Aristote Poetics 6.18

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Enfin une marque tres certaine de la verité de ce que je viens d'établir, c'eſt que ceux qui entreprenent de faire une Tragedie, trouvent bien plus de facilité à réuſſir dans le ſtyle & dans les mœurs, qu'à bien bâtir le ſujet, & c'eſt une experience que preſque tous les anciens Poëtes ont faite.

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.) — 6.18 focus
As a farther proof, adventurers in Tragic writing are sooner able to arrive at excellence in the language, and the manners, than in the construction of a plot; as appears from almost all our earlier Poets.
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.) — 6.18 focus
as it were, the soul of tragedy. The manners hold the second place, which we may compare to the coloring of a picture; the finest colors laid on promiscuously will not please so much as a figure only in chalk.
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.) — 6.18 focus
and as it were the soul of tragedy; but the manners are next in rank8. 1 [Just as in painting, if any one were to spread the most beautiful pigments on promiscuously, he would not please the view so much as by outlining an image with white colour only.
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

15. mvp-aristotle-comment-244

τῶν νέων As it is clear from 14, 1453 b 28 that Euripides is not classed among the old poets ( οἱ παλαιοί), οἱ νέοι, 'the moderns,' must mean the poets from Euripides downwards. It is to be observed also that, when Aristotle a little further on in this chapter distinguishes between οἱ ἀρχαῖοι and οἱ νῦν, the point noted as characteristic of 'the moderns' ( ῥητορικῶς ποιοῦσι λέγοντας) is manifestly true of Euripides, and was recognized as true of him by the ancients themselves (see on ῥητορικῶς, b 8 ).

15. mvp-aristotle-comment-245

ἀήθεις : 24, 1460 a 11
οὐδέν᾿ ἀήθη ἀλλ᾿ ἔχοντα ἤθη
. ἀήθης is, like other compounds of α privativum ( De anima 2. 10, 427 a 26 ; Metaph. Δ 22, 1022 b 32 ), an ambiguous word, as it may mean either 'destitute of character', or merely 'deficient in character'. Aristotle must be using it in this latter sense, since a play with personages wholly destitute of character is hardly conceivable. The language in the illustration which follows from painting,
οὐδὲν ἔχει ἦθος
, is an instance of a common form of exaggeration, just like that in the saying of Pope,
Most women have no characters at all
.

15. mvp-aristotle-comment-246

1450a26 τοιοῦτοι i. e. ἀήθεις.

15. mvp-aristotle-comment-247

οἷον καὶ τῶν γραφέων Ζεῦξις πρὸς Πολύγνωτον πέπονθεν : De gen. an. 5. 3, 783 a 6
ἔστι δ᾿ ἔνια τῶν ζῴων . . . μαλακὴν μὲν ἔχει τὴν τρίχα ἧττον δὲ λεπτήν, οἷον τὸ τῶν δασυπόδων πρὸς τὸ τῶν προβάτων πέπονθεν
. — Rhet. 3. 2, 1404 b 22
οἷον ἡ Θεοδώρου φωνὴ πέπονθε πρὸς τὴν τῶν ἄλλων ὑποκριτῶν
.

15. mvp-aristotle-comment-248

γραφέων For other illustrations from painting see on 2, 1448 a 5 .

15. mvp-aristotle-comment-249

1450a27 Πολύγνωτον The same view of him, as one who knew how to indicate character in painting, is implied in Pol. 8. 5, 1340 a 37
τὰ Πολυγνώτου κἂν εἴ τις ἄλλος τῶν γραφέων ἢ τῶν ἀγαλματοποιῶν ἐστιν ἠθικός
.

15. mvp-aristotle-comment-250

1450a28 Ζεύξιδος This taken in connexion with what is said of him later on, in 25, 1461 b 12 , would seem to show that, in Aristotle's view, Zeuxis sacrificed expression to beauty.
1450a29

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

36. mvp-aristotle-comment-176

6.15 36. En effet il n'y a point de mœurs dans les pieces de la plupart des Poëtes Modernes.] 1

37. mvp-aristotle-comment-177

6.15 37. On peut dire même en general, que l'on trouve preſque entre tous nos Poëtes, la même difference qui eſt entre les Peintres Zeuxis & Polygnote.] 2

38. mvp-aristotle-comment-178

6.15 38. Ce dernier exprimoit parfaitement les mœurs.] 3

39. mvp-aristotle-comment-179

6.15 39. Et on n'en trouve aucun indice dans les ouvrages de l'autre.] 4

Commentary on the Poetics (Thomas Twining, 1789) (OCR draft) (Thomas Twining's notes on Aristotle's Poetics, aligned to the Kassel reference edition.) focus

51. mvp-aristotle-comment-51

NOTE 51. P. 77.

6.15 THE TRAGEDIES OF MOST MODERN POETS HAVE THIS DEFECT.
This receives illustration from what Aristotle presently after says, of "the rhetorical manner prevailing in the Poets of his time:"
οἱ δε νυν, ῥητορικως.
cap. vi: and from his observation, at the close of cap. xxiv. [Transl. Part III. Sect. 6.] that "the manners and sentiments are only obscured by too splendid a diction."
What he has here said of the recent Tragedies of his time, may perhaps be said, in general, of our modern Tragedies, compared with those of Shakspeare. The truth, I believe, is, that the Tragedy of a refined and polished age will always have less manners than that of ruder times, because it will have more dignity; more of that uniform and level elevation, which excludes strong traits of character, and the simple, unvarnished delineation of the manners. Indeed, what the Greeks denominated
ἦθος
, is the peculiar province of Comedy, and is seldom to be found in Tragedy, except in that stage of its progress, when it is not yet thoroughly and distinctly separated from Comedy; from the imitation of common life, and natural manners. 1 Such are the Tragedies of Shakspeare; and such, as I have before ventured to suggest, are those of Euripides in particular, which, in proportion as they have less dignity, have more
ἦθος
, than the Tragedies of Sophocles. But in neither of them, nor, probably, even in those very Poets here censured by Aristotle, was the "language of Poets," substituted for "the language of men," as it is almost constantly in the French Tragedy, and too often, in our own Tragedies of the French School. 2

52. mvp-aristotle-comment-52

NOTE 52. P. 77.

6.15 POLYGNOTUS EXCELS IN THE EXPRESSION OF THE MANNERS.
I see not the smallest reason for the substitution of
ἀγαθων
, for
ἀγαθα
, which is the reading, we are told, of all the MSS. What Aristotle had said before of Polygnotus, cap. ii. —
ότι κρειττους εικαζε
—seems not to afford the slightest ground for alteration here. [See Mr. Winstanley's ed. p. 281. ] Painters are compared in very different points of view, in these two passages: there, as imitating good or bad, serious or ridiculous, elevated or low, objects: here, only as expressing, or not expressing, manners. It was directly to Aristotle's purpose to say, that Polygnotus was a "good manner-painter;" (
ἀγαθος ήθογραφος
)—not at all to his purpose, (besides the awkwardness of the expression itself,) to say, that he was a "manner-painter of good men:" (
ἀγαθων ήθογραφος
). 3

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

11. mvp-aristotle-comment-45

Ritter, cap. 6 § 11

post absolutam illam ratiocinationem (§. 9-10) hinc iam sequuntur quattuor σημεῖα, quibus quae ante demonstrata sunt firmari auctor voluit. primum est, sine moribus fieri tragoediam posse, sine fabula non posse. a