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T H E P E N G U I N C L A S S I C S
F O U N D E R E D I T O R (1944-64): E. V. R I E U

E D I T O R :
Belly Radice

Aristotle was born in Stageira in 384 B.C., in the dominion of the Mace­
donian kings. He studied in Athens under Plato, leaving on his death, and
some time later became tutor to the young Alexander the Great. On
Alexander’s succession to the throne in 335 B.C., Aristotle returned to
Athens and established the Lyceum, where his vast erudition attracted a
large number of scholars. After Alexander’s death he was regarded in
some quarters with suspicion, because he had been known as Alexander’s
friend. He was accused of impiety, and consequently fled to Chalcis in
Euboea, where he died in the same year. His writings covered an ex­
tremely wide range of subjects, and fortunately many of them have
survived. Among the most famous are the Etbicr and the Politics. These
have both been published in Penguin Classics.

Horace, the Latin lyric poet and satirist, was born in Venusia in Apulia
in about 65 B.C. He was educated in Rome and Athens. In 44 Horace
enlisted in Brutus’s army and fought at Philippi as a military tribune.
Ensuing poverty, he says, drove him to write poetry. Horace is said to be
the most quoted author of antiquity, appealing to a wider range of readers
of every age and at any age, than any other ancient poet. Among his
writings are Satires I, Satires II, the Epodes, Odes I-I1I and the Epistles I
and Epistles II. The Oder have been published in Penguin Classics.

It has been thought that the treatise On the Sublime was written by
Cassius Longinus who was a 3rd-century B.C. Greek rhetorician, minister
of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra. However, it is now generally ascribed to
an unknown Greek author, Longinus, writing in the mid ist-century B.C.

T. S. Dorsch was Professor of English at the University of Durham
from 1968 until his retirement in 1976. He also taught at Westfield Col­
lege, University of London, where he was Reader. Among his publications
is the Shakespeare section in The New Cambridge Bibliography of Englirb
Literature (1974).

CLASSICAL

LITERARY C R I T I C I

A R I S T O T L E : On the Art of ‘Poetry

H O R A C E : On the Art of Poetry

L O N G I N U S : On the Sublime

T R A N S L A T E D W I T H

A N I N T R O D U C T I O N B Y

T . S. Dorsch

P E N G U I N B O O K S

Penguin Books L t d , Hartnondsworth, Middlesex, E n g l a n d
Penguin Books, 625 Madison Avenue. N e w Y o r k , N e w York 10022, U . S . A .

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T h i s translation first published in 1005
Reprinted 1967, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1974. 1975. *977i 1978, X979. 1981

Copyright © T . S . Dorsch, 1 9 6 5
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•

Contents

I N T R O D U C T I O N

A R I S T O T L E : On the Art of Poetry

H O R A C E : On the Art of Poetry

L O N G I N U S : On tin Sublime

Introduction

T H E translations in this volume begin with Aristotle’s Poetics.
But literary criticism, as the term is understood today, did
not come into being with Aristotle, any more than epic poetry
came into being with the Homeric poems or English poetry
with Chaucer. A very rudimentary form of literary criticism
may perhaps be discerned already in Homer and Hesiod, both
of whom regard poetry as the product of divine inspiration;
for Homer its function is to g ive pleasure, for Hesiod to g ive
instruction, to pass on the message breathed into the poet by
the Muse. A few literary pronouncements are scattered through
the odes of Pindar, and the philosophers Xenophanes and
Heraclitus both find fault with passages of Homer. Discussion
of these first stirrings of the critical faculty will be found in
the first vo lume of J . W. H. Atkins’s Literary Criticism in
Antiquity (Methuen, 1952) . However , nothing more than a
handful of sketchy comments on poets and poetry emerges
from these early periods.

With Aristophanes w e enter into a different world. In most
of his eleven extant plays, which were produced in the last
quarter of the fifth and the early years of the fourth centuries
B . C . , the writers and thinkers of his own age and of the im­
mediately preceding age figure, often very prominently, among
the objects of his satire. In The Clouds; for example, he takes
Socrates as the leading representative of the New Learning of
the day, and, by the method of reductio ad absurdum, makes fun
of him and of his techniques of argument and instruction. In
TheBirdshe has much to say about contemporary lyrical poetry,
and in The Wasps something about contemporary comedy.

However , Euripides is the principal object of Aristophanes’
literary satire. By some of his contemporaries Euripides was
considered to be lowering the dignity of tragedy by his fond­
ness for maimed and diseased and ‘ l o w ‘ characters and for
‘ l o w ‘ diction, and in The Acharnians, the first of Aristophanes’
surviving plays, written some twenty years before the death of
Euripides, the latter is depicted as a purveyor of rag-bag

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

language and rag-bag characters, and is induced to part with
some of his rags in the shape of phrases from his plays. In the
Thesmophoria^usae he incurs the anger of the women of Athens
for having traduced their sex in his plays, and is made to appear
in some ridiculous situations. And he is known to have been the
main object of satire in the Proagon, one of the lost plays of
Aristophanes. Finally, as most readers will know, the second
half of The Frogs concerns an attempt by Euripides to oust
Aeschylus from the throne of tragedy in Hades. A contest be­
tween the two poets is arranged, with Dionysus as judge, and
they alternately spout lines from their plays which Dionysus
weighs in a pair of scales. Although he has to g ive ground on
a few artistic points, Aeschylus emerges as t h e ‘ weightier ‘ poet,
especially in subject-matter, and after the final round, in which
the question at issue is the soundness of the political advice
imparted by each of them, Aeschylus is adjudged the clear
winner. In the course of the dispute many weaknesses and idio­
syncrasies of the two poets are laid bare; at the same time
Aristophanes shows that he is well aware of their many
excellences.

For , in spite of the ridicule that he heaps upon him in the
various plays in which he appears, it must not be supposed
that Aristophanes is merely the detractor of Euripides. Indeed,
it is clear that, although there are elements in his plays of
which he disapproves, he actually admires him. His admiration
is most obviously manifested in his intimate familiarity with
the plays of Euripides, a familiarity which enables him always
to select the most telling lines or phrases to use against him.
Furthermore, while Aristophanes freely employs scurrility and
abuse in exposing the vice and the evil motives of those w h o m
he hates or despises – Cleon, for example, and the military and
political leaders generally – he is always good-humoured in
his treatment of Euripides. He never calls in question his
reputation or integrity or personal qualities, as he so often
does with those whom he dislikes; and his satire of him in The
Frogs is interspersed with what may be interpreted as praise of
some of his artistic merits. He grants, in effect, that Euripides
has clarified tragedy by his skilful use of prologues which
explain details and give a clear picture of anterior events; that

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

he has a feeling for dialogue, in contrast with what might
almost be called the set-speech method of Aeschylus; and that
his realism and rationalism bring tragedy into a closer touch
with real life than had been achieved by earlier poets. Indeed,
in matters relating to the art and craft of tragedy he allows him
some slight superiority over Aeschylus. His criticism is much
broader in scope and less one-sided in intention than is
sometimes suggested.

This is not the place for a full-scale study of Aristophanes’
criticism, but a few general conclusions may be drawn. In his
plays, especially The Frogs, he displays a well-developed taste
and a keen insight in his literary judgements. He does not
attempt anything like a full estimate of the authors whom he
treats, not even of Euripides, but his v iews are always grounded
in good sense, and are presented more concretely, perhaps, than
those of any other critic until comparatively recent times; they
are concretely presented not only by reason of his setting his
authors before us to reveal themselves, but also by his methods
of selective quotation with attendant comments, and of bril­
liantly perceptive parody, which in combination amount to
something not unlike the modern analysis of texts. It is not
possible, I think, to draw his judgements together into a clearly-
defined critical code. However , he is consistent in his dislike of
excesses and affectations of any kind, and he brings out a fund­
amental aspect of literary criticism in the importance that he
attaches to moral values in the judgement of literature. I le is
a very important figure in the early history of literary criticism.

That other comic playwrights contemporary with and later
than Aristophanes were also fond of literary subjects is sug­
gested by several play-titles that have come down to us. For
example, Cratinus, w h o in fact was born about seventy-five
years before Aristophanes, wrote a play entitled Archilocboi,
which had a chorus of Archilochuses. Archilochus of Paros,
w h o flourished at the turn of the eighth and seventh centuries,
was a poet of very high repute among the ancients; among
other things, he is generally credited with the establishment
of satire as a literary genre, and he was held up as the type of
the severe critic. It may be presumed that a play in which the
chorus was made up of Archilochuses contained literary satire,

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

perhaps of much the same kind as Aristophanes wrote. Other
titles that have survived include The Poet, The Muses, Sappho,
The Rehearsal, and Heracles the Stage-Manager; but as these plays
are lost, nothing can be said about the way in which they treated
literary topics. A fragment remains from a play entitled
Poetry, written by Antiphanes probably about the middle of the
fourth century; it concerns the relative difficulties of writing
tragedy and comedy.

It is not easy to write briefly about Plato’s contribution to
literary criticism. His literary judgements are scattered through
seven or eight of his Socratic dialogues, and are invariably
subordinated to topics – ethical, metaphysical, political, or
educational – which are more fundamental to the particular
theses that he is at the time developing. Plato’s active career
coincides almost exactly with the first half of the fourth century.

Everyone knows that Plato attacked poets and poetry, and
excluded poets from his ideal republic. It is not so generally
known that he attacked them only for particular reasons and in
particular contexts. He himself wrote poetry, and wrote very
poetically in his prose w o r k s ; and although there were qualities
in much existing poetry of which he did not approve, it is clear
from many remarks in the dialogues that, generally speaking, he
found much pleasure in poetry. In The Republic, where his so-
called attack is most fully developed, his main preoccupations
are political, not artistic. He banishes literature and the arts
because they have no political utility, and may indeed exert
an adverse influence on the particular virtues that must be
fostered for the proper maintenance of his ideal common­
wealth. He banishes the poets, but before doing so, he anoints
them with myrrh and crowns them with garlands. He must
banish them on political grounds, but honours them by other
standards.

Plato’s discussion of poetry in The Republic is to be found
at the end of the second and the beginning of the third Books ,
and in the tenth Book. In Book I I I he is mainly concerned with
the education of the Guardians of his commonwealth, and he
begins with their literary education, which he considers under
three heads, theological, moral, and formal.

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

N o w young people are impressionable, says Socrates, and
‘any impression we choose to make leaves a permanent mark’ .
He goes on to argue that G o d is perfectly good, and therefore
both changeless and incapable of deceit, but thepoets often show
him as falling short in these respects; they misrepresent gods
and heroes, ‘ like a portrait painter who fails to catch a likeness’,
and thus in the theological sense they are unsuitable preceptors
(Republic I I , 377-83) . O n moral grounds, too, most existing
poetry is unsuitable for educational purposes, for in their
accounts of the gods and of the great heroes of the past the
poets have depicted various forms of moral weakness, and here
again they will have a bad effect on the minds of the young
(ibid. I l l , 386-92). In the discussion of the form, or manner of
presentation, of poetry we encounter for the first time the
term mimesis, or imitation, which is to figure so largely again
in Book X of The Republic and in Aristotle’s Poetics. Here in
Book III Plato uses it in a rather specialized sense, perhaps best
translated as ‘ impersonation’ : that is, what the poet does when
he is not speaking in his own person, as he does in lyric, but,
by the use of direct speech in drama or in parts of epic, repre­
sents or impersonates another person. In their reading aloud
from the poets (which formed a large part of Greek education)
the young future Guardians, Plato causes Socrates to say, will
learn by the poets’ example to depart from their own characters
by having to represent other characters, including bad char­
acters. This will not do in a republic in which everyone has to
learn how best to play his own part, and not to interfere with
the functions of other people (ibid. I l l , 394-8). For his illustra­
tions of the bad influence of the poets on the bringing up of his
Guardians Plato draws chiefly on Homer, Hesiod, and the
tragic playwrights.

