Poetics. Aristotle. Thomas Twining (Translator). London, UK. 1789.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Poetics (Thomas Twining, 1789) (OCR draft) (English) (Thomas Twining's English translation of Aristotle's Poetics, published in 1789 and aligned to the Kassel reference passage sequence.)
Provisional text from uncorrected OCR; expect errors.
19.
mvp-aristotle-comment-261
ἀρχὴ
A little before this the
μῦθος was said to be the
τέλος τῆς τραγῳδίας (a 22). From one point of view it is the
ἀρχή, as being the necessary basis of every tragedy; from another it is the
τέλος, because it is this much more than the characters that Tragedy
μίμησις πράξεως has to represent.
19.
mvp-aristotle-comment-262
ψυχὴ
:
Isocrates 142 B
ἔστι γὰρ ψυχὴ πόλεως οὐδὲν ἕτερον ἢ πολιτεία. —
261 B
πᾶσα πολιτεία ψυχὴ πόλεώς ἐστιν. —
[Demosthenes] 60. 23
ἡ τῶνδε τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἀρετὴ τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἦν ψυχὴ τἀληθὲς εἰπεῖν —
Martianus Capella 3, 268
Est accentus, ut quidam putaverunt, anima vocis.
1450a39
6.4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-17
6.19
THE PROFESSED END OF TRAGEDY IS TO IMITATE AN ACTION; AND, CHIEFLY BY MEANS OF THAT ACTION, TO SHEW THE QUALITIES OF THE PERSONS ACTING.
PERHAPS there is not a stronger instance of the difference between manners introduced as secondary to the action, though arifing immediately, and necessarily, from it; and their holding the first place, than the novel of Tom Jones compared with Triftram Shandy. The masterly contrivance of the fable in the former, at once aftonishes and delights us; but though we may be struck with the high coloring of the other, we foon perceive it is laid on promiscuously; we are amused, but we are not interested, except in those parts where our paffions are engaged by incident, as well as awakened by quality; such as the admirable story of Le Fevre. I have often thought the [s] censure passed by Longinus on the Odyssey, when compared with the Iliad, arose from his misapprehenfion of this and another passage of Ariftotle; for one of the reasons he gives for introducing his unfavourable criticism on the Odyssey, he himself tells us, is to shew, how the greatest writers and poets, when their genius wants strength for the pathetic, naturally fall into description of man- [s] See note 1. chap. xxiv. • ners.'
ners [T]. Now it is true, Aristotle does characterise the Iliad as being simple and pathetic, the Odyssey as complicated and defcriptive of manners. (Poetic, Chap. XXIV.) But he obviously uses pathetic, as applied to the Iliad in the same sense with his definition of tragic pathos in the eleventh chapter; 'the exhibition of deaths, tortures, and wounds;' and not of that pathos which Longinus confiders as a species of the füblime. And to confider the two poems with regard to the passage before us, furely the Odyssey strictly fulfils the idea of Aristotle, in painting the manners through the fable. And though the Iliad, to use the language of the drama, may be fuller of bustle, [u] I cannot think the fable either so well constructed, or so interesting, as that of the Odyssey; and surely if there is only equal excellence in the first requifite, it can, at least, be no fault, to have superior excellence in that which is allowed to hold the second place.
14.
mvp-aristotle-comment-48
Ritter, cap. 6 § 14
ἔτι σημεῖον κτλ. accedit quartum
σημεῖον ad obtinendam sententiam §. 9. pronuntiatam. -
οἷον καὶ οἱ πρῶτοι ποιηταὶ σχεδὸν ἅπαντες : non solum tragoediarum scriptores qui certare primum incipiunt in operis summa solent deficere, sed ceteri quoque poetae fere omnes, cum carmina pangere primum adgrediuntur.