Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/347

 Aristotle's treatise on poetry. 321 So, again, with respect to dithyramhics and nonies: in these, too, the imitation may be as different as that of the Persians by Tiniotheus, and the Cyclops by Philoxenus. Tragedy also, and Comedy, are distinguished in the same manner; the aim of Comedy being to exhibit men worse than we find them, that of Tragedy, better. There remains the third difference, that of the manner in which each Cap. m. 3. Manne imitatioa, of these objects may be imitated. For the poet, imitating the same ^' ^"^^^"^^^ ^^ object, and by the same means, may do it either in narration; and that, again, either personating other characters [as Homer does], or in his own person throughout, without change : or he may imitate by representing all his characters as real, and employed in the very action itself. These, then, are the three differences by which all imitation is dis- tinguished; those of the means, the object, and the manner (cV oh re, koX oiy Koi (us) : so that Sophocles is, in one respect, an imitator of the same kind with Homer, as elevated characters are the objects of both ; in an- other respect, of the same kind with Aristophanes, as both imitate in the way of action. [Whence, according to some, the application of the term Drama, i. e. action, to such poems. Upon this it is that the Dorians ground their claim to the invention both of Tragedy and Comedy. For Comedy is claimed by the Megarians, both by those of Greece, who contend that it took its rise in their popular government ; and by those of Sicily, among whom the poet Epicharmus flourished long before Chionides and Magnes; and Tragedy, also, is claimed by some of the Dorians of the Peloponnese. — Jn support of these claims, they argue from the words themselves. They allege that the Doric word for a village is Kwfxr], the Attic ArjfjLos ; and that Comedians were so called, not from Konx,at,€.Lv, to revel, but from their strolling about the Kw/xat, or villages, before they were tolerated in the city. They say, further, that to do, or act, they express by the word hpav : the Athe- nians, by TTpaTTecv.] And thus much as to the differences of imitation (fJ-tfJiyjo-Ls), how many, and what they are. Poetry, in general, seems to have derived its origin from two causes, Cap. iv. each of them natural. ^^f^ ?f 1. To Imitate is instinctive in man from his infancy. By this he pTrTgedy*^ is distinguished from other animals, that he is, of all, the most imitative, '"^ p^^^^^"' and through this instinct receives his earliest education. All men, likewise, naturally receive pleasure from imitation. This is evident from what we experience in viewing the works of imitative art; for in D. T. G. 21