Aristotle Poetics 6.23

ed. Henry James Pye

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and its merit consists in making the dialogue consonant with the fable and the characters. And this may be done either in the familiar or the rhetorical style, the [H] ancients using the former and the moderns the latter.

Poetics. Aristotle. ed. Henry James Pye. London. 1792.

Current edition Experimental

The Poetic of Aristotle (Henry James Pye, revised 1792) (OCR draft) (English) (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.)

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.) — 6.23 focus
the antients made their characters speak in the style of political and popular eloquence 1 ; but now, the rhetorical manner prevails.
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.) — 6.23 focus
For the ancient poets represent those whom they introduce as speaking politically; but those of the present day, rhetorically. 1
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
La poëtique d'Aristote (André Dacier, 1692) (OCR draft) Experimental (André Dacier's French translation of Aristotle's Poetics, published in 1692.) — 6.23 focus
Les anciens Orateurs parloient communement & ſimplement, & ceux d'aujourd'huy empruntent tous les ſecours de la Rhetorique.
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

23. mvp-aristotle-comment-270

ἀρχαῖοι : the dramatists anterior to Euripides (see on 6, 1450 a 25 ).

23. mvp-aristotle-comment-271

πολιτικῶς . ... λέγοντας which Valla rendered by 'civiliter dicentes', is often taken to mean 'to speak the language of civil life', like ordinary citizens, as distinct from the professional orator. But as the context shows that the ability to speak πολιτικῶς implies something of πολιτική in the speaker (comp. Newman on Pol. 2. 11, 1273 b 12 ), πολιτικῶς would seem rather to mean 'like a πολιτικός'—the statesman being assumed to say that which is befitting ( τὰ ἁρμόττοντα) without any ostentation of rhetorical cleverness (comp. HSt. s. v. πολιτικός ). Vahlen (Symb. phil. Bonn. p. 175) supposes the expression to coincide in sense with the ἠθικῶς λέγειν of Rhet. 3. 17, 1418 b 38 which means ἀπὸ προαιρέσεως λέγειν, as opposed to ἀπὸ διανοίας λέγειν ( Rhet. 3. 16, 1417 a 23 ). The objection to this interpretation is twofold. (1) Aristotle is to all appearance not contrasting διάνοια with ἦθος, but distinguishing between the two forms it may assume in the dramatic ῥήσεις. (2) πολιτικῶς λέγειν can hardly be identical with ἠθικῶς λέγειν; the personages in Comedy speak ἠθικῶς, but it would be a paradox to say of them that they speak πολιτικῶς, in the sense of there being something of πολιτική in their utterances.

23. mvp-aristotle-comment-272

1450b8 ῥητορικῶς Euripides is termed by Aristophanes ( Pax 534 ) a
ποιητὴς ῥηματίων δικανικῶν
. Quintilian also (10. 1, 68) thinks the study of his plays one of the best preparations for the bar:
'Illud quidem nemo non fateatur necesse est, iis qui se ad agendum comparant utiliorem longe fore Euripidem. namque is et sermone magis accedit oratorio generi et sententiis densus et in iis quae a sapientibus tradita sunt paene ipsis par, et dicendo ac respondendo cuilibet eorum qui fuerunt in foro diserti comparandus.'
.

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

52. mvp-aristotle-comment-192

6.23 52. Les anciens Orateurs parloient communement & ſimplement.] 1

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

57. mvp-aristotle-comment-57

NOTE 57. P. 78.

