ARISTOTLES - POETICS

4. How tragedy can best achieve its function.

4.1

Plot in Tragedy

After what we have just been saying, we must perhaps discuss next what [poets] should aim at and what they should beware of in constructing plots, i.e. how tragedy will achieve its function.

4.1.1

The deduction of the best change of fortune.

Since the construction of the first tragedy should be not simple but complex, and more over it should represent terrifying and pitiable events (for this is particular to representation of this sort), first, clearly, it should not show (i) decent men undergoing a change from good fortune to misfortune; for this is neither terrifying nor pitiable, but shocking. Nor [should it show] (ii) wicked men [passing] from misfortune to good fortune. This is most un-tragic of all, as it has nothing of what it should; for it is neither morally satisfying nor pitiable nor terrifying. Nor, again, [should it show] (iii) a thoroughly villainous person falling from good fortune into misfortune: such a structure can contain moral satisfaction, but not pity or terror, for the former is [felt] for a person undeserving of his misfortune, and the later for a person like [ourselves]. Consequentially the outcome will be neither pitiable nor terrifying.

There remains, then, the person intermediate between these. Such a person is one who neither is superior [to us] in virtue and justice, nor undergoes a change to misfortune because of vice and wickedness, but because of some error, and who is one of those people with a great reputation and good fortune, e.g. Oedipus, Thyestes and distinguished men from similar families. Necessarily, then, a plot that is fine is single rather than (as some say) double, and involves a change not from misfortune to good fortune, but conversely from good fortune to misfortune, not because of wickedness but because of a great error by a person like the one mentioned, or by a better person rather than a worse one.

4.1.1.1

The tragedians’ practice confirms this

An indication [that this is so] is what is coming about. At first the poets recounted stories at random, but now the finest tragedies are constructed around a few households, e.g. about Almeon, Oedipus, Orestes, Meleager, Thyestes, Telephus and the others, who happen to have had dreadful things done to them, or to have done them. So the tragedy which is finest according to the [principles of the] art results from this structure.

4.1.1.2

Critics of this change of fortune are misguided.

For this reason, people make the same error when they bring against Euripides the charge that he does this in his tragedies, and many of his [tragedies] end in misfortune; for this, as we said, is correct. A very important indication [that this is so is the following]. On stage and in performance tragedies of this sort, if they are done correctly, are obviously the most tragic, and although Euripides manages badly in other respects, he is obviously the most tragic of poets.

The second [-best] structure is that which some say is first, the [tragedy] which has a double structure like the Odyssey, and which ends in opposite ways for the better and worse [persons]. This [structure] would seem to be first because of the weakness of the audiences; the poets follow the spectators, composing to suit their wishes.

4.1.1.3

Plot not spectacle can best achieve the function of tragedy.

That which is terrifying and pitiable can arise from spectacle, but it can also arise from the structure of the incidents itself; this is superior and belongs to a better poet. For the plot should be constructed in such a way that, even without seeing it, someone who hears about the incidents will shudder and feel pity at the outcome, as someone may feel upon hearing the plot of the Oedipus. To produce this by means of spectacle is less artful and requires lavish production.

But this is not the pleasure (that) [comes from tragedy, but is more particular to comedy. There the bitterest enemies in the story, e.g. Orestes and Aegisthus, exit as

friends at the conclusion, and nobody kills anyone else.

Those [poets] who use spectacle to produce what is only monstrous and not terrifying have nothing in common with tragedy. For we should not seek every [kind] pleasure from tragedy, but [only] the sort which is particular to it. Since the poet should use representation to produce the pleasure [arising] from pity and terror, it is obvious that this must be put into the incidents.