, published in 1692.)

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.) — 22.11 focus
In the employment of all the species of unusual words, moderation is necessary: for metaphors, foreign words, or any of the others, improperly used, and with a design to be ridiculous, would produce the same effect.
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.) — 22.11 focus
or EATS, the word Θοινᾶται which is foreign and unusual.
The Poetic of Aristotle (Theodore Alois Buckley) (OCR draft) Experimental (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.) — 22.11 focus
but by only changing one word from its proper and usual to a foreign signification, the one verse appears beautiful, and the other mean. For Aeschylus indeed, in his Philoctetes, writes, A cancerous ulcer feeds upon my foot. But Euripides, instead of έσθίει, feeds, uses the word θοινā ται, banquets on.
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
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

Commentary

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

6. mvp-aristotle-comment-813

ἐκ τῶν γλωττῶν βαρβαρισμός: a mere repetition of the ἐὰν δὲ ἐκ γλωττῶν βαρβαρισμός in a 25, and brought in also without syntactical connexion with the context. The words may be the residue of a longer statement now lost, or a stop-gap to disguise a lacuna, or a rough note by Aristotle himself to indicate a point to be worked out at length at some future time.

6. mvp-aristotle-comment-814

βαρβαρισμός is the opposite of ἑλληνισμός. ἑλληνίζειν in Aristotle (v. Bon. Ind. 238b 53 ) means to speak Greek like a native, i. e. correctly, and βαρβαρίζειν to speak it like a foreigner, whether through the use of 'strange words' ( γλῶτται), or through that of strange or unauthorized forms of words. That βαρβαρίζειν had this wide sense is clear from the explanation of σολοικίζειν ('to speak incorrectly') in Soph. el. 3, 165b 20
τέταρτον δὲ σολοικίζειν ποιεῖν, τοῦτο δ᾽ ἐστὶ τὸ ποιῆσαι τῇ λέξει βαρβαρίζειν, ἐκ τοῦ λόγου τὸν ἀποκρινόμενον
 (comp. Bon. Ind. 688b 54 ). In later theory, however, 'barbarism' denotes more especially a faulty use of particular words, and 'solecism' a fault of construction or syntax: Sextus Emp. Adv. math. 1. 210
βαρβαρισμός ἐστι παράπτωσις ἐν ἁπλῇ λέξει παρὰ τὴν κοινὴν συνήθειαν, καὶ σολοικισμός ἐστι παράπτωσις ἀσυνήθης κατὰ τὴν ὅλην σύνταξιν καὶ ἀνακόλουθος
 (v. Volkmann, Rhetorik p. 396 ). Quintilian (1. 5, 8) distinguishes three senses of 'barbarismus' in Latin:
Barbarismum pluribus modis accipimus: unum gente [? genus], quale fit si quis Afrum vel Hispanum latinae orationi nomen inserat alterum genus barbarismi accipimus quod fit animi natura... tertium est illud vitium barbarismi cuius exempla vulgo sunt plurima, sibi etiam ... quisque fingere potest, ut verbo cui libebit adiciat litteram syllabamve vel detrahat, aut etiam aliam pro alia aut eandem alio quam rectum est loco ponat.
31

Commentary on the Poetics (Henry James Pye, 1792) (OCR draft) (Henry James Pye's 1792 English commentary, aligned to the Kassel reference edition.) focus

22.4. mvp-aristotle-comment-91 22.6

AN ABSURD AND RIDICULOUS USE OF METAPHORS, FOREIGN WORDS, AND OTHER FORMS, WOULD HAVE THE SAME EFFECT.

