The next point is that there must be the same varieties of epic as of tragedy Footnote 1See Aristot. Poet. 18.4. : an epic must be simple or complex,
Footnote 2See chapter 10. or else turn on character
or on calamity.
The constituent parts, too, are the same with the exception of song and spectacle. Epic needs reversals and discoveries and calamities, and the thought and diction too must be good.
All these were used by Homer for the first time, and used well. Of his poems he made the one, the Iliad, a simple
story turning on calamity,
and the Odyssey a complex
story—it is full of discoveries
—turning on character. Besides this they surpass all other poems in diction and thought.
Epic differs from tragedy in the length of the composition and in metre.
The limit of length already given Footnote 3See Aristot. Poet. 7.12. will suffice—it must be possible to embrace the beginning and the end in one view,which would be the case if the compositions were shorter than the ancient epics but reached to the length of the tragedies presented at a single entertainment. Footnote 4“Entertainment” must mean a festival. At the City Dionysia three poets competed, each with three tragedies. By the end of the fifth century only one Satyr play was performed at each festival. But the tragedies were longer than those we possess. It is therefore likely that the nine tragedies together with one Satyr play amounted to about 15,000 lines. The Iliad contains between 16,000 and 17,000 lines.
Epic has a special advantage which enables the length to be increased, because in tragedy it is not possible to represent several parts of the story as going on simultaneously, but only to show what is on the stage, that part of the story which the actors are performing; whereas, in the epic, because it is narrative, several parts can be portrayed as being enacted at the same time.
If these incidents are relevant, they increase the bulk of the poem, and this increase gives the epic a great advantage in richness as well as the variety due to the diverse incidents; for it is monotony which, soon satiating the audience, makes tragedies fail.
Experience has shown that the heroic hexameter is the right metre. Were anyone to write a narrative poem in any other metre or in several metres, the effect would be wrong.
The hexameter is the most sedate and stately of all metres and therefore admits of rare words and metaphors more than others, and narrative poetry is itself elaborate above all others.
The iambic and the trochaic tetrameter are lively, the latter suits dancing and the former suits real life.
Still more unsuitable is it to use several metres as Chaeremon did.
So no one has composed a long poem in any metre other than the heroic hexameter. As we said above, Nature shows that this is the right metre to choose.
Homer deserves praise for many things and especially for this, that alone of all poets he does not fail to understand what he ought to do himself.
The poet should speak as seldom as possible in his own character, since he is not representing
the story in that sense. Footnote 5This takes us back to the beginning of chapter 3, where the various manners
of representation are distinguished. Homer represents life partly by narration, partly by assuming a character other than his own. Both these manners
come under the head of Imitation.
When Aristotle says the poet speaks himself
and plays a part himself
he refers not to narrative, of which there is a great deal in Homer, but to the preludes
(cf. φροιμιασάμενος below) in which the poet, invoking the Muse, speaks in his own person. Ridgeway points out that in the whole of the Iliad and Odyssey Homer thus speaks himself
only 24 lines. Now the other poets play a part themselves throughout the poem and only occasionally represent
a few things dramatically, but Homer after a brief prelude at once brings in a man or a woman or some other character, never without character, but all having character of their own.
Now the marvellous should certainly be portrayed in tragedy, but epic affords greater scope for the inexplicable(which is the chief element in what is marvellous), because we do not actually see the persons of the story.
The incident of Hector’s pursuit Footnote 6Iliad, xxii. 205. sq. “And to the host divine Achilles nodded with his head a sign and let them not launch their bitter darts at Hector, lest another should win glory by shooting him and Achilles himself come second.” would look ridiculous on the stage, the people standing still and not pursuing and Achilles waving them back, but in epic that is not noticed.
But that the marvellous causes pleasure is shown by the fact that people always tell a piece of news with additions by way of being agreeable.
Above all, Homer has taught the others the proper way of telling lies,that is, by using a fallacy. When B is true if A is true, or B happens if A happens, people think that if B is true A must be true or happen. But that is false. Consequently if A be untrue but there be something else, B, which is necessarily true or happens if A is true, the proper thing to do is to posit B, for, knowing B to be true, our mind falsely infers that A is true also. This is an example from the Washing. Footnote 7Odyssey 19. Odysseus tells Penelope that he is a Cretan from Gnossus, who once entertained O. on his voyage to Troy. As evidence, he describes O.’s dress and his companions (Hom. Od. 19.164-260). P. commits the fallacy of inferring the truth of the antecedent from the truth of the consequent: If his story were true, he would know these details;
But he does know them;
Therefore his story is true.”
The artist in fiction uses the same fallacy, e.g.: If chessmen could come to life the white knight would be a duffer;
But he is a most awful duffer (look at him!);
Therefore chessmen can come to life.
He makes his deductions so convincing that we falsely infer the truth of his hypothesis.
What is convincing though impossible should always be preferred to what is possible and unconvincing.
Stories should not be made up of inexplicable details; so far as possible there should be nothing inexplicable, or, if there is, it should lie outside the story—as, for instance, Oedipus not knowing how Laius died—and not in the play; for example, in the Electra the news of the Pythian games, Footnote 8In Sophocles’Electrathe plot hinges on a false story of Orestes’ death by an accident at the Pythian games. Presumably the anachronism shocked Aristotle. or in the Mysians the man who came from Tegea to Mysia without speaking. Footnote 9Telephus.
To say that the plot would otherwise have been ruined is ridiculous. One should not in the first instance construct such a plot, and if a poet does write thus, and there seems to be a more reasonable way of treating the incident, then it is positively absurd.
Even in the Odyssey the inexplicable elements in the story of his landing Footnote 10Hom. Od. 13.116ff. It seemed to the critics inexplicable that Odysseus should not awake when his ship ran aground at the harbour of Phorcys in Ithaca and the Phaeacian sailors carried him ashore. would obviously have been intolerable, had they been written by an inferior poet. As it is, Homer conceals the absurdity by the charm of all his other merits.
The diction should be elaborated only in the idle
parts which do not reveal character or thought. Footnote 11The Messengers’ speeches, a regular feature of Greek tragedy, may serve to illustrate what is here called the idle part
of a play, i.e., passages which, but for brilliant writing, might be dull, since no character is there elucidated and no important sentiments
expressed. Too brilliant diction frustrates its own object by diverting attention from the portrayal of character and thought.