At the beginning of Book X (595-602) Plato’s general
argument is that poetry and the arts are illusion. In comparison
with the meaning he attaches to it in Book I I I , he greatly ex­
tends and deepens the sense of the term mimesis. He now uses it
to signify imitation, or representation, in the much wider sense
of the copying of reality – of the objects and circumstances of
the actual world – by means of literature and the visual arts.
In literature this implies the attempt to reproduce life exactly

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

as it is. Of this Plato cannot approve, and he gives the grounds
of his disapproval in terms of his Theory of Ideas. According
to this theory everything that exists, or happens, in this world
is an imperfect copy of an ideal object or action or state that
has an ideal existence beyond this world. T h e productions of
the poets (and artists) are therefore imitations of imperfect
copies of an ideal life; they are third-hand and unreal, and can
teach us nothing of value about life.

Plato goes on to argue in some detail that the appeal of
poetry is to the lower, less rational, part of our nature; it
strengthens the lower elements in the mind at the expense of
reason.

Finally Plato takes up again the charge that poetry is a bad
moral influence. But whereas in Book I I I he had related his
argument to the education of his Guardians, here he widens its
scope, as he has done with mimesis. He now maintains that
poetry, especially dramatic poetry, has a bad moral effect on
those who hear it, for they soon learn to admire it, and thence
to model themselves on the weaknesses and faults that it
represents.

This, in bare summary, is the gist of Plato’s attack on poetry
in The Republic. It may be objected that, in stressing the
demoralizing effect of the worse elements in poetry, he too
readily discounts the strengthening and invigorating influence
that it might exert by its representation of what is good. H o w ­
ever, he is arguing on grounds of political expediency, and,
since the poet’s potentialities for doing harm seem to him so
great, especially by reason of the seductive charm of what he
writes, he must exclude him from his ideal republic. He will
allow entry to the lyrical poet w h o will sing in praise of the
gods and of the virtues of good men, but to no other poet.

In The luiws, where his subject is again the nature of an
ideal state, Plato’s discussion of the place of literature and
art in education is more general. T h e citizens, he says, must
be educated in ‘ g o o d art ‘ , and good art, he concludes, is that
in which not only is the imitation – all art being imitative –
as true as it is possible to make it, but also the object imitated
is beautiful or good (Plato’s word is kalos, which he uses with
the sense of both ‘beautiful ‘ and ‘ g o o d ‘ ) . Here, then, w e

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

have at least a limited acceptance of the value of the arts. In
other works , however, his disapproval is more apparent. In
the Protagoras (326a, 339a) Protagoras voices the general cur­
rent v iew of the poets: that since Homer they have been
accepted as educators, and that their teachings help to make
good citizens. In the Lysis (2 13c) they are described as ‘the
fathers and authors of w isdom’ . But, in the arguments put
forward by Socrates, Plato makes clear his belief that this
indiscriminate admiration for the poets is mere superstition,
and that their judgements on conduct and morality are un­
reliable. This unreliability comes from the fact that, as Plato
expresses it in the Apology (22c), poets compose their works,
not under the influence of wisdom, ‘but by reason of some
natural endowment and under the power of non-rational
inspiration’. This notion of the irrationality of the poets is
further developed in the Phaedrus (244) and the Ion (5 34), where
they are equated with madmen and men w h o merely reproduce
in a state of frenzy what the Muse has inspired them to say.
N o r will Plato have anything to do with the allegorical inter­
pretation, fashionable in his day, of that which in the poets
appears obscure or contradictory. He rejects such interpreta­
tions, not only in The Republic, but also in the Protagoras (347c)
and the Phaedrus (229).

Much has been made of Plato’s animadversions on poets and
poetry, but he is very far from being merely a negative critic.
E v e n in The Republic (607) he is ready to g ive a favourable
hearing to those w h o wish to defend poetry, ‘as we shall gain
much if we find her a source of profit as well as pleasure ‘ ;
and, as has been shown, he is in The TMWS prepared to accept the
mimetic arts of epic and drama if only their poets will imitate
worthy things.

However , he puts forward more positively constructive
views than these. In the Phaedrus (245 a, 265) he gives a deeper
meaning to the concept of inspiration than that which has
already been mentioned; inspiration can, indeed, g ive rise to
the utterances of a madman, but it can also be ‘ a divine release
of the soul from the yoke of custom and convention’ . In the
same work (264) he discusses the principle of organic unity,
which he considers basic to the whole idea of art. He speaks to

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

the same effect in the Gorgias (505), and touches on it also in
The Republic (398). In other respects he inaugurates systems or
points of view which have become commonplaces in the
criticism of later ages. In The Republic, as has been seen, he
draws distinctions, according to their manner of presentation,
between epic, lyric, and drama. In The Laws (817) he speaks of
the truest tragedy as that which represents the best and noblest
type of life, a view later developed by Aristotle, and taken up
by Renaissance critics. In The Republic (387, 605) and the
Phaedrus (268) he accepts pity and fear as the emotions partic­
ularly awakened by tragedy, another conception which was
carried further by Aristotle. In the Philebus (47-8) he embarks
on a topic which has been much discussed by recent theorists
of tragedy, that of ‘ tragic pleasure’ – the special kind of
pleasure that we derive from watching a good tragedy. He is
the first critic who is known to have theorized constructively
on the nature of comedy, largely in the Philebus (48-9). And
it may be mentioned in passing that he also contributed
sensibly to rhetorical theory.

So far Plato has been considered only as a speculative critic.
He frequently demonstrates that he is a good practical critic as
well. T o g ive only two or three examples, in the Symposium
( 194-7) he exposes the extravagances and mannerisms of the
poet Agathon by means of devastating parody. In the Pro-
tagoras()44) he causes Socrates to deride Protagoras and others
for their misguided methods in criticizing an ode by Simonides;
Socrates himself draws attention to its excellent craftsmanship
and its wealth of fine detail, and says that it should be judged
according to its total effect, not merely by reference to isolated
phrases. Moreover, Plato more than once mocks the sensation­
alism of contemporary tragic playwrights, and in the Cratylus
(425) their excessive use of the deus ex machina to get them out of
difficult situations.

Plato is, then, an able and a very influential critic. He is
not represented in the translations that appear in this volume
only because The Republic and many of the other works which
have been referred to are already available as Penguin Classics.

In a work on classical literary criticism which offers no

I N T R O D U C T I O N

texts earlier than Aristotle’s Poetics it has seemed necessary to
g ive some account of the most significant earlier critics.
Aristotle himself and J lorace and Longinus may perhaps be
dealt with equally briefly, since they are here to speak for
themselves.

Aristotle was born at Stagira, in Macedonia, in 384 B.C.
A t the age of seventeen he went to Athens, where he became a
pupil of Plato, at whose death twenty years later he left Athens.
In 342 Philip of Macedon appointed him tutor to his young son,
later Alexander the Great. On Alexander’s succession to the
throne in 335 Aristotle returned to Athens, and was put in
charge of the Lyceum, a ‘ gymnas ium’ sacred to Apol lo Lyceus.
He was a man of vast erudition; his lectures and writings
covered almost every aspect of human knowledge that was
studied in his day, and attracted a large number of scholars
to the Lyceum. After Alexander’s death he was in some quarters
regarded with suspicion as a friend of Alexander’s, was accused
of impiety, and in 322 fled to Chalcis in Euboea, where he died
in the same year.

T h e Poetics cannot be dated, but it appears to be a late work
by Aristotle, since it presupposes in the reader a knowledge
of other mature works by Aristotle, especially the Ethics, the
Politics, and the Rhetoric (see especially the discussion of pity
and fear in Rhetoric I I , 5, 7). The form and nature of the work
have been much discussed. It is often elliptical in expression,
and some of its ideas seem inadequately, at times almost
incoherently, developed. These circumstances have led to a
belief that it is not a treatise in anything like a final form, but
consists rather of jottings or lecture-notes, whether Aristotle’s
own notes, or notes taken down by a pupil in a course of
lectures. However , condensed as it is, it is more complete and
coherent on some of the topics it treats than has always been
allowed.

Aristotle opens by outlining the scope of the work – a study
of the poetic kinds, that is, epic poetry, dramatic poetry, and
lyrical poetry. These arc the kinds that were defined by Plato,
though Aristotle’s later treatment of them differs from Plato’s.
T h e first three chapters are largely a discussion of imitation
(mimesis), in Plato’s later use of the word , under the heads of

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

16

the objects of poetic imitation, that is, the types of men and
activities that are imitated or represented, and of the manner
of imitation, which, as in Plato, differentiates the three poetic
kinds that have been named. T h e next two chapters trace
the origins and development of poetry, taking in the factors
that led to the differences between serious lyrical poetry and
lampoon or satire, and between comedy and tragedy and epic.

In Chapter 6 Aristotle embarks upon the most important
subject of the Poetics, tragic drama. 1 le first describes the nature
of tragedy, to which we shall return later, and its constituent
parts: plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song.
In the following chapter he discusses the scope of the plot, and
the fact that it must have a beginning, a middle, and an end,
and in Chapter 8 the organic unity of the plot. Chapter 9 begins
with the famous digression in which Aristotle argues that
‘poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy
of serious attention than history’ . He goes on to draw dis­
tinctions between simple and complex plots, and to introduce
us to some technical terms that played a large part both in his
own and in Renaissance criticism, namely, ‘ reversa l ‘ , ‘d i s ­
covery ‘ , and ‘calamity ‘ . Next he defines the main parts of
tragedy, such things as the prologue, the episodes, the exode,
and the choral songs. Chapters 13 and 14 contain his well-
known discussion of what he means by his association of pity
and fear with tragedy – a development of his definition of
tragedy in Chapter 6, where in one of his most controversial
phrases he spoke of their importance among the functions of
tragedy: ‘ b y means of pity and fear bringing about the
purgation of such emotions’ .

The next two chapters are devoted to characterization and
the reasons why it is less important in tragedy than plot.
Chapter 16 describes the various kinds of discovery that are
.appropriate to tragedy; and the following two chapters contain
what might be called ‘ r u l e s ‘ for the tragic poet: the careful
planning of the play, the filling in of suitable episodes, the
functions of the chorus, and consideration of scope and
structure. Chapter 19 concerns the elements of drama that
Aristotle calls thought and diction.

Chapters 20, 2 1 , and 22 consist largely of definitions: of

I N T R O D U C T I O N

“7

letters, syllables, and parts of speech; of figures such as
metaphor; of what constitutes suitable diction.

And now at last, in the final four chapters, Aristotle gives
serious consideration to epic poetry. He analyses its scope,
plot, structure, and subject-matter in much the same terms as
he has employed in the treatment of tragedy. And finally,
having compared the two genres, finding the chief differences
in the length of the work and the metre used, he comes to the
conclusion that tragedy is the better of the two.

This short analysis will , I hope, have indicated the nature
and range of the Poetics, and brought out the comparative
thoroughness with which it treats at least tragedy. It will also
have shown some of the differences between Aristotle’s
approach to poetry and Plato’s. There is reason to believe that
Aristotle wrote a second part, dealing with comedy, which has
not survived.

T h e Poetics is often described as an answer to Plato’s views
on poetry. It is of course more than this, for Aristotle is much
concerned with putting forward views of his own, with
studying the methods of the great poets and drawing con­
clusions from them, and with laying down and defining a
critical terminology, in doing which he rendered a valuable
service to critics of later periods. Nevertheless, although he
never names Plato, it is clear that he is sometimes ‘answering ‘
him. F o r instance, in the matter of imitation, where Plato
asserts that the worth of poetry should be judged by the truth
to life achieved by the imitation, not by the pleasure it gives,
Aristotle argues that correct imitation is in itself a source of
pleasure; and where Plato asserts that the object imitated
must be beautiful, Aristotle argues that the imitation of ugly
things is capable of possessing beauty. Against Plato’s objec­
tion to poetry on the grounds that it excites the emotions,
which ought to be kept under control, Aristotle, while agreeing
that it does indeed excite the emotions, claims that in doing so
it releases them, and hence has the effect of reducing them. T o
g ive one more example, Plato takes exception to poetry as an
imitation of an imitation of the ideal, which places it at a
considerable remove from the truth; Aristotle’s answer is that,
in its concern with universal truths, the poetic treatment of

I N T R O D U C T I O N

a subject is more valuable than a historical treatment, the aim
of which is to reach the truth merely by way of facts – poetry
is, indeed, more concerned with ultimate truth than history.

