Poetics. Aristotle. ed. Henry James Pye. London. 1792.
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.
10.
mvp-aristotle-comment-364
κἂν ἄρα συμβῇ γενόμενα ποιεῖν,
Up to this point the subject of a poem has been assumed to be always a
μύθος, a fictitious story (see on
5, 1449 b 9
), either invented by the poet himself (
b 12, b 21
) or adapted from legend.
Aristotle, however, now remembers that there may be such a thing as an historical play, one with incidents taken from actual history (
γενόμενα). Such incidents, he explains, are legitimate subjects for poetry, if they admit of being exhibited as probable and natural, as well as actual occurrences. It is only in this aspect, and on this condition, that they are admissible in poetry; as so many mere facts they belong to the domain of history.
κἂν ἄρα =
καὶ ἐὰν ἄρα,
the
ἄpa implying that the supposition is not very probable (
Kühner,
Gr. Gr. 2. 2 p. 324).
20.
mvp-aristotle-comment-251
9.10
Et quand même il luy arriveroit d'étaler fur la Scene des incidens véritables, il n'en meriteroit pas moins le nom de Poëte.
1
21.
mvp-aristotle-comment-252
9.10
Car rien n'empèche que les incidens, qui font arrivez véritablement, n'ayent toute la vray-femblance & toute la poſſibilité que l'art demande.
2
75.
mvp-aristotle-comment-75
NOTE 75. P. 83.
9.10
NOR IS HE THE LESS A POET, THOUGH THE INCIDENTS OF HIS FABLE SHOULD CHANCE TO BE SUCH AS HAVE REALLY HAPPENED, &C.
The original, as it stands, (for I doubt of its integrity,) is very ambiguous and obscure. The sense I wished to give it, is this: "Nor will he be the less a Poet, though he should found his Poem upon fact: for nothing hinders, but that some real events may be such, as to admit of Poetic probability; and he who gives them this probability, and makes them such, as Poetry requires, is so far entitled to the name of Poet, or Inventor." And thus, indeed, the passage is explained by Robortelli and some other commentators: and Casaubon seems to have so understood it; for, quoting the words
κἂν άρα συμβῃ γενομενα ποιειν, κ. τ. αλ.—he says,
"ad ea solùm dramata referendum, quorum hypothesis ab historiâ est; ut Persarum Æschyli: fabulæ verò totius
De Satyricâ, &c. p. 345.
I do not, however, see how this sense can be fairly extracted from the words, as they now stand. That which I have given in my translation, and which was first suggested to me by the word
συνθεσις ab ingenio Poetæ."συμβῃ, I was afterwards glad to find supported by the opinion of Victorius. The expression—
ἂν ΣΥΜΒΗι γενομενα ποιειν,— "if he should
happen," &c. is very strong, and hardly applicable to a Poet chusing a true story for the outline of his fable. It indicates accidental coincidence with truth. The word
εἶναι, also, is on the same side: "may be," does not suit the sense above given, which requires, "may become"—may be made such by the Poet; not, "may be such," in themselves, which is the obvious meaning of
τοιαῦτα ΕΙΝΑΙ. Farther; Aristotle has just told us, that probability is the Poet's province, and yet, at the same time, that Tragedies were usually founded, and should, in general, be founded, on historical fact. Now it would, surely, be rather strange, after all this, to say, "nothing hinders, but that some real events may be made to have poetic probability:"
οὐδεν ΚΩΛΥΕΙ τοιαῦτα εἶναι οἷα ἂν εἴκοτα γενεσθαι, κ. τ. αλ.
But, to the interpretation which I have preferred, these expressions are all exactly suitable, and the meaning and connection of the whole seems to be this:—Aristotle had been opposing Poetry to fact: he had said expressly, that the
γενομενα were the peculiar province of the historian; the
οἷα ἂν γενοιτο, and the
εἰκος, of the Poet. An objector, misapprehending, or misrepresenting, his meaning, might have urged "the incidents of this or that Poet have actually happened; they are
γενομενα; and therefore, according to your own doctrine, not proper for Poetry, nor the work of a Poet." —To this Aristotle answers, that, though the object of the Poet be not truth, yet his invented probabilities may coincide with truth: and real events, even of the Tragic and extraordinary kind, may have happened as probably and naturally as he has supposed them to happen. He is still, therefore, no less a Poet; not only as having actually invented the incidents, but as having invented them with true Poetic probability. And thus Victorius:—
"Non omnes eos qui fortuitò incidant in res quæ exitum jam habuerint, in culpâ esse; quia fieri possit, ut res aliquæ factæ, ita factæ sint, ut verisimile fit illas factas esse; et esse denique ejusmodi, ut effici potuerint; quo nomine (inquit,) ille Poeta eorum aliquo modo est: officium enim Poetæ est, verisimile sectari, et ea quæ effici possunt sumere: quod in illis rebus illo modo factis non desideratur. Retinet igitur, hâc de causâ, nomen Poetæ." I confess, indeed, that the passage is, in this way, nothing more than an answer to a senseless cavil. But such cavils, we know, the sophists of those times
1
did not disdain to make, nor Aristotle always disdain to answer. See
cap. xxv.
Transl. Part IV.
9.6.
mvp-aristotle-comment-27
9.10
OF SIMPLE FABLES AND ACTIONS, THE EPISODIC ARE THE WORST.
I OWN I do not fee the impropriety of this obfervation, or of Dacier's explanation of it, in the light Mr. Twining does. It is obvious, that the fault of lengthening the fable, or rather the bulk of the piece, by episodes, was much more likely to be incident to a simple than a complicated action, and from the fimplicity of the action, more blameable as more obvious to the observation, and more likely to throw the principal action into the shade. Every difficulty would be obviated, if this paragraph were removed from the place where it now stands to the end of the next chapter. It would naturally follow the definition of the simple action, and its distinction from that which is complicated; whereas it is, in this place, little connected either with the preceding or the following paragraph: and besides, there seems an impropriety in pointing out a defect of the simple fable, before we are told what a simple fable is. But with the arrangement of the parts of this irregular work, I profess not to meddle. Cc NOTE
9.
mvp-aristotle-comment-71
Ritter, cap. 9 § 9
κἂν ἄρα συμβῇ γενόμενα ποιεῖν,
οὐθὲν ἧττον ποιητής ἐστιν: quae ab historia praebentur argumenta, haec poeta ita tractare debet et conformare, ut ab co quasi procreata videantur. nomen
ποιητής et hoc loco et paulo post premitur et nativa sua significatione (Schöpfer, Hervorbringer) positum est. argumentum historicum Aeschylus pertractavit in Persis etiamnum superstitibus, et ante Aeschylum Phrynichus in Mileti expugnatione, de qua conferenda sunt quae Herodotus narrat VI, 21. Choerilus Samius bellum Persicum Xerxe auctore Graeciae illatum carmine epico felice cum successu canendum suscepit. vid. Choerili Samii quae supersunt. collegit et illustravit A. F. Naekius. Lipsiae 1817. - quae sequuntur
τῶν γὰρ γενο μένων ἔνια - ποιητής ἐστιν, definiunt quae argumenta historica
ποιητικῶς pertractari possint. nimirum ubi illa ita comparata sunt, ut unum factorum momentum ex altero consequi videatur, ubi hoc per poeticam conformationem veris rebus conciliari potest, ibi nihil obstat quo minus materia ex historia petatur.