The Poetics of Aristotle
Translated by Samuel Henry Butcher
Aristotle wrote the Poetics in the fourth century BC as an inquiry into poetry and dramatic composition. The surviving treatise examines imitation, tragedy and epic poetry, with discussions of plot, character, recognition and diction.
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The opening
I
I propose to treat of Poetry in itself and of its various kinds, noting the essential quality of each; to inquire into the structure of the plot as requisite to a good poem; into the number and nature of the parts of which a poem is composed; and similarly into whatever else falls within the same inquiry. Following, then, the order of nature, let us begin with the principles which come first.
Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic: poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation. They differ, however, from one: another in three respects,—the medium, the objects, the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.
For as there are persons who, by conscious art or mere habit, imitate and represent various objects through the medium of colour and form, or again by the voice; so in the arts above mentioned, taken as a whole, the imitation is produced by rhythm, language, or ‘harmony,’ either singly or combined.
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About this edition
- The words
- Samuel Henry Butcher's English translation, copied word for word.
- Copied from
Public-domain source library transcription, eBook #1974. English translation by S. H. Butcher; the local title page does not state a printed edition year or publisher.
- Left out
- The source library's header, footer and license, in 4 places
- Notes and pages added by translators, editors or publishers
- Repeated work title before the author's first numbered division
- Kept as written
Its discussions of violence in tragedy and its judgments about character and status are kept as the author wrote them.