In a short introduction it is impossible to do more than
touch on a few of the points of special interest in the Poetics.
It is still, perhaps, necessary to begin by emphasizing that it
is not a manual of instruction for the would-be playwright.
Aristotle’s main intention was to describe and define what
appeared to have been most effective in the practice of the best
poets and playwrights, and to make suggestions about what he
regarded as the best procedure. The misconception, still to some
extent current, that he was laying down a set of rules for
composition arose with the Renaissance critics. For example,
it was Castelvetro who , in his edition of the Poetics published
in 15 70, formulated in rigid terms the ‘Aristotelian rules ‘ of the
three unities – the unities of time, place, and action. In fact,
Aristotle only once mentions time in relation to dramatic
action. In Chapter 5, speaking of differences between epic and
tragedy, he says , ‘ Tragedy tries as far as possible to keep within
a single revolution of the sun, or only slightly to exceed it,
whereas the epic observes no limits in its time of act ion. ‘ ‘ Tries
as far as possible . . . ‘ : there is nothing here that can be called
a rule; and indeed several of the great Attic tragedies far
exceed twenty-four hours in their time of action. Nor does
Aristotle lay down any rules about unity of place, or even say
that it is desirable to confine the action to a single place.
Certainly he insists on unity of action, and that in terms that
come as close to the formulation of a rule as anything in the
whole of the Poetics; but the doctrine of the three unities, as
it has been understood in recent centuries, cannot be laid to
his account.

Something must be said about the important principle of
organic unity which, as w e have seen, is formulated by both
Plato and Aristotle, and later also by Horace and Longinus. In
Chapter 7, where he is discussing some of the requirements of
plot in tragedy, Aristotle says, ‘Whatever is beautiful, whether
it be a l iving creature or an object made up of various parts,
must necessarily not only have its parts properly ordered, but
also of an appropriate size, for beauty is bound up with size

18

I N T R O D U C T I O N

and o r d e r ‘ ; and a few lines la ter , ‘ N o w in just the same way as
l iving creatures and organisms compounded of many parts
must be of a reasonable size, . . . so too plots must be of a
reasonable length.’ Furthermore, in Chapter 23 he declares that
a well-constructed epic will be ‘ l ike a single complete organ­
i sm’ . As Humphry House has pointed out, the comparison of
the unity of a literary work with that of a l iving organism is
important because it refutes the charge that ‘Aristotle is
describing a formal, dead, mechanical kind of unity ‘ . T h e
notion of a living organism, when it is related to literature,
implies growth and v igour in that literature, and, too, lack of
uniformity, since probably no t w o living organisms are
precisely alike.

Rather more complex is Aristotle’s treatment of the relation­
ship between plot and character in drama; but this needs to
be studied in conjunction with passages of the Ethics, and
this is not the place for such a study. Briefly, Aristotle’s view
is that in life character is subordinated to action because it
is the product of action; it is developed in particular directions
by the nature of our actions from our earliest days, and a
man’s bent of character can be manifested only in his actions.
Similarly, in drama ‘character ‘ in its full and proper sense
can be manifested only in action, and must therefore play a
subordinate part to plot.

T h e vexed question of what Aristotle means by catharsis, or
purgation, can also be fully considered only by reference to
others of his writings, especially the Rhetoric and the Ethics.
Al l that I shall say about it here is that I believe that by the
catharsis of such emotions as pity and fear (Chapter 6) he means
their restoration to the right proportions, to the desirable
‘ m e a n ‘ which is the basis of his discussion of human qualities
in the Ethics.

T w o books which deal fully and helpfully with the points I
have dismissed so briefly, and with others I have not men­
tioned, are Aristot/e’s Poetics: A Course of Eight Lectures, by
Humphry House (Hart-Davis, 1956), and Aristot/e’s Poetics: The
Argument, by Gerald F. E lse (Harvard U.P. and O.U.P. , 1957) .

Horace was born at or near Venusia, in the south-east of

*9

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Italy, in 65 B.C. F rom his early education in R o m e under the
famous flogging schoolmaster Orbilius Pupillus he proceeded
to Athens in order to study philosophy. While he was there
Julius Caesar was assassinated, and Brutus, on his way to
Macedonia, offered Horace a command in the Republican
Army, which he accepted, and fought on the losing side at
Philippi. Although his Italian estates were confiscated, he was
allowed to return to Rome, where he served as a clerk to the
treasury. Later he was introduced by his friends Virgil and
Varius to Maecenas, the great patron of letters, w h o in the
course of time became his close friend and conferred many
benefits on him, including a fine estate near Tivol i . Although
much courted by the Emperor Augustus, he held aloof from
him for several years, but eventually gave him his warm
friendship and admiration, and addressed several of his finest
poems to him. Horace died in 8 B . C . , a few weeks after his
friend Maecenas.

One of the fruits of Horace’s friendship with the Emperor is
the Epistle to Augustus (Epistles I I , 1 ) . After the courtly com­
pliments of the opening, the first ninety lines or so are an
attack on those who , g iv ing their admiration – or lip-service –
to the ancients, express disapproval of contemporary liter­
ature. This attack is followed by a perceptive comparison
between the origins of Greek and of Roman poetry, on much
the same lines as that in the Ars Poetica ( ‘Grais ingenium . . .
dedit Musa ‘ ) , and by an instructive outline history of Roman
poetry. In line 177 Horace turns to the theatre audiences of the
day, and reproves them for preferring mere spectacle to good
plays and good acting. Finally he praises the Emperor ‘s good
taste, and asks him to g ive his patronage to other kinds of
poetry than the dramatic. T h e epistle displays a fine indepen­
dence of judgement. In the critical sense it is important for its
historical retrospect; for the view it expresses that poetry should
be judged by its intrinsic merits, and not for its antiquity; for
its argument that the conditions in which Roman literature
developed made it inevitable that it should not achieve great­
ness until a comparatively late period; and for its claim that
such poets as Virgi l and Varius were working on the right
lines in their progress towards poetic immortality.

2 0

I N T R O D U C T I O N

T h e Epistle to Ju/ius Floras {Epistles I I , 2) is to some extent
autobiographical, and Horace half-playfully gives his reasons
for not writing much poetry, especially lyrical poetry, at this
period of his life – perhaps round about 16 or 15 B . C . For
literary criticism the most important part of this poem is the
section near the end in which Horace satirizes the popular but
shallow poets of the day, and gives his own views on poetic
technique, especially the need for the most careful revision in
order to ensure that the best words have been found and set
d o w n in the best order.

L ike these two works , the Ars Poetica is a verse epistle –
Epistula ad Pisones; but already within a century of Horace’s
death Quintilian was referring to it as Ars Poetica, the title
by which it is now generally known, or as Uber de Arte Poetica.
T h e date of its composition has been a matter of dispute, but it
is now widely accepted that it belongs to the end of I lorace’s
career, to some time between 12 and 8 B . C . If this dating is
correct, the father whom Horace addresses (Piso, pater) would
probably be Lucius Piso, w h o was born in 50 or 49, and who
was consul in 1 5 . I f this Piso had married fairly young, he
could have had, in the last years of Horace’s life, two sons
g rowing towards manhood (Juvenes), and capable of having
formed the literary ambitions which Horace attributes to the
young men in the poem.

It is clear that the epistle was written primarily for the
guidance of the elder son, w h o had in hand, or at least in mind,
some literary project. The father emerges as a man of mature
judgement to whom the young man may turn for advice and
criticism; and the younger son figures merely as the third mem­
ber of the family, no doubt also possessing literary potenti­
alities, but too young to show any particular bent. Since so large
a proportion of the poem relates to drama, it may be inferred
that the elder son was engaged upon or planning some form of
dramatic composition. Horace not only gives him specific
advice on procedure, but also, like previous critics and like
Longinus later, demonstrates that natural ability must be
supplemented by careful study and guided by discipline – that
literary success depends on a combination of nature and art.
Furthermore, the poet must submit what he writes to rigorous

2 1

I N T R O D U C T I O N

criticism, and not g ive it to the world without the most
meticulous revision.

Horace gives us in the Ars Poetica no strikingly profound
or basically new critical doctrines. He draws freely on the
Greeks and on earlier Roman writers, including Cicero. But
w e should not on these grounds be led to depreciate his worth
as a literary critic; nor should we be deceived by his informal
epistolary manner – his discursiveness, his comparative lack
of method, his occasional light-heartedness. His importance
lies in his consistently reasonable and practical approach to
literary problems, and, it may be added, in the memorable
quality that he imparts to his literary judgements.

Although the Ars Poetica contains no discussion of poetry as
an imitative art, Horace shows an awareness of the place of
imitation in its genesis. ‘ I would lay d o w n , ‘ he says, ‘that the
experienced poet, as an imitative artist [docturn imitatorem],
should look to human life and character as his models, and
from them derive a language that is true to l i fe ‘ ( 3 1 7 – 1 8 ) . But
just as important to him is the inventiveness which produces
fictions designed to g ive pleasure (388). He makes more of the
aims and functions of poetry, and the terms in which he does
so illustrate the memorable quality of his utterance to which
I referred in the last paragraph:

aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae,
aut simul et iucunda et idonca dicere vitae (333-4).

* Poets aim at g iv ing either profit or delight, or at combining the
giving of pleasure with some useful precepts for life.’ A n d a
few lines later:

omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci,
lectorem dclectando pariterque monendo (343-4).

‘ T h e man who has managed to blend profit with delight wins
everyone’s approbation, for he gives his reader pleasure at the
same time as he instructs him. ‘ This doctrine was endlessly
echoed and developed by Renaissance critics.

Horace also has strong views on another function of poetry,
the power it possesses, or at least has manifested in the past,
of advancing civilization. T h e clearest expression of this v iew

22

I N T R O D U C T I O N

2 3

is found in lines 3 9 1 – 4 0 7 ; and there is a parallel in lines 126-38
of the Epistle to Augustus.

