Aristote Poetics 6.16

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D'ailleurs ſi quelqu'un s'aviſoit de faire une piece, où il y eût de ſuite pluſieurs diſcours, dans leſquels les mœurs ſeroient parfaitement exprimées, & où il y auroit encore une belle diction & de fort beaux ſentimens on peut aſſeurer qu'il n'auroit pas encore attrapé ce qui eſt le propre de la Tragedie. Au lieu qu'une piece qui ſeroit entierement inferieure à cette premiere dans toutes ſes parties, & qui auroit un ſujet bien conſtitué & bien conduit, en viendroit bien plûtôt & plus heureuſement à bout.

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.) — 6 focus
Περὶ ποιητικῆς (OCR draft) Perseus (Aristotle, De arte poetica liber. Rudolf Kassel, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965. Reference edition for passage alignment.) — 6 focus
Poetics, Greek text (Ingram Bywater, 1909) (OCR draft) Experimental (Ingram Bywater's Greek text of Aristotle's Poetics, published in 1909.) — 6 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.) — 6 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.) — 6 focus
Arabic Poetics (Badawī edition, 1953) (OCR draft) (The ancient Arabic translation of Aristotle's Poetics in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Badawī's 1953 edition.) — 6 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.) — 6 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.) — 6 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.) — 6.16 focus
Farther—suppose any one to string together a number of speeches in which the manners are strongly marked, the language and the sentiments well turned; this will not be sufficient to produce the proper effect of Tragedy: that end will much rather be answered by a piece, defective in each of those particulars, but furnished with a proper fable and contexture of incidents. Just as in Painting, the most brilliant colours, spread at random and without design, will give far less pleasure than the simplest outline of a figure.
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.) — 6.16 focus
And, besides, those who first attempt to write dramatically, can sooner excel in the language and the manners, than in combining the incidents
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.) — 6.16 focus
Further still, if any one place in a continued series moral speeches, sayings, and sentiments well framed, he will not produce that which is the work of tragedy; but that will be much more a tragedy, which uses these things as subordinate,
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.) — 6 focus
Poetica d'Aristotile (Bernardo Segni, 1549) (OCR draft) Experimental (Bernardo Segni's 1549 Florentine Italian translation, aligned to the Kassel reference passage sequence.) — 6 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.) — 6 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.) — 6 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.) — 6 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.) — 6 focus

Commentary

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

13. mvp-aristotle-comment-239

πράττουσι scil. οἱ μιμούμενοι. The reference is to the actors (see on 3, 1448 a 23 ) rather than the poets.

13. mvp-aristotle-comment-240

συμπεριλαμβάνουσιν scil. ἐν τῇ μιμήσει, 'they include in the representation'; συμπεριλαμβάνειν in this sense is not infrequent in later Greek (v. HSt. s. v. ). It is hardly necessary, therefore, to reject it for the reading of one of the apographs, συμπαραλαμβάνουσιν, though it is no doubt quite true that manuscripts are apt to confuse the two prepositions.

13. mvp-aristotle-comment-241

1450a22 διὰ τὰς πράξεις διά in this connexion must mean 'with a view to', 'for the sake of', as in Thuc. 2. 89. 4
διὰ τὴν σφετέραν δόξαν
.

13. mvp-aristotle-comment-242

καὶ ὁ μῦθος The καί is explanatory, 'that is to say'.

13. mvp-aristotle-comment-243

1450a23 τὸ δὲ τέλος μέγιστον ἁπάντων modelled on the proverb in Plato Rep. 377 A
ἀρχὴ παντὸς ἔργου μέγιστον
, which reappears in Aristotle Soph. el. 33, 183 b 22
μέγιστον γὰρ ἴσως ἀρχὴ παντός, ὥσπερ λέγεται
. — Probl. 10. 13, 892 a 29
ἡ μὲν γὰρ ἀρχὴ παντὸς ἔργου μέγιστον· ἥμισυ γάρ
.
1450a25

Remarques sur la poëtique d'Aristote (André Dacier, 1692) (OCR draft) (André Dacier's French commentary on Aristotle's Poetics.) focus

32. mvp-aristotle-comment-172

6.13 32. Mais ils ajoûtent les mœurs à cauſe des actions.] 1

33. mvp-aristotle-comment-173

6.13 33. De ſorte que les actions & la fable ſont la fin de la Tragedie.] 2

34. mvp-aristotle-comment-174

6.13 34. Or en toutes choſes, la fin eſt ce qu'il y a de plus impor-tant.] 3