The other factors have been already discussed. It remains to speak of Diction
and Thought.
All that concerns Thought may be left to the treatise on Rhetoric, for the subject is more proper to that inquiry. Footnote 1Thought
—no English word exactly corresponds with διάνοια—is all that which is expressed or effected by the words (cf. Aristot. Poet. 6.22, 23, and 25). Thus the student is rightly referred to the Art of Rhetoric, where he learns what to say in every case.
Aristotle adds that the rules there given for the use of ideas will guide him also in the use of incidents, since the same effect may be produced either by talk or by situation.
Under the head of Thought come all the effects to be produced by the language.
Some of these are proof and refutation, the arousing of feelings like pity, fear, anger, and so on, and then again exaggeration and depreciation. Footnote 2It is an important part of the orator’s skill to depreciate what is important and to exaggerate trivial points.
It is clear that in the case of the incidents, too, one should work on the same principles, when effects of pity or terror or exaggeration or probability have to be produced.
There is just this difference, that some effects must be clear without explanation, Footnote 3Those produced by situation.
whereas others are produced in the speeches by the speaker and are due to the speeches. For what would be the use of a speaker, if the required effect were likely to be felt without the aid of the speeches?
Under the head of Diction one subject of inquiry is the various modes of speech, the knowledge of which is proper to elocution or to the man who knows the master art Footnote 4Rhetoric is a master art
in relation to elocution, since it decides the effects to be produced, and elocution decides how to produce them. So the doctor’s art is master
to that of the dispenser, and the art of riding to that of the maker of bridles. —I mean for instance, what is a command, a prayer, a statement, a threat, question, answer, and so on.
The knowledge or ignorance of such matters brings upon the poet no censure worth serious consideration. For who could suppose that there is any fault in the passage which Protagoras censures, because Homer, intending to utter a prayer, gives a command when he says, Sing, goddess, the wrath
? To order something to be done or not is, he points out, a command.
So we may leave this topic as one that belongs not to poetry but to another art.