Cicero had advocated the imitation of ancient models, as
Longinus was also to do later, but Horace was the first critic
to lay down this doctrine with regard to poetry . ‘ Y o u must g ive
your days and nights to the study of Greek models, ‘ he says
(268-9) ; a n < l his mentioning only Homer and the Attic tragic playwrights makes it clear that he is thinking especially of the great writers of the classical period of Greek literature. This doctrine of imitation of the ancients was also much canvassed at the Renaissance. Other topics on which Horace lays em­ phasis are the need for organic unity, which had already been stressed by Plato and Aristotle; the need for sound and appropriate subject-matter; and the correct choice of diction and metre. Al l these points may be applied to poetry generally. What Horace says specifically about drama and its techniques, although it takes up a large part of the epistle, seems clear enough, and is to some extent familiar from Aristotle; it needs no analysis here. However , one further matter demands attention, and this is the principle of decorum, which is fundamental to Horace's literary theory, and which is touched on at intervals throughout the Ars Poetica. This doctrine of fitness, or literary propriety, had been discussed by Aristotle, and Cicero made much of it in his rhetorical theory, especially in the De Oratore; but for Horace it constitutes, in the words of J . W. H. Atkins, ' a guiding and dominating principle' . Horace applies it here particularly to poetry, and especially dramatic poetry. E v e r y part and every aspect of the work must be appropriate to the nature of the work as a whole : the choice of subject in relation to the chosen genre, the characterization, the form, the expres­ sion, the metre, the style, and tone; the poet must avoid the mixing of genres, the creation of characters who lack veri­ similitude, the excessive or improper use of the deus ex machina. N o r should anything revolting or unnatural be enacted on the stage: ne pueros coram populo Medea t ruc idet . . . (185) I N T R O D U C T I O N 'Medea must not butcher her children in the presence of the audience . . . '. T h e principle of decorum is yet another of Horace's doctrines which pervade the literary criticism of the Renaissance. Of Horace and his career we know much. Of the author of the famous treatise On the Sublime nothing is known, not even his name. T h e nature and treatment of the subject-matter of this work suggest that it was written in the first century A . D . , partly as a corrective to a lost work on the same subject by a certain Gecilius, w h o was a friend of Dionysius of Halicarnas- sus. It may have been by false association in later times with Dionysius, and by a similar error with regard to a third- century critic named Cassius Longinus, that the oldest manu­ script, the tenth-century Paris manuscript, attributes the treatise to 'Dionysius or Longinus ' . In view of the centuries- long tradition, and the awkwardness of such terms as ' the pseudo-Longinus ' or ' the treatise attributed to Longinus ' , I am retaining the name Longinus. Of the Terentianus w h o is repeatedly addressed as the recipient of the work (in the very first sentence he is, in the Paris manuscript, for some unknown reason named as Postumius Florentianus) nothing is certainly known. T h e authorship of the treatise and the identity of Terentianus are fully discussed in Roberts's introduction to the edition which I later name as my copy text, and in Chapter V I of J . W. H. Atkins's Literary Criticism in Antiquity, Vo lume I I . It should be added that the treatise as we have it is un­ finished, and that it is also marred by half a dozen lacunae amounting to the loss of twenty pages, or perhaps a thousand lines. Gr ievous as these losses are, the considerably larger quantity that remains is complete and coherent enough to leave us with a critical work of very great interest and value. I have also followed tradition in translating the key-word of the treatise, vtpog (hypsos), as sublimity. However , the word does not, as Longinus uses it, mean precisely what we associ­ ate today with sublimity, that is, an outstanding and unusual exaltation of conception and style. As Longinus defines it, it signifies a certain distinction and excellence of expression, that distinction and excellence by which authors have been 24 I N T R O D U C T I O N enabled to win immortal fame. There appears to be no single Engl ish word which fully conveys all this, but if Longinus 's initial definition is kept in mind, the meaning of 1 sublimity' in the translation should always be clear. I have reserved such possible alternatives as ' g randeur ' and ' the Grand Sty le ' for occasions on which Longinus uses compounds of the word ixeyas ( 'great ' ) . Al though he occasionally digresses, Longinus never loses sight of his subject - the qualities and devices that make for, or militate against, the production of the sublime. Having defined the term, he asks whether there is such a thing as an art of the sublime, f lis answer recalls what we have already heard from Horace and other earlier critics: sublimity, he says, is innate, an inborn gift, but it must be cultivated, among other ways by imitation or emulation of writers who have shown themselves capable of achieving sublimity; art is necessary if the natural ability is to be used to the best effect. Longinus does not expect that any writer should maintain an unbroken level of sublimity; even the godlike Homer and Plato have their lapses, and many other writers cannot long sustain the sublimity to which they are capable of rising. However , the writer who can occasionally flash into sublimity is superior to the one who , like Hyperides, does everything well , but never quite achieves the sublime. T h e main body of the treatise is concerned with the dis­ cussion and illustration of five sources of the sublime. T h e first and most important source (Chapters 8 - 15 ) is grandeur of thought, the ability to form grand conceptions. This takes its rise in nobility of soul or character, and Longinus illustrates it from Homer and from the Book of Genesis. It may also result from the right choice and arrangement of the most striking circumstances, as he illustrates by a perceptive analysis of an ode by Sappho. After some consideration of imagery, Longinus speaks of the second source, that is, vehement and inspired passion; however , he does not develop this, but promises to deal with it in a separate work. The third source of the sublime is the effective use of stylistic and rhetorical figures (Chapters 1 6 - 2 9 ) ! a n c ^ Longinus observes that a figure is best used when the fact that it is a figure escapes 25 I N T R O D U C T I O N attention. T h e fourth source is to be found in noble diction and phrasing (Chapters 3 0 - 8 ) ; this includes the skilful use of metaphors and other figures of speech. Finally (Chapters 3 9 - 40) comes dignified and elevated composition, that is, an insistence on the most effective arrangement of words, and the now well established conception of organic unity. Longinus's concreteness adds considerably to the value of his criticism. He keeps it concrete by means of constant illustration and analysis, often very shrewd analysis. His refer­ ence to the lawgiver of the J e w s and his pronouncement at the beginning of his Laws, ' G o d said . . . Let there be light, and there was l ight; let there be land, and there was land/ is of particular interest, and has led to much speculation about the currency of the Hebrew scriptures in Longinus's time; how­ ever, it seems profitless to speculate whether Longinus supplied it from an imperfect memory of what he had himself read in the Septuagint, whether he derived it from his reading of Cecilius or of some other Writer, or whether it is an inter­ polation belonging to a later period. There it stands among the many quotations which establish Longinus as a fine judicial, as well as speculative, critic. One remembers also his sensible analyses of many passages of Homer and Plato and Demos­ thenes, his admirable comments on the ode of Sappho which he quotes, and his telling comparisons between Demosthenes and Cicero and Demosthenes and Hyperides. He must be ranked as one of the finest and most constructive of the classical literary critics. A large and important branch of classical criticism is that which relates to rhetorical theory. This has necessarily been excluded from the present w o r k , since it would have opened up a field too vast to be treated in a single volume with the authors here represented. T h e texts I have used for the translations in this vo lume are as fol lows: for Aristotle the text of Ingram Bywater in the Oxford Classical Texts ; for Horace that of E . C. Wickham, revised by H. W. Garrod, in the same series; for Longinus the Cambridge edition, with introduction and translation, of I N T R O D U C T I O N W. Rhys Roberts. For their generous help, both in the solution of difficulties and in matters of expression, my gratitude is due to my colleague at Westfield College, Miss Christina Barratt, to the late General Editor of the Penguin Classics, D r E . V . Rieu, and to the present Jo int Editor , Mrs Radice. ARISTOTLE On the Art of Poetry A R I S T O T L E On the Art of Poetry I N T R O D U C T I O N Poetry as Imitation U N D E R the general heading of the art of poetry, I propose not only to speak about this art itself, but also to discuss the various kinds of poetry and their characteristic functions, the types of plot-structure that are required if a poem is to succeed, the number and nature of its constituent parts, and similarly any other matters that may be relevant to a study of this kind. I shall begin in the natural way, that is, by going back to first principles. Ep ic and tragic poetry, comedy too, dithyrambic poetry, and most music composed for the flute and the lyre, can all be described in general terms as forms of imitation or representa­ tion. However , they differ from one another in three respects: either in using different media for the representation, or in representing different things, or in representing them in entirely different ways . 3* C H A P T E R I The Media of Poetic Imitation S O M E artists, whether by theoretical knowledge or by long practice, can represent things by imitating their shapes and colours, and others do so by the use of the vo ice ; in the arts I have spoken of the imitation is produced by means of rhythm, language, and music, these being used either separately o r in combination. Thus the art of the flute and of the lyre consists only in music and rhythm, as does any other of the same type, such as that of the pipes. T h e imitative medium of dancers is rhythm alone, unsupported by music, for it is by the manner in which they arrange the rhythms of their movements that they represent men's characters and feelings and actions. T h e form of art that uses language alone, whether in prose or verse, and verse either in a mixture of metres or in one particular kind, has up to the present been without a name. For w e have no common name that we can apply to the prose mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus and the Socratic dialogues, or to compositions employing iambic trimeters or elegiac couplets or any other metres of these types. We can say only that people associate poetry with the metre employed, and speak, for example, of elegiac poets and epic poets; they call them poets, however, not from the fact that they are making imitations, but indiscriminately from the fact that they are writing in metre. For it is customary to describe as poets even those who produce medical and scientific works in verse. Y e t Homer and E m - pedocles have nothing in common except their metre, and therefore, while it is right to call the one a poet, the other should rather be called a natural philosopher than a poet. In the same way, an author composing his imitation in a mixture of all the metres, as Chaeremon did in his Centaur, a rhapsody employing just such a mixture, would also have to be called a poet. Such are the distinctions I would make. Again, there are some arts which make use of all the media I have mentioned, that is, rhythm, music, and formal metre; 3* A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y such are dithyrambic and nomic poetry, 1 tragedy and comedy. They differ, however, in that the first two use all these media together, while the last two use them separately, one after another. These, then, are what I mean by the differences between the arts as far as the media of representation are concerned. C H A P T E R 2 The Objects of Poetic Imitation S I N C E imitative artists represent men in action, and men who are necessarily either of good or of bad character (for as all people differ in their moral nature according to the degree of their goodness or badness, characters almost always fall into one or other of these types), these men must be represented either as better than we are, or worse, or as the same kind of people as ourselves. Thus among the painters Polygnotus represented his subjects as better, and Pauson as worse, while Dionysius painted them just as they were. It is clear that each of the kinds of imitation I have referred to will admit of these variations, and they will differ in this way according to the differences in the objects they represent. Such diversities may occur even in dancing, and in music for the flute and the lyre ; they occur also in the art that is based on language, whether it uses prose or verse unaccompanied by music. Homer, for example, depicts the better types of men, and Cleophon normal types, while Hegemon of Thasos, the first writer of parodies, and Nicochares, the author of the Deiliad, show them in a bad light. T h e same thing happens in dithyrambic and nomic poetry; for instance, the Cyclops might be represented in different ways, as was done by Timotheus and Philoxenus. This is the difference that marks the distinction between comedy and tragedy; for comedy aims at representing men as worse than they are nowadays, tragedy as better. I. The Nome, or nomic song, was an ancient type of ode, akin to the dithyramb, sung to the lyre or flute in honour of some god, usually Apollo. 33 C H A P T E R 3 The Manner of Poetic Imitation T H E R E remains the third point of difference in these arts, that is, the manner in which each kind of subject may be represented. For it is possible, using the same medium, to represent the same subjects in a variety of ways. It may be done partly by narration and partly by the assumption of a character other than one's own, which is Homer's w a y ; or by speaking in one's own person without any such change; or by representing the characters as performing all the actions dramatically. These, then, as I pointed out at the beginning, are the three factors by which the imitative arts are differentiated: their media, the objects they represent, and their manner of repre­ sentation. Thus in one sense Sophocles might be called an imitator of the same kind as Homer, for they both represent good men; in another sense he is like Aristophanes, in that they both represent men in action, men actually doing things. And this, some say, is why their works are called dramas, from their representing men doing things. 1 F o r this reason too the Dorians claim the invention of both tragedy and comedy. Comedy is claimed by the Megarians, both by those here in Greece on the grounds that it came into being when they be­ came a democracy, and by those in Sicily because the poet Epicharmus, w h o was much earlier than Chionides and Magnes, came from there; certain Dorians of the Peloponnese lay claim also to tragedy. They regard the names as proof of their belief, pointing out that, whereas the Athenians call outlying villages STJ/XOI (demoi), they themselves call them KCO^IOLI (komai); so that comedians take their name, not from Kiofid^eiv {koma^eirt, ' t o revel ' ) , but from their touring in the KXU/XCU when lack of appreciation drove them from the city. Furthermore, their I. The word 'drama' means literally 'a thing done', and is derived from the verb Bpdv (drdn, 'to do') which here provides the translation 'doing things'. Cf. the last sentence of the paragraph. 