11.
mvp-aristotle-comment-365
τῶν δὲ ἁπλῶν μύθων κτέ.
An episodic story, as here defined, offends against the rule of unity and consecutiveness of incident laid down in chap.
8
.
Aristotle's theory is that in a well-constructed story every incident is wanted (
8, 1451 a 32
); so that a plot with irrelevant incidents violates a fundamental principle of dramatic construction. Plots of this faulty kind, he adds, are sometimes produced even by good poets through the practical exigencies of the theatre; as a play is expected to be of a certain length, if the story proves too short, it may have to be artificially lengthened out by the insertion of superfluous episodes.
Tyrwhitt points to the
Prometheus as an instance of this: '
Fabulae ἐπεισοδιώδους luculentum satis exemplum habemus Promethea Aeschyli. Episodia enim Oceani, 284-396. et Iûs, 563-885. nec inter se, neque cum fabula principali ullam habent connexionem aut necessariam aut verisimilem Satis manifestum est et Io et Oceanum, et ipsas etiam Oceanidas, quae chorum constituunt, in id tantum sine ulla verisimilitudine induci, ut argumentum tenue in iustam Tragoediae magnitudinem extendant.'
The episodic plot is mentioned here because of its resemblance to a history, since its incidents have no more necessary interconnexion than those in a chronicle. The paragraph, therefore, is a very natural sequel to the preceding discussion (
b 1-32
); and it is in its right place where it stands. Those who wish to find another place for it do so mainly on the ground that the text presupposes the distinction between the
ἁπλοῦς and the
πεπλεγμένος μῦθος explained in the next chapter. This anticipatory use of a technical term, however, is not so uncommon in
Aristotle. Thus—to say nothing of his use of
κάθαρσις in
6, 1449 b 28-
we find him talking of
περιπέτεια and
ἀναγνώρισις or
ἀναγνωρισμός in
6, 1450 a 34
and
10, 1452 a 16
, and giving an explanation of them afterwards in chap.
11
. Besides this it has to be remembered that the expression
ἁπλοῦς μύθος need not be assumed to have been an invention of
Aristotle's; for it may very well have been merely adopted by him as one of the already existing terms of dramatic criticism (see
infra on
ἐπεισοδιώδεις, and on
6, 1449 b 33, 1450 a 34
).
Another difficulty was found in the text by
Tyrwhitt, who proposed to remove it by reading
τῶν δὲ ἄλλων μύθων, a suggestion which the
Arabic Version is believed to confirm. The traditional reading
τῶν δὲ ἁπλῶν μύθων is supposed to restrict the fault in question to the
ἁπλοῦς μύθος, whereas the same fault was no doubt quite possible in the
πεπλεγμένος μύθος also. No such restriction, however, is involved in the text. All that
Aristotle implies here is a distinction between the worst form of the
ἁπλοῦς μύθος and the worst form of the
πεπλεγμένος μύθος. The worst fault in the one is the irrelevant episode. That in the other is no doubt the
ἀναγνώρισις διὰ σημείων, which is so emphatically condemned in
16, 1454 b 20
as the least artistic of Discoveries.
11.
mvp-aristotle-comment-366
ἐπεισοδιώδεις.
An
ἐπεισοδιώδης μύθος is a plot in which the continuity of the action is not maintained. That the term was fairly established in this sense is shown by the metaphorical use of it in
Metaph.Λ 10, 1076 a 1
ἐπεισοδιώδη τὴν τοῦ παντὸς οὐσίαν ποιοῦσιν οὐθὲν γὰρ ἡ ἑτέρα τῇ ἑτέρᾳ συμβάλλεται οὖσα ἢ μὴ οὖσα
. —
Ν 3, 1090 b 19
οὐκ ἔοικε δ᾽ ἡ φύσις ἐπεισοδιώδης οὖσα ... ὥσπερ μοχθηρὰ τραγῳδία
.
11.
mvp-aristotle-comment-367
τὰ ἐπεισόδια
for the origin of the term see on
12, 1452 b 20
. In this definition of the
ἐπεισοδιώδης μύθος, as also in
4, 1449 a 28
and
18, 1456 a 33,
ἐπεισόδιον
has the technical sense given it in
12, 1452 b 20
ἐπεισόδιον δὲ μέρος ὅλον τραγῳδίας τὸ μεταξὺ ὅλων χορικῶν μελῶν
, 'an episode is all that comes in in the interspace between two entire choral songs'. In other words the
ἐπεισόδια together with the
πρόλογος and
ἔξοδος are the acted parts of the play, the 'acts', as we should say. The term, however, often has the more general meaning of an 'insertion'; a sense which takes us back to the early days of the Drama, when Tragedy was still essentially choral, and the episode, or acted part, was only a sort of interlude in the singing. There are several instances even in the Poetics of this sense of the word. In
17, 1455 b 13
the accessories worked into the story are termed 'episodes'—the process of working them in being
ἐπεισοδιοῦν (
v.
17, 1455 b 1; 24, 1459 b 30
); and in
23, 1459 a 36
the Catalogue of the Ships is said to be one of the 'episodes' in the
Iliad. The
adj.
ἐπεισοδιώδης in the present context involves the same notion; the
ἐπεισοδιώδης μύθος is one with acts or incidents inserted into it,
i. e. only loosely connected with the main course of the story.
11c.
mvp-aristotle-comment-374
καὶ μάλιστα.
The
καί emphasizes
μάλιστα (
comp. De sensu
3, 440 b 12
;
De part. an.
1. 5, 643 a 24
; also
Riddell,
Digest of Idioms § 133). At this point
Aristotle recognizes a new element of interest in Tragedy, the element of surprise, but only incidentally, in order to bring it under the canon of construction laid down in chap. 7. The
φοβερὰ καὶ ἐλεεινά of Tragedy, he says, have the very greatest effect on the mind, when they come in unexpectedly, but at the same time as the natural or necessary consequence of incidents within the play itself (
δι' ἄλληλα).
τὸ ... θαυμαστόν,
the element of the marvellous, is recognized as a legitimate source of interest in Tragedy in
24, 1460 a 12
.
Teichmüller has a lengthy discussion on it (
Aristotelische Forschungen 2 p. 282
sqq.).