THE obfervation of Aristotle as to the effect of all these ornamented expreffions, and how much the propriety of the most elevated style depends on a temperate use of them, is obviously just and perfectly capable of illustration from our own writers of every description. There is no part of elocution which requires greater skill in the poet than the proper management of figures, and to steer between too ornamented and too simple a style; chusing one that shall be perfpicuous without meanness, and elevated without being either turgid or obscure. Nor can any criterion be found for this, except the judgement and taste of the writer, fince what in one species of writing would be simple might be mean in another; and that dignity of expression which may be only adequate to one fubject might be truly ridiculous when applied to a different one [E]. It must be remembered that two sources of the burlesque arise from this impropriety carried to excess, either by making heroes and demi-gods talk in the language of common life, or making mean persons talk in the language of heroes and demi-gods. [E] The modern writers of Latin run strongly into this. If a phrase is classical they are apt to think it fufficient without at all regarding its application to the subject, and will criticise a grammatical passage in all the flowers of eloquence. A curious instance of this occurs in Leusden's Philologus Hebræo-Græcus. Speaking of the scarceness of the copies of the Hebrew New Testament, he says, Vix caressimo pretio comparari poffunt num plerumque in nuper incendio Londiniensi sunt Vulcano tradita.' To
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. To know whether a word is proper for an elevated style, I believe verfification the best criterion, and Aristotle seems to think so from the experiment he proposes. The expression quoted by [F] Dr. Beattie from our tranflation of the Bible, 'Sweeping with the besom of destruction,' would hardly bear this teft. It must be observed that in some cases, especially in scenes of horror, the effect is often heightened by chusing a common instead of an unusual word. In the following lines from Macbeth : • Who should against his murderer shut the door, ' Not bear the knife myself.' The effect, contrary to the rule of Aristotle, would I think be much inferior if afsassin could be substituted for murderer, and dagger for knife [G]. [F] Illustrations on Sublimity, p. 638. NOTE [G] Mr. Stevens, on the occasion of Shakespear's use of the words BARE BODKIN, is at some trouble to shew us that bodkin was an old word for dagger. It may be fo. But I think Shakespear did not use it here in this sense. His context seems to imply, Why should a man suffer misery here, when the most inconfiderable, and generally, harmless instrument, will set him free. What Shakespear observes here of misery he applies to guilt in K. John. 'Do but despair, • And if thou want'st a cord the smallest thread < That ever spider twisted from her womb • Will serve to strangle thee, a rush will be A beam to hang thee on; or would'st thou drown thyself, • Put but a little water in a spoon And it shall be as all the ocean Enough to stifle such a villain up.' And

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

2. mvp-aristotle-comment-160

Ritter, cap. 22 § 2

ἂν μὲν οὖν ἐκ μεταφορῶν, αἴνιγμα: dictio ex meris metaphoris conflata nonnisi ab eo potest intelligi, qui et translate dici scit neque ignorat quomodo translatio instituta sit. ἐὰν δὲ ἐκ γλωττῶν, βαρβαρισμός: peregrina dictio fit, si unis glossis composita est. hoc fieri tam manifestum est, ut explicatione non egeat: nam quae paulo post interponuntur, ἐκ τῶν γλωττῶν βαρβαρισμός, ea ab interpolatore quodam ex his ipsis hausta illic inertissime repetuntur, et ab editoribus, ut saltem aliqua iunctura prodiret, in hunc modum interpolata vulgo exhibentur : ἐκ δὲ τῶν γλωττῶν ὁ βαρβαρισμός. sed alterum illud, aenigma fieri si quis nonnisi translationibus utatur, cum minus manifestum videatur, hoc aenigmatis definitione declaratur. κατὰ μὲν οὖν τὴν τῶν ὀνομάτων σύνθεσιν οὐχ οἷόν τε τοῦτο ποιῆσαι: per ὀνόματa hic quoque nomina et verba significantur. secundum unam verborum copulationem fieri non potest, ut simul quae sunt ( τὰ ὑπάρχον- τα) et simul quae non possunt esse ( τὰ ἀδύνατα) exprimantur, sed id per metaphoram fieri potest, cum verba proprie intellecta significant quae fieri nequeunt, contra improprie accepta id indicant quod fieri potest. οἷον “ ἄνδρ᾽ - κολλήσαντα": igne aera viro adglutinare refertur in ἀδυνάτοις: sed qui resciverit χαλκὸν translate dictum esse ( ἀπὸ γένους ἐπ᾿ εἶδος c. 21, 5) pro cucurbitula (Schröpfkopf), statim intelligit dici quae fieri possunt. Aristoteles Rhetor. III, 2. p. 1405 b 1. posito eodem aenigmate scribit κόλλησιν τοίνυν εἶπε τὴν τῆς σικύας προσβολήν. Athenaeus X. p. 452 C. πολλοὶ δὲ γρίφων καὶ τοιαῦ τοί τινές εἰσιν οἷον ἄνδρ᾽ εἶδον πυρὶ χαλκὸν ἐπ᾿ ἀνέρι κολλήσαντα οὕτω συνκόλλως ὥστε σύναιμα ποιεῖν. veterum cucurbitularum genera et formas descripsit Celsus de Medicina II, 11. cucurbitularum vero duo genera sunt, aeneum et corneum, aenea altera parte patet, altera clausa est: in aeneam linamentum ardens coniicitur, ac sic os eius corpori aptatur imprimiturque donec inhaereat. conf. Pollux X, 149.