34 A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y C H A P T E R 4 The Origins and Development of Poetry T H E creation of poetry generally is due to two causes, both rooted in human nature. The instinct for imitation is inherent in man from his earliest days ; he differs from other animals in that he is the most imitative of creatures, and he learns his earliest lessons by imitation. Also inborn in all of us is the instinct to enjoy works of imitation. What happens in actual experience is evidence of this; for w e enjoy looking at the most accurate representations of things which in themselves we find painful to see, such as the forms of the lowest animals and of corpses. The reason for this is that learning is a very great pleasure, not for philosophers only, but for other people as well , however limited their capacity for it may be. They enjoy seeing likenesses because in doing so they acquire information (they reason out what each represents, and discover, for instance, that 'this is a picture of so and s o ' ) ; for if by any chance the thing depicted has not been seen before, it will not be the fact that it is an imitation of something that gives the pleasure, but the execution or the colouring or some other such cause. The instinct for imitation, then, is natural to us, as is also a feeling for music and for rhythm - and metres are obviously detached sections of rhythms. Starting from these natural aptitudes, and by a series of for the most part gradual improve­ ments on their first efforts, men eventually created poetry from their improvisations. However, 'poetry soon branched into two channels, accord­ ing to the temperaments of individual poets. The more serious- minded among them represented noble actions and the doings of noble persons, while the more trivial wrote about the 35 w o r d for ' t o d o ' is 8pdv (drdn), whereas the Athenian word is irpa-neiv (prattein). So much then for the number and character of the different kinds of imitation. C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M meaner sort of people; thus while the one type wrote hymns and panegyrics, these others began by writing invectives. We know of no poems of this kind by any poet earlier than Homer, though it is likely enough that many poets wrote them; but from Homer onwards examples may be found, his own Margites, for in­ stance, and poems of the same type. It was in such poems that the iambic metre was brought into use because of its appropriate­ ness for the purpose, and it is still called iambic today, from being the metre in which they wrote ' i a m b s ' , or lampoons, against one another. In this way it came about that some of our early poets became writers of heroic, and some of iambic verse. But just as Homer was the supreme poet in the serious style, standing alone both in excellence of composition and in the dramatic quality of his representations of life, so also, in the dramatic character that he imparted, not to invective, but to his treatment of the ridiculous, he was the first to indicate the forms that comedy was to assume; for his Margites bears the same relationship to our comedies as his Iliad and Odyssey bear to our tragedies. When tragedy and comedy appeared, those whose natural aptitude inclined them towards the one kind of poetry wrote comedies instead of lampoons, and those w h o were drawn to the other wrote tragedies instead of epics; for these new forms were both grander and more highly regarded than the earlier. It is beyond my scope here to consider whether or not tragedy is now developed as far as it can be in its various forms, and to decide this both absolutely and in relation to the stage. Both tragedy and comedy had their first beginnings in improvisation. T h e one originated with those who led the dithyramb, the other with the leaders of the phallic songs which still survive today as traditional institutions in many of our cities. Little by little tragedy advanced, each new element being developed as it came into use, until after many changes it attained its natural form and came to a standstill. Aeschylus was the first to increase the number of actors from one to two , cut down the role of the chorus, and give the first place to the dialogue. Sophocles introduced three actors and painted 36 A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y scenery. As for the grandeur of tragedy, it was not until late that it acquired its characteristic stateliness, when, progressing beyond the methods of satyric drama, 1 it discarded slight plots and comic diction, and its metre changed from the trochaic tetrameter to the iambic. A t first the poets had used the tetrameter because they were writing satyr-poetry, which was more closely related to the dance; but once dialogue had been introduced, by its very nature it hit upon the right measure, for the iambic is of all measures the one best suited to speech. This is shown by the fact that w e most usually drop into iambics in our conversation with one another, whereas we seldom talk in hexameters, and then only when w e depart from the normal tone of conversation. Another change was the in­ creased number of episodes, or acts. We must pass over such other matters as the various embellishments of tragedy and the circumstances in which they are said to have been intro­ duced, for it would probably be a long business to go into them in any detail. C H A P T E R 5 The Rise of Comedy. Epic Compared with Tragedy A s I have remarked, comedy represents the worse types of men ; worse, however, not in the sense that it embraces any and every kind of badness, but in the sense that the ridiculous is a species of ugliness or badness. For the ridiculous consists in some form of error or ugliness that is not painful or injurious; the comic mask, for example, is distorted and ugly, but causes no pain. N o w w e know something of the successive stages by which tragedy developed, and of those w h o were responsible for them; the early history of comedy, however, is obscure, because it was not taken seriously. It was a long time before the archon granted a chorus to comedies; until then the per­ formers were volunteers. 2 Comedy had already acquired I . Satyric drama is described on p. 86-7, footnote 3. z. The Greek dramatist submitted his play to the archon, or magistrate, C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M certain clear-cut forms before there is any mention of those who are named as its poets. N o r is it known who introduced masks, or prologues, or a plurality of actors, and other things of that kind. Properly worked out plots originated in Sicily with Epicharmus and Phormis; of Athenian poets Crates was the first to discard the lampoon pattern and to adopt stories and plots of a more general nature. Epic poetry agrees with tragedy to the extent that it is a representation, in dignified verse, of serious actions. They differ, however, in that epic keeps to a single metre and is in narrative form. Another point of difference is their length: tragedy tries as far as possible to keep within a single revolu­ tion of the sun, or only slightly to exceed it, whereas the epic observes no limits in its time of action — although at first the practice in this respect was the same in tragedies as in epics. O f the constituent parts, some are common to both kinds, and some are peculiar to tragedy. Thus anyone who can dis­ criminate between what is good and what is bad in tragedy can do the same with epic; for all the elements of epic are found in tragedy, though not everything that belongs to tragedy is to be found in epic . 1 C H A P T E R 6 A Description of Tragedy I S H A L L speak later about the form of imitation that uses hexameters and about comedy, but for the moment I propose to discuss tragedy, first drawing together the definition of its essential character from what has already been said. Tragedy, then, is a representation of an action that is worth I . Herein, it is perhaps worth pointing out, lies the justification of the far fuller treatment that Aristotle gives to drama. in charge of the religious festival at which he hoped to have it performed. If the play was chosen for performance, the archon 'granted it a chorus'; that is, he provided a choregus, a wealthy citizen who, as a form of public service, paid the expenses of the production. The earlier 1 volunteers' pre­ sumably paid their own expenses. 38 A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y serious attention, complete in itself, and of some amplitude; in language enriched by a variety of artistic devices appropriate to the several parts of the play; presented in the form of action, not narration; by means of pity and fear bringing about the purgation of such emotions. By language that is enriched I refer to language possessing rhythm, and music or song; and by artistic devices appropriate to the several parts I mean that some are produced by the medium of verse alone, and others again with the help of song. N o w since the representation is carried out by men perform­ ing the actions, it follows, in the first place, that spectacle is an essential part of tragedy, and secondly that there must be song and diction, these being the medium of representation. By diction I mean here the arrangement of the verses; song is a term whose sense is obvious to everyone. In tragedy it is action that is imitated, and this action is brought about by agents w h o necessarily display certain dis­ tinctive qualities both of character and of thought, according to which we also define the nature of the actions. Thought and character are, then, the two natural causes of actions, and it is on them that all men depend for success or failure. The repre­ sentation of the action is the plot of the tragedy; for the ordered arrangement of the incidents is what I mean by plot. Character, on the other hand, is that which enables us to define the nature of the participants, and thought comes out in what they say when they are proving a point or expressing an opinion. Necessarily, then, every tragedy has six constituents, which will determine its quality. They are plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle, and song. Of these, two represent the media in which the action is represented, one involves the manner of representation, and three are connected with the objects of the representation; beyond them nothing further is required. These, it may be said, are the dramatic elements that have been used by practically all playwrights; for all plays alike possess spectacle, character, plot, diction, song, and thought. Of these elements the most important is the plot, the ordering of the incidents; for tragedy is a representation, not of men, but of action and life, of happiness and unhappiness - and happiness and unhappiness are bound up with action. The 3<; C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M purpose of l iving is an end which is a kind of activity, not a quality; it is their characters, indeed, that make men what they are, but it is by reason of their actions that they are happy or the reverse. Tragedies are not performed, therefore, in order to represent character, although character is involved for the sake of the action. Thus the incidents and the plot are the end aimed at in tragedy, and as always, the end is everything. Furthermore, there could not be a tragedy without action, but there could be without character; indeed the tragedies of most of our recent playwrights fail to present character, and the same might be said of many playwrights of other periods. A similar contrast could be drawn between Zeuxis and Poly- gnotus as painters, for Polygnotus represents character well , whereas Zeuxis is not concerned with it in his painting. Aga in , if someone writes a series of speeches expressive of character, and well composed as far as thought and diction are concerned, he will still not achieve the proper effect of tragedy; this will be done much better by a tragedy which is less successful in its use of these elements, but which has a plot g iv ing an ordered combination of incidents. Another point to note is that the two most important means by which tragedy plays on our feelings, that is, ' reversa ls ' and ' recognit ions ' , are both con­ stituents of the plot. A further proof is that beginners can achieve accuracy in diction and the portrayal of character before they can construct a plot out of the incidents, and this could be said of almost all the earliest dramatic poets. The plot, then, is the first essential of tragedy, its life-blood, so to speak, and character takes the second place. It is much the same in painting; for if an artist were to daub his canvas with the most beautiful colours laid on at random, he would not give the same pleasure as he would by drawing a recogniz­ able portrait in black and white. Tragedy is the representation of an action, and it is chiefly on account of the action that it is also a representation of persons. The third property of tragedy is thought. This is the ability to say what is possible and appropriate in any given circum­ stances ; it is what, in the speeches in the play, is related to the arts of politics and rhetoric. T h e older dramatic poets made their characters talk like statesmen, whereas those of today 40 A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y 4 i make them talk like rhetoricians. Character is that which reveals personal choice, the kinds of thing a man chooses or rejects when that is not obvious. Thus there is no revelation of character in speeches in which the speaker shows no prefer­ ences or aversions whatever. Thought , on the other hand, is present in speeches where something is being shown to be true or untrue, or where some general opinion is being expressed. Fourth comes the diction of the speeches. By diction I mean, as I have already explained, the expressive use of words, and this has the same force in verse and in prose. Of the remaining elements, the music is the most important of the pleasurable additions to the play. Spectacle, or stage-effect, is an attraction, of course, but it has the least to do with the playwright's craft or with the art of poetry. For the power of tragedy is independent both of performance and of actors, and besides, the production of spectacular effects is more the province of the property-man than of the playwright. C H A P T E R 7 The Scope of the Plot N o w that these definitions have been established, I must go on to discuss the arrangement of the incidents, for this is of the first importance in tragedy. I have already laid down that tragedy is the representation of an action that is complete and whole and of a certain amplitude - for a thing may be whole and yet lack amplitude. N o w a whole is that which has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A beginning is that which does not necessarily come after something else, although something else exists or comes about after it. An end, on the contrary, is that which naturally follows something else either as a neces­ sary or as a usual consequence, and is not itself followed by anything. A middle is that which follows something else, and is itself followed by something. Thus well-constructed plots must neither begin nor end in a haphazard way, but must conform to the pattern I have been describing. C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M 4 2 Furthermore, whatever is beautiful, whether it be a l iving creature or an object made up of various parts, must necessarily not only have its parts properly ordered, but also be of an appropriate size, for beauty is bound up with size and order. A minutely small creature, therefore, would not be beautiful, for it would take almost no time to see it and our perception of it would be blurred; nor would an extremely large one, for it could not be taken in all at once, and its unity and wholeness would be lost to the v iew of the beholder - if, for example, there were a creature a thousand miles long. N o w in just the same way as living creatures and organisms compounded of many parts must be of a reasonable size, so that they can be easily taken in by the eye, so too plots must be of a reasonable length, so that they may be easily held in the memory. T h e limits in length to be observed, in as far as they concern performance on the stage, have nothing to do with dramatic art ; for if a hundred tragedies had to be performed in the dramatic contests, they would be regulated in length by the water-clock, as indeed it is said they were at one t ime. 1 With regard to the limit set by the nature of the action, the longer the story is the more beautiful it will be, provided that it is quite clear. T o g ive a simple definition, a length which, as a matter either of probability or of necessity, allows of a change from misery to happiness or from happiness to misery is the proper limit of length to be observed. C H A P T E R 8 Unity of Plot A P L O T does not possess unity, as some people suppose, merely because it is about one man. Many things, countless things indeed, may happen to one man, and some of them will not contribute to any kind of unity; and similarly he may I. There is no evidence elsewhere that this was ever done, and it seems an improbable proceeding. One is almost tempted to accept Schmidt's emendation (tlioOaoiv for 4>AAIV) and translate, ‘as is regu­
larly done at certain other times’, Lc., with pleas in the law-courts.

