Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/348

 322 Aristotle's treatise on poetry. them we contemplate with pleasure, and with the more pleasure the more exactly they are imitated, such objects as, if real, we could not see without pain, as the figures of the meanest and most disgusting animals, dead bodies, and the like. And the reason of this is, that to learn is a very great pleasure, not confined to philosophers, but common to all men; with this difierence only, that the multitude partake of it in a more transient and compendious manner. Hence the pleasure they receive from a picture ; in viewing it, they learn, they infer ^ they dis- cover, what every object is; that this, for instance, is such a particular man, &c. For if we suppose the object represented to be something which the spectator had never seen, in that case his pleasure mil not arise from the imitation, as sucli^ but from the workmanship, the colours, or some such cause. 2. Imitation, then, being thus natural to us; and, secondly. Har- mony and Rhythm being also natural (for as to metres, they are plainly comprised in rhythm), those persons, in whom originally these propen- sities were the strongest, were naturally led to rude and extemporaneous attempts, which, gradually improved, gave birth to Poetry. But this Poetry, following the different characters of its authors, naturally divided itself into two different kinds. They who were of a grave and lofty spirit chose for their imitation the actions and adven- tures of elevated characters; while poets of a lighter turn represented those of the vicious and contemptible. And these composed, originally, Satires, as the former did Hymns and Encomia. Of the lighter kind, we have no poem anterior to the time of Homer, though many such, in all probability, there were ; but from his time, we have : as, his Margites, and others of the same species, in which the Iambic was introduced as the most proper measure; and hence, indeed, the name of Iambic, because it was the measure in which they used to satirize each other {lo.ixf^it,€iv). And thus these old poets were divided into two classes — those who used the heroic, and those who used the iambic verse. And as, in the serious kind. Homer alone may be said to deserve the name of poet, not only on account of his other excellencies, but also of the dramatic spirit of his imitations; so was he likewise the first who suggested the idea of Comedy, by substituting ridicide for invective, and giving that ridicule a dramatic cast; for his Margites bears the same analogy to Comedy, as his Hiad and Odyssey to Tragedy. But when Tragedy and Comedy had once made their appearance, succeeding poets, according to the turn of their genius, attached themselves to the 1 Eitter proposes to read ovx^ /a^/t^^ua ^ fiifj.rjixa.~-J. W. D.