6.23 FOR THE ANTIENTS MADE THEIR CHARACTERS SPEAK IN THE STYLE OF POLITICAL AND POPULAR ELOQUENCE; BUT NOW, THE RHETORICAL MANNER PREVAILS.
Οι μεν γαρ άρχαιοι ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΩΣ ἐποιουν λεγοντας, οι δε νυν, ῥητορικως.
— So, Rhet. lib. ii. cap. xxii. p. 573 ,
ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΩι συλλογισμῳ
—a Civil or Oratorical syllogism, as opposed to the strict dialectic syllogism: a distinction which he presently after expresses by,
ἀκριβεστερον
, and
ΜΑΛΑΚΩΤΕΡΟΝ, συλλογίζεσθαι
[ibid.] And thus, here, the same term,
πολιτικως
, is used, to distinguish the popular, and less laboured, though more solid, eloquence of the Senate or the Forum, from the studied and declamatory composition of the professed rhetoricians. A similar use of the word occurs in the passage quoted in NOTE 229, from the Euagoras of Isocrates , where,
ὀνομασι ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΟΙΣ
, is plainly synonymous with
ὀνομασι ΚΥΡΙΟΙΣ
. See also Dion. Halicarn. De Struct. Orat. p. 4. ed. Upton , and Faber's note.
That Aristotle, however, by Politics (
ἡ πολιτικη
), means only, as Dacier asserts,
"l'usage commun, le langage ordinaire des peuples,"
cannot, surely, be admitted. The force and extent of the term is well known 1 .
"CIVILIS SCIENTIA,"
Quintilian says,
"idem quod SAPIENTIA est."
It comprehended all the necessary knowledge of the
Πολιτικά
, the
vir civilis
, the public man. It included, of course, eloquence, or the faculty of public speaking, but that, of a kind very different from the
"umbratile genus,"
as Cicero calls it, of the rhetorical schools 2 . What Aristotle says of the old Tragic Poets, that they made their personages speak like such a man, not like a Rhetorician, cannot be better illustrated than by Quintilian's character of Euripides.
"Illud quidem nemo non fateatur necesse est, iis qui se ad agendum comparent, utiliorem longè Euripidem fore. Namque is, et in sermone—magis accedit oratorio generi, et sententiis densus; et in iis quæ à sapientibus tradita sunt, penè ipsis par, et in dicendo ac respondendo cuilibet eorum qui fuerunt IN FORO DISERTI comparandus."
[lib. x. cap. i.]
That Dacier, with so precise and clear an expression before his eyes, as,
ΕΠΟΙΟΥΝ λεγοντας
, should understand this of the antient orators, and roundly pronounce Victorius to be mistaken in applying it to the Poets, seems perfectly unaccountable. I do not see in this passage any foundation for the refinement of Castelvetro, Dacier, and other commentators, who refer the
ἐνοντα
to the political science, and the
ἁρμοττοντα
to rhetoric. The word
ἁρμοττοντα
, has, I think, the same sense as in cap. xv. and means, such sentiments, or thoughts, as, being adapted to the person speaking, are expressive of the manners: for it is in this view, as I before remarked, that Aristotle is here considering the Sentiments, or
Διανοια
.
Τα ἐνοντα
, as Victorius has observed, is equivalent to
τα ὑπαρχοντα
; and it was clearly the business of rhetoric (
ῥητορικης ἔργον
,) to teach both the
ὑπαρχοντα
and the
ἁρμοττοντα
. See Rhet. lib. ii. cap. xxii. p. 573, E. and lib. iii. cap. vii. p. 590, D. ed. Duval . 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

16. mvp-aristotle-comment-50

Ritter, cap. 6 § 16

τρίτον δὲ διάνοια. τοῦτο κτλ. διάνοιαν Aristoteles definivit §. 6., interpolator definitionem h. 1. promit ab Aristotelia multum diversam et paulo post (§. 17) aliam etiam cum Aristotelia convenientem. num haec Aristostoteli tribuemus ? num Aristolelem eodem capite ter ad idem revolvi putabimus? sed vide mihi priorem hanc interpolatoris definitionem διανοίας: esse facultatem dicendi ( τὸ λέγειν δύνασθαι) quae in re sint quaeque apta sint. nimirum Aristoteles διάνοιαν partem tragoediae intelligit (den Gedankengehalt), interpolator eandem pro facultate humana accipit (die Fähigkeit das Richtige und Passende zu sagen.) - ὅπερ ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων κτλ. technicus noster digreditur ad orationes. conf. Commentar. ad c. 25,3. quod sequitur οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀρχαῖοι πολιτικῶς ἐποίουν λέγοντας, οἱ δὲ νῦν ῥητορικῶς, perperam de poetis tragicis antiquis et novis dictum esse multi crediderunt: immo tota illa digressio ὅπερ ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων - ῥητορικῶς aperte oratores spectat, non poetas. distinguit interpolator inter oratores politicos, h. e. qui de veris causis dicebant, et scholasticos qui fictas componebant.