A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

43

carry out many actions from which no single unified action
will emerge. It seems, therefore, that all those poets have been
on the wrong track w h o have written a Heracleid, or a TAeseid,
or some other poem of this kind, in the belief that, Heracles
being a single person, his story must necessarily possess unity.
Homer , exceptional in this as in all other respects, seems,
whether by art or by instinct, to have been well aware of what
was required. In writing his Odyssey he did not put in everything
that happened to Odysseus, that he was wounded on Mount
Parnassus, for example, or that he feigned madness at the
time of the call to arms, for it was not a matter of necessity or
probability that either of these incidents should have led to the
other; on the contrary, he constructed the Odyssey round a
single action of the kind I have spoken of, and he did this with
the Iliad too. Thus , just as in the other imitative arts each
individual representation is the representation of a single
object, so too the plot of a play, being the representation of an
action, must present it as a unified whole ; and its various
incidents must be so arranged that if any one of them is differ- r

ently placed or taken away the effect of wholeness will be seri­
ously disrupted. For if the presence or absence of something
makes no apparent difference, it is no real part of the whole.

C H A P T E R 9

Poetic Truth and Historical Truth

I T will be clear from what I have said that it is not the poet’s
function to describe what has actually happened, but the kinds
of thing that might happen, that is, that could happen because
they are, in the circumstances, either probable or necessary.
The difference between the historian and the poet is not that the
one writes in prose and the other in verse ; the work of Hero­
dotus might be put into verse, and in this metrical form it
would be no less a kind of history than it is without metre.
T h e difference is that the one tells of what has happened, the
other of the kinds of things that might happen. For this reason
poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

serious attention than history; for while poetry is concerned
with universal truths, history treats of particular facts.

By universal truths are to be understood the kinds of thing a
certain type of person will probably or necessarily say or do in a
given situation; and this is the aim of poetry, although it gives
individual names to its characters. T h e particular facts of the
historian are what, say, Alcibiades did, or what happened to
him. By now this distinction has become clear where comedy
is concerned, for comic poets build up their plots out of prob­
able occurrences, and then add any names that occur to them;
they do not, like the iambic poets, write about actual people . 1

In tragedy, on the other hand, the authors keep to the names of
real people, the reason being that what is possible is credible.
Whereas we cannot be certain of the possibility of something
that has not happened, what has happened is obviously pos­
sible, for it would not have happened if this had not been so.
Nevertheless, even in some tragedies only one or two of the
names are well known, and the rest are fictitious; and indeed
there are some in which nothing is familiar, Agathon’s Antheus,
for example, in which both the incidents and the names are
fictitious, and the play is none the less well liked for that. It
is not necessary, therefore, to keep entirely to the traditional
stories which form the subjects of our tragedies. Indeed it
would be absurd to do so, since even the familiar stories are
familiar only to a few, and yet they please everybody.

What I have said makes it obvious that the poet must be a
maker of plots rather than of verses, since he is a poet by virtue
of his representation, and what he represents is actions. A n d
even if he writes about things that have actually happened, that
does not make him any the less a poet, for there is nothing to
prevent some of the things that have happened from being in
accordance with the laws of possibility and probability, and thus
he will be a poet in writing about them.

i. The old iambic or lampooning poets, of whom the earliest and
greatest was Archilochus (seventh century B.C.), wrote about real people,
as did the poets of the Old Comedy, such as Aristophanes. In the New
Comedy, of which Menander is the greatest representative, the names
were stock names which, though they might sometimes by association or
etymology have a certain appropriateness, were not those of real people.

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Of simple plots and actions those that are episodic are the
worst . By an episodic plot I mean one in which the sequence of
the episodes is neither probable nor necessary. Plays of this
kind are written by bad poets because they cannot help it, and
by good poets because of the actors; writing for the dramatic
competitions, they often strain a plot beyond the bounds of
possibility, and are thus obliged to dislocate the continuity
of events.

However , tragedy is the representation not only of a complete
action, but also of incidents that awaken fear and pity, and
effects of this kind are heightened when things happen un­
expectedly as well as logically, for then they will be more
remarkable than if they seem merely mechanical or accidental.
Indeed, even chance occurrences seem most remarkable when
they have the appearance of having been brought about by
design – when, for example, the statue of Mitys at Argos killed
the man w h o had caused Mitys’s death by falling down on him
at a public entertainment. Things like this do not seem mere
chance occurrences. Thus plots of this type are necessarily
better than others.

C H A P T E R I O

Simple and Complex Plots

S O M E plots are simple, and some complex, for the obvious
reason that the actions of which they are representations are of
one or other of these kinds. By a simple action I refer to one
which is single and continuous in the sense of my earlier defini­
tion, and in which the change of fortune comes about without a
reversal or a discovery. A complex action is one in which the
change is accompanied by a discovery or a reversal, or both.
These should develop out of the very structure of the plot, so
that they are the inevitable or probable consequence of what
has gone before, for there is a big difference between what
happens as a result of something else and what merely happens
after it.

45

C H A P T E R I I

Reversal, Discovery, and Calamity

As has already been noted, a reversal is a change from one
state of affairs to its opposite, one which conforms, as I have
said, to probability or necessity. In Oedipus, for example, the
Messenger who came to cheer Oedipus and relieve him of his
fear about his mother did the very opposite by revealing to him
who he was. In the Lynceus, again, Lynceus is being led off to
execution, followed by Danaus who is to kill him, when, as a
result of events that occurred earlier, it comes about that he
is saved and it is Danaus who is put to death.

As the word itself indicates, a discovery is a change from
ignorance to knowledge, and it leads either to love or to hatred
between persons destined for good or ill fortune. The most
effective form of discovery is that which is accompanied by
reversals, like the one in Oedipus. There are of course other
forms of discovery, for what I have described may happen in
relation to inanimate and trifling objects, and moreover it is
possible to discover whether a person has done something or
not. But the form of discovery most essentially related to the
plot and action of the play is the one described above, for a
discovery of this kind in combination with a reversal will carry
with it either pity or fear, and it is such actions as these that,
according to my definition, tragedy represents; and further,
such a combination is likely to lead to a happy or an unhappy
ending.

As it is persons who are involved in the discovery, it may be
that only one person’s identity is revealed to another, that of
the second being already known. Sometimes, however, a
natural recognition of two parties is necessary, as for example,
when the identity of Iphigenia was made known to Orestes by
the sending of the letter, and a second discovery was required
to make him known to Iphigenia.

Two elements of plot, then, reversal and discovery, turn
upon such incidents as these. A third is suffering, or calamity.

4 6

A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

Of these three, reversal and discovery have already been de­
fined. A calamity is an action of a destructive or painful nature,
such as death openly represented, excessive suffering, wound­
ing, and the like.

C H A P T E R 1 2

The Main Parts of Tragedy

I S P O K E earlier of the various elements that are to be employed
as the constituents of tragedy. The separate sections into which
the work is divided are as follows: prologue, episode, exode,
and choral song, the last being subdivided into parode and
stasimon. These are common to all tragedies; songs from the
actors and 1 commoihowever , are a characteristic only of some
tragedies.

The prologue is the whole of that part of a tragedy that
precedes the parode, or first entry of the Chorus. An episode
is the whole of that part of a tragedy that comes between com­
plete choral songs. The exode is the whole of that part of a
tragedy which is not followed by a song of the Chorus. In the
choral sections the parode is the whole of the first utterance of
the Chorus, and a stasimon is a choral song without anapaests
or trochees. A ‘commos’ is a passage of lament in which both
Chorus and actors take part.

These then are the separate sections into which the body of
the tragedy is to be divided; I mentioned earlier the elements of
which it must be composed.

C H A P T E R 1 3

Tragic Action

F O L L O W I N G upon the points I have already made, I must go
on to say what is to be aimed at and what guarded against in the
construction of plots, and what are the sources of the tragic
effect.

4 7

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

4»

We saw that the structure of tragedy at its best should be
complex, not simple, and that it should represent actions cap­
able of awakening fear and pity – for this is a characteristic
function of representations of this type. It follows in the first
place that good men should not be shown passing from pros­
perity to misery, for this does not inspire fear or pity, it merely
disgusts us. Nor should evil men be shown progressing from
misery to prosperity. This is the most untragic of all plots, for
it has none of the requisites of tragedy; it does not appeal to our
humanity, or awaken pity or fear in us. Nor again should an
utterly worthless man be seen falling from prosperity into
misery. Such a course might indeed play upon our humane
feelings, but it would not arouse either pity or fear; for our pity
is awakened by undeserved misfortune, and our fear by that of
someone just like ourselves – pity for the undeserving sufferer
and fear for the man like ourselves – so that the situation in
question would have nothing in it either pitiful or fearful.

There remains a mean between these extremes. This is the
sort of man who is not conspicuous for virtue and justice, and
whose fall into misery is not due to vice and depravity, but
rather to some error, a man who enjoys prosperity and a high
reputation, like Oedipus and Thyestes and other famous mem­
bers of families like theirs.

Inevitably, then, the well-conceived plot will have a single
interest, and not, as some say, a double. The change in fortune
will be, not from misery to prosperity, but the reverse, from
prosperity to misery, and it will be due, not to depravity, but to
some great error either in such a man as I have described or in
one better than this, but not worse. This is borne out by existing
practice. For at first the poets treated any stories that came to
hand, but nowadays the best tragedies are written about a
handful of families, those of Alcmaeon, for example, and
Oedipus and Orestes and Meleager and Thyestes and Telephus,
and others whom it has befallen to suffer or inflict terrible
experiences.

The best tragedies in the technical sense are constructed in
this way. Those critics are on the wrong tack, therefore, who
criticize Euripides for following such a procedure in his
tragedies, and complain that many of them end in misfortune;

A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

for, as I have said, this is the right ending. The strongest evi­
dence of this is that on the stage and in the dramatic competi­
tions plays of this kind, when properly worked out, are the
most tragic of all, and Euripides, faulty as is his management of
other points, is nevertheless regarded as the most tragic of our
dramatic poets.

The next best type of structure, ranked first by some critics,
is that which, like the Odyssey, has a double thread of plot, and
ends in opposite ways for the good and the bad characters. It is
considered the best only because of the feeble judgement of the
audience, for the poets pander to the taste of the spectators.
But this is not the pleasure that is proper to tragedy. It belongs
rather to comedy, where those who have been the bitterest of
enemies in the original story, Orestes and Aegisthus, for ex­
ample, go off at the end as friends, and nobody is killed by
anybody.

C H A P T E R 1 4

Fear and Pity

F E A R and pity may be excited by means of spectacle; but they
can also take their rise from the very structure of the action,
which is the preferable method and the mark of a better dram-
matic poet. For the plot should be so ordered that even without
seeing it performed anyone merely hearing what is afoot will
shudder with fear and pity as a result of what is happening – as
indeed would be the experience of anyone hearing the story of
Oedipus. To produce this effect by means of stage-spectacle is
less artistic, and requires the cooperation of the producer.
Those who employ spectacle to produce an effect, not of fear,
but of something merely monstrous, have nothing to do with
tragedy, for not every kind of pleasure should be demanded of
tragedy, but only that which is proper to it; and since the
dramatic poet has by means of his representation to produce
the tragic pleasure that is associated with pity and fear, it is
obvious that this effect is bound up with the events of the plot.

Let us now consider what kinds of incident are to be

4 9

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

regarded as fearful or pitiable. Deeds that fit this description
must of course involve people who are either friends to one
another, or enemies, or neither. Now if a man injures his enemy,
there is nothing pitiable either in his act or in his intention,
except in so far as suffering is inflicted; nor is there if they are
indifferent to each other. But when the sufferings involve those
who are near and dear to one another, when for example
brother kills brother, son father, mother son, or son mother, or
if such a deed is contemplated, or something else of the kind is
actually done, then we have a situation of the kind to be aimed
at. Thus it will not do to tamper with the traditional stories, the
murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, for instance, and that of
Eriphyle by Alcmaeon; on the other hand, the poet must use
his imagination and handle the traditional material effectively.

I must explain more clearly what I mean by ‘effectively’.
The deed may be done by characters acting consciously and in
full knowledge of the facts, as was the way of the early dramatic
poets, when for instance Euripides made Medea kill her
children. Or they may do it without realizing the horror of the
deed until later, when they discover the truth; this is what
Sophocles did with Oedipus. Here indeed the relevant incident
occurs outside the action of the play; but it may be a part of the
tragedy, as with Alcmaeon in Astydamas’s play, or Telegonus
in The Wounded Odysseus. A third alternative is for someone who
is about to do a terrible deed in ignorance of the relationship to
discover the truth before he does it. These are the only pos­
sibilities, for the deed must either be done or not done, and by
someone either with or without knowledge of the facts.

The least acceptable of these alternatives is when someone
in possession of the facts is on the point of acting but fails to
do so, for this merely shocks us, and, since no suffering is
involved, it is not tragic. Hence nobody is allowed to behave
like this, or only seldom, as when Haemon fails to kill Creon in
the Antigone. Next in order of effectiveness is when the deed is
actually done, and here it is better that the character should act
in ignorance and only learn the truth afterwards, for there is
nothing in this to outrage our feelings, and the revelation
comes as a surprise. However, the best method is the last, when,
for example, in the Cresphontes Merope intends to kill her son,

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A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

but recognizes him and does not do so; or when the same thing
happens with brother and sister in Iphigenia in Tauris; or when,
in the Helle, the son recognizes his mother when he is just about
to betray her.

This then is the reason why, as I said before, our tragedies
keep to a few families. For in their search for dramatic material
it was by chance rather than by technical knowledge that the
poets discovered how to gain tragic effects in their plots. And
they are still obliged to have recourse to those families in which
sufferings of the kind I have described have been experienced.

I have said enough now about the arrangement of the in­
cidents in a tragedy and the type of plot it ought to have.

C H A P T E R I 5

The Characters of Tragedy

I N characterization there are four things to aim at. First and
foremost, the characters should be good. Now character will
be displayed, as I have pointed out, if some preference is
revealed in speech or action, and if it is a preference for what is
good the character will be good. There can be goodness in
every class of person; for instance, a woman or a slave may be
good, though the one is possibly an inferior being and the other
in general an insignificant one.

In the second place the portrayal should be appropriate. For
example, a character may possess manly qualities, but it is not
appropriate that a female character should be given manliness
or cleverness.

Thirdly, the characters should be lifelike. This is not the
same thing as making them good, or appropriate in the sense
in which I have used the word.

And fourthly, they should be consistent. Even if the person
who is being represented is inconsistent, and this trait is the
basis of his character, he must nevertheless be portrayed as
consistently inconsistent.

As an example of unnecessary badness of character, there is
Menelaus in the Orestes. The character who behaves in an

5i

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

unsuitable and inappropriate way is exemplified in Odysseus’
lament in the Scylla, and in Melanippe’s speech. An inconsistent
character is shown in Iphigenia at A.ulis, for Iphigenia as a
suppliant is quite unlike what she is later.

As in the arrangement of the incidents, so too in character­
ization one must always bear in mind what will be either
necessary or probable; in other words, it should be necessary
or probable that such and such a person should say or do such
and such a thing, and similarly that this particular incident
should follow on that.

Furthermore, it is obvious that the unravelling of the plot
should arise from the circumstances of the plot itself, and not
be brought about ex machina, as is done in the Medea and in the
episode of the embarkation in the Iliad. The deus ex machina
should be used only for matters outside the play proper, either
for things that happened before it and that cannot be known by
the human characters, or for things that are yet to come and
that require to be foretold prophetically – for we allow to the
gods the power to see all things. However, there should be
nothing inexplicable about what happens, or if there must be,
it should be kept outside the tragedy, as is done in Sophocles’s
Oedipus.1

Since tragedy is a representation of people who are better
than the average, we must copy the good portrait-painters.
These, while reproducing the distinctive appearance of their
sitters and making likenesses, paint them better-looking than
they are. In the same way the poet, in portraying men who
are hot-tempered, or phlegmatic, or who have other defects of
character, must bring out these qualities in them, and at the
same time show them as decent people, as Agathon and Homer
have portrayed Achilles.

These points must be carefully watched, as too must those
means used to appeal to the eye, which are necessarily de­
pendent on the poet’s art; for here too it is often possible to
make mistakes. However, enough has been said about these
matters in my published works.

I . A r i s t o t l e i s h e r e r e f e r r i n g t o t h e f a c t t h a t O e d i p u s r e m a i n e d f o r

m a n y y e a r s i g n o r a n t o f t h e c i r c u m s t a n c e s o f L a i u s ‘ s d e a t h . C f . C h a p t e r

24, p . 70 .

5 *

C H A P T E R l 6

The Different Kinds of Discovery

I H A V E already explained what I mean by discovery. Of the
different kinds of discovery, the first is the least artistic, and is
mostly used from sheer lack of invention; this is discovery by
means of visible signs or tokens. These may be congenital
marks, like ‘the spearhead that the Earthborn bear’, or ‘stars’,
such as those that Carcinus uses in his Thyestes; or they may be
acquired, whether marks on the body such as scars, or external
objects such as necklaces – or, in the Tyro, the discovery by
means of the cradle. However, some ways of using these
tokens are better than others; for example, the discovery of
Odysseus through his scar is made in one way by his nurse and
in another way by the swineherds. These discoveries, when
made merely to gain credence, are less effective, as are all types
of discovery used for such intentions; better are those that are
unexpected, as happens in the Washing Episode in theOdyssey.

The second class of discoveries are those which are manu­
factured by the poet, and which are inartistic for that reason.
An example occurs in Iphigenia in Tauris when Orestes reveals
who he is. While the identity of Iphigenia is revealed by means
of the letter, Orestes himself is made to say what the poet here
requires instead of its being done through the plot; and this is
not far removed from the fault I spoke about a moment ago,
for he might have brought some tokens as well. Another ex­
ample is ‘the voice of the shuttle’ in Sophocles’s Tereus.

A third kind is the discovery that is due to memory, when
the sight of something leads to the required understanding.
Thus in The Cyprians, by Dicaeogenes, Teucer bursts into tears
on seeing the portrait, and in The Tale of Alcinous Odysseus also
weeps when the sound of the minstrel’s harp reawakens the
past for him, and this is how these two are recognized.

The fourth kind is the result of reasoning, such as is found
in The Choephori: ‘Someone who is like me has come; no one
is like me except Orestes; therefore it is Orestes who has come.’

55

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M •

54

Another example is what the sophist Polyidus suggests for the
Iphigenia, for it is likely enough.that Orestes should reason that,
as his sister was sacrificed, so too it was his fate to be sacrificed.
Then there is the episode in the Tydeus of Theodectes when the
father has come to find his son, and realizes that he is himself to
die; or that in the Phineidae where, on seeing a particular place,
the women infer that they are fated to die there, for it was there
that they had been exposed at birth.

There is also a fictitious form of discovery arising from the
fallacious reasoning of the parties concerned, as in Odysseus
the False Messenger; he said that he would know the bow, which
he had not seen; but it was false reasoning to suppose from this
that he would know it again. 1

Of all the forms of discovery, the best is that which is brought
about by the incidents themselves, when the startling dis­
closure results from events that are probable, as happens in
Sophocles’s Oedipus, and again in the Iphigenia – for it was quite
probable that she should wish to send off a letter. Discovery
scenes of this kind are the only ones that dispense with such
artificial aids as tokens and necklaces. The next best are those
that depend on reasoning.

C H A P T E R 1 7

Some Rules for the Tragic Poet

I N putting together his plots and working out the kind of
speech to go with them, the poet should as far as possible keep
the scene before his eyes. In this way, seeing everything very
vividly, as though he were himself an eyewitness of the events,
he will find what is appropriate, and will be least likely to over­
look inconsistencies. Evidence of this is the censure laid on
Carcinus, by whom Amphiaraus was made to come out of a
temple; this would have escaped notice if the episode had not

I . T h e t e x t h e r e s e e m s t o b e d e f e c t i v e , a n d it i s d i f f i c u l t t o r e n d e r it

s a t i s f a c t o r i l y . B y w a t e r t r a n s l a t e s : ‘ H e s a i d h e s h o u l d k n o w t h e b o w –

w h i c h h e h a d n o t s e e n ; b u t t o s u p p o s e f r o m t h a t t h a t h e w o u l d k n o w it

a g a i n ( a s t h o u g h h e h a d o n c e s e e n i t ) w a s b a d r e a s o n i n g . ‘

A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

been actually seen, but the audience took offence at it, and the
play was not a success on the stage.

As far as possible, too, the dramatic poet should carry out the
appropriate gestures as he composes his speeches, for of
writers with equal abilities those who can actually make them­
selves feel the relevant emotions will be the most convincing –
agitation or rage will be most vividly reproduced by one who
is himself agitated or in a passion. Hence poetry is the product
either of a man of great natural ability or of one not wholly
sane; the one is highly responsive, the other possessed.

As for the stories, whether he is taking over something
ready-made or inventing for himself, the poet should first plan
in general outline, and then expand by working out approp­
riate episodes. What I mean by planning in outline may be
illustrated from the Iphigenia, as follows: A young girl was
offered as a sacrifice, and mysteriously disappeared from the
view of her sacrificers; she was set down in another country,
where it was the custom to sacrifice strangers to the goddess,
and became the priestess of this rite. Some time later it hap­
pened that the priestess’s brother arrived (the fact that the
oracle had for a certain reason told him to go there and the
purpose of his journey are matters that lie outside the plot). On
his arrival he was seized, and was about to be sacrificed, when
he revealed who he was, either in the way that Euripides makes
it happen or, as Polyidus suggests, by making the not un­
natural remark that not only his sister, it seemed, was fated to
be sacrificed, but himself too; and thus he was saved.

When he has reached this stage the poet may supply the
proper names and fill in the episodes, making sure that they are
appropriate, like the fit of madness in Orestes which led to his
capture, and his escape by the device of the purification.

In plays the episodes are of course short; in epic poetry they
are what supply the requisite length. The story of the Odyssey,
for example, is not a long one. A man is kept away from his
home for many years; Poseidon is watching him with a jealous
eye, and he is alone. The state of affairs at home is that his
wealth is being squandered by his wife’s suitors, and plots are
being laid against his son’s life. After being buffeted by many
storms he returns home and reveals his identity; he falls upon

55

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

his enemies and destroys them, but preserves his own life.
There you have the essential story of the Odyssey; the rest of the
poem is made up of episodes.

C H A P T E R I 8

Further Rules for the Tragic Poet

E V E R Y tragedy has its complication and its denouement. The
complication consists of the incidents lying outside the plot,
and often some of those inside it, and the rest is the denoue­
ment. By complication I mean the part of the story from the
beginning to the point immediately preceding the change to
good or bad fortune; by denouement the part from the onset of
this change to the end. In the Lynceus of Theodectes, for
instance, the complication is what happened before the events
of the play proper, together with the seizure of the boy and that
in turn of the parents, and the denouement extends from the
accusation of murder to the end.

Properly speaking, tragedies should be classed as similar or
dissimilar according to their plots, that is to say, according to
their similarity in complication and denouement. Many poets
are skilful in complicating their plots but clumsy in unravelling
them; a constant mastery of both techniques is what is required.

There are four kinds of tragedy, a number corresponding to
that of the constituent parts that I spoke about. There is com­
plex tragedy, which depends entirely on reversal and discovery;
tragedy of suffering, as in the various plays on Ajax or Ixion;
tragedy of character, as in The Phthio’tides and the Peleus; and
fourthly, spectacular tragedy, as in The Phorcides, in the
Prometheus, and in plays with scenes in Hades. The poet should
try to include all these elements, or, failing that, as many as
possible of the most important, especially since it is the fashion
nowadays to find fault with poets; just because there have been
poets who excelled in the individual parts of tragedy, the
critics expect that a single man should outdo each of them in his
special kind of excellence.

Bearing in mind what has often been said, the dramatic poet

56

A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

5 7

must be careful not to give his tragedy an epic structure, by
which I mean one with a multiplicity of stories – as though one
were to attempt a plot covering the whole story of the Iliad.
By reason of its length, the Iliad can allow the proper develop­
ment of its various parts, but in plays the results of such
attempts are disappointing, as is proved by experience. For all
the poets who have dramatized the destruction of Troy in its
entirety, and not, like Euripides, only parts of it, or the whole of
the story of Niobe, and not as Aeschylus did it, have either
failed utterly or done badly in the dramatic competitions; and
indeed even a play by Agathon was a failure for this alone. And
yet in the handling of reversals and of simple plots these poets
may succeed wonderfully in getting the effect they want, that is,
one which is tragic and appeals to our humanity. This happens
when the clever man who is also wicked is outwitted, as
Sisyphus was, or when the brave man who is also unscrupulous
is worsted; and this is a likely enough result, as Agathon points
out, for it is quite likely that many things should happen con­
trary to likelihood.

The Chorus should be regarded as one of the actors; it should
be a part of the whole, and should assume a share in the action,
as happens in Sophocles, but not in Euripides. With other play­
wrights the choral songs may have no more to do with the plot
in hand than with any other tragedy; they are mere choral
interludes, according to the practice first introduced by Aga­
thon. But what difference is there between the singing of inter­
polated songs like these and the transference of a speech or a
whole episode from one play to another ?

C H A P T E R 1 9

Thought and Diction

N o w that the other parts of tragedy have been dealt with, it
remains to say something about diction and thought. As far as
thought is concerned, enough has been said about it in my
treatise on rhetoric, for it more properly belongs to that study.
Thought includes all the effects that have to be produced by

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

C H A P T E R 2 0

Some Linguistic Definitions

L A N G U A G E in general is made up of the following parts: the
letter, the syllable, the connecting-word, the article, the noun,
the verb, the inflexion or case, and the phrase or proposition.

A letter is an indivisible sound, not just any such sound, but
one from which intelligible language may be produced;
animals also, it is true, utter indivisible sounds, but none that
I should describe as a letter. The different forms of this sound
are the vowel, the semi-vowel, and the mute letter or conson­
ant. A vowel is a letter which has an audible sound without

58

means of language; among these are proof and refutation, the
awakening of emotions such as pity, fear, anger, and the like,
and also exaggeration and depreciation. It is clear, too, that in
the action of the play the same principles should be observed
whenever it is necessary to produce effects of pity or terror, or of
greatness or probability – with this difference, however, that
here the effects must be made without verbal explanation,
while the others are produced by means of language coming
from the lips of a speaker, and are dependent on the use of
language. For where would be the need of a speaker if the
required effects could be conveyed without the use of language ?

As for diction, one branch of study is the various forms of
expression, an understanding of which belongs to the art of
elocution and is necessary to the practitioner of this art: I refer
to such things as a command, a prayer, a statement, a threat, a
question, an answer, and so on. The poet’s art is not seriously
criticized according to his knowledge or ignorance of these
things. For what would anyone think is wrong about the words
which Protagoras censures on the grounds that the poet, in­
tending a prayer, actually gives a command when he says, 1 Sing
of the wrath, Goddess’? For, says Protagoras, to order a
person to do or not to do something is a command. However,
we may pass this topic over as one which, though it may be
relevant to some other art, is not so to the art of poetry.

A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

any contact between two of the organs of speech. A semi­
vowel (S or R, for instance) is given audible sound by such a
contact. A mute is a letter which even with such contact has no
sound of its own, but which becomes audible when combined
with letters which possess sound; examples are G and D. The
letters differ in sound according to the shape of the mouth and
the places where they are produced; according as they are
aspirated or not aspirated; according to their length or short­
ness ; according as they have an acute, a grave, or a circumflex
accent. However, the detailed study of these matters is the
province of the metrist.

A syllable is a sound-unit without meaning, made up of a
mute and a sounded letter; for GR without an A is as much a
syllable as it is with an A, as in GRA. But these distinctions are
also the concern of metrical theory.

A connecting-word is a sound-unit without significance
which neither hinders nor helps the production of a single
significant utterance from the combination of several sounds,
and which should not be put at the beginning of a phrase
standing by itself; examples are fiev, S77, rot, and Sc. 1 Alterna­
tively it is a sound without significance capable of producing a
single significant utterance from the combination of several
sounds which are themselves significant; examples are afJU/U
and -nepi and similar words. 2

An article is a sound without significance which indicates the
beginning or the end of a speech, or a dividing-point in it, and
its natural position is at either end or in the middle.

A noun is a composite of sounds with a meaning; it is
independent of time, and none of its individual parts has a
meaning in its own right. For in compounds we do not give
separate meanings to the parts; in the name ‘Theodore’, for
instance, the dore part has in itself no meaning.

A verb is a composite of sounds with a meaning; it is con­
cerned with time, and, as was the case with nouns, none of its

1. T h e s e p a r t i c l e s , t h o u g h v i r t u a l l y u n t r a n s l a t a b l e b y s i n g l e E n g l i s h

w o r d s , i n d i c a t e p a r t i c u l a r r e l a t i o n s h i p s b e t w e e n t h e p h r a s e s o r c l a u s e s

t h a t t h e y l i n k .

2. B o t h w o r d s {amphi, peri) m e a n ‘ a b o u t ‘ , ‘ a r o u n d ‘ , a n d t h e y a r e

p r e s u m a b l y c o n n e c t i n g – w o r d s i n t h a t t h e y a r e p r e p o s i t i o n s l i n k i n g w o r d s

i n s p e c i a l r e l a t i o n s h i p s .

59

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

individual parts has a meaning in its own right. The words
‘man’ and ‘white’ give no indication of time, but ‘walks’ and
‘has walked’ indicate respectively present and past time.

Case or inflexion in a noun or verb is that which gives the
sense o f ‘o f ‘ or ‘ to ‘ a thing, and the like, or indicates whether
it relates to one or many, as with ‘man’ and ‘men’. Alterna­
tively it may signify types of intonation, as in question or
command; ‘walked?’ and ‘walk!’ represent verbal inflexions
of this kind.

A phrase or proposition is a composite of sounds with a
meaning, and some parts of it have a meaning of their own. Not
every proposition is made up of verbs and nouns – the defini­
tion of a man, for example; it is possible for a proposition to
exist without verbs, and yet some part of it will always have a
meaning of its own, as ‘Cleon’ has in the proposition ‘Cleon
walks’. A proposition may represent unity in one of two ways,
either in that it implies one thing, or in that it achieves unity by
a conjunction of several factors; the unity of the Iliad, for
example, results from such a conjunction, that of the definition
of a man from its signifying one thing.

C H A P T E R 2 1

Poetic Diction

N O U N S may be classified as simple, by which I mean those
made up of elements which individually have no meaning, like
the word ‘earth’ (yrj), or as double or compound. These com­
pounds may take the form either of a part which has a meaning
combined with one which has no meaning – although within
the compound no part has a separate meaning – or of parts
which all have meanings. A noun may be triple or quadruple or
multiple in form, like many of our more grandiose names, for
example, Hermocai’coxanthus.

Every noun is either a word in current use or a foreign loan­
word, a metaphor or an ornamental word, a poetic coinage or a
word that has been expanded or abbreviated or otherwisealtered.

By a word in current use I mean a word that everybody uses,

60

A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

and by a loan-word one that other peoples use. Obviously the
same word can be both current and a loan-word, though not in
relation to the same people; to the Cypriots, for example, sigu-
non is the current word for a spear, but to us it is a loan-word.

Metaphor is the application to one thing of a name belonging
to another thing; the transference may be from the genus to the
species, from the species to the genus, or from one species to
another, or it may be a matter of analogy. As an example of
transference from genus to species I give ‘Here lies my ship’,
for lying at anchor is a species of lying. Transference from
species to genus is seen in ‘ Odysseus has indeed performed ten
thousand noble deeds’, for’ ten thousandwhich is a particular
large number, is used here instead of the word ‘ many’. Trans­
ference from one species to another is seen in ‘ Draining off the
life with the bronze’ and’ Severing with the unyielding bronze’;
here ‘draining off’ is used for ‘severing’, and ‘severing’ for
‘draining off’, and both are species of’taking away’.

I explain metaphor by analogy as what may happen when of
four things the second stands in the same relationship to the
first as the fourth to the third; for then one many speak of
the fourth instead of the second, and the second instead of
the fourth. And sometimes people will add to the metaphor a
qualification appropriate to the term which has been replaced.
Thus, for example, a cup stands in the same relationship to
Dionysus as a shield to Ares, and one may therefore call the
cup Dionysus’s shield and the shield Ares’s cup. Or again, old
age is to life as evening is to day, and so one may call the
evening the old age of the day, or name it as Empedocles named
i t 1 ; and one may call old age the evening of life or the sunset of
life. In some cases there is no name for some of the terms of the
analogy, but the metaphor can be used just the same. For
example, to scatter corn is called sowing, but there is no word
for the sun’s scattering of its flame; however, this stands in the
same relationship to sunlight as sowing does to corn, and
hence the expression, ‘sowing his god-created flame’.

This kind of metaphor can also be used in another way;
I . T h e w o r d s t h a t E m p e d o c l e s u s e d i n t h i s c o n n e x i o n a r e n o t e x t a n t ;

t h e y m u s t h a v e b e e n s o m e t h i n g l i k e , b u t n o t i d e n t i c a l w i t h , ‘ t h e o l d a g e

o f t h e d a y ‘ .

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

having called an object by the name of something else, one can
deny it one of its attributes – for example, call the shield, not
Ares’s cup, but a wineless cup.

A poetic coinage is a word which has not been in use among
a people, but has been invented by the poet himself. There
seem to be words of this kind, such as ‘ sprouters’ for horns,
and ‘supplicator’ for priest.

A word is expanded when it uses a longer vowel than is
normal to it or takes on an extra syllable, and it is abbreviated
when some part of it has been removed. Examples of expansion
are TroXrjos for 7ro\ecos and fl^XyjidSea) for TJrjXeihov, and of
abbreviation KpZ and 8cD, and ooTepiov <"»fi ('the faces of the pair become as one'). 1 An altered word is one in which part is left unchanged and part is coined, as when 8e£iTe/3oV is used for Se îoV in he^irepov Kara. tia£oV (' on the right breast'). Of the nouns themselves some are masculine, some feminine, and some neuter. Masculine are all that end in N (n), P (r), and E(s), and in the compounds of E, that is, the two letters ^(ps) and S (x). Feminine are all those ending in the vowels that are always long, such as H (e) and Q (o), and in A among the vowels which may be lengthened. Thus there are equal numbers of masculine and feminine endings, for *F and E are equivalent to E. No noun ends in a mute consonant or in a short vowel. Only three end in /: /xe'Ai ('honey'), KO/X/XI ('gum'), and tt4hcm ('pepper'); and five end in Y(u). The neuters may end in these vowels, and in N (n), P (r), and E (s). C H A P T E R 2 2 Diction and Style T H E greatest virtue of diction is to be clear without being commonplace. The clearest diction is that which consists of words in everyday use, but this is commonplace, as can be seen I . T h e e x p a n d e d a n d n o r m a l g e n i t i v e s i n g u l a r f o r m s o f wdAi? ( ' c i t y ' ) a n d n-t\\tlh>i)<> ( ‘ s o n o f P e l e u s ‘ ) a n d t h e a b b r e v i a t e d Kpi f o r KpiBjj ( ‘ b a r l e y ‘ ) , &3
for Stopa ( ‘ h o u s e ‘ ) , a n d 6I/I f o r oijiis ( ‘ e y e ‘ , ‘ f a c e ‘ ) .

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A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

in the poetry of Cleophon and Sthenelus. On the other hand, a
diction abounding in unfamiliar usages has dignity, and is
raised above the everyday level. By unfamiliar usages I mean
loan-words, metaphors, expanded forms, and anything else
that is out of the ordinary. However, the exclusive use of
forms of this kind would result either in a riddle or in bar­
barism – a riddle if they were all metaphorical, barbarism if they
were all importations. The very essence of a riddle is to express
facts in an impossible combination of language. This cannot be
done by a mere succession of ordinary terms, but it can by the
use of metaphors, as in the riddle, ‘I saw a man welding bronze
on another man with fire’1 and similar examples. In the same
way, the use of importations leads to barbarism. What is needed,
then, is some mixture of these various elements. For the one
kind will prevent the language from being mean and common­
place, that is, the unusual words, the metaphors, the ornamental
terms, and the other figures I have described, while the every­
day words give the necessary clarity.

Among the most effective means of achieving both clarity of
diction and a certain dignity is the use of expanded, abbrev­
iated, and altered forms of words; the unfamiliarity due to this
deviation from normal usages will raise the diction above the
commonplace, while the retention of some part of the normal
forms will make for clarity. It is not good criticism, therefore,
to censure this type of language and to ridicule the poet for
using it, as the elder Eucleides did when he said that it would be
easy to write poetry if one were allowed to lengthen syllables
whenever one liked, and when he burlesqued this style in the
lines, Enivapraf clSov Ma.pa9tova.he fiahi^ovra., and OVK av y
ipdp.evos TOV iicelvov iAXefiopov.*

1 . T h e s o l u t i o n t o t h i s r i d d l e i s a b r o n z e c u p p i n g – b o w l . H e a t e d a n d

p l a c e d o v e r a s m a l l i n c i s i o n , it w o u l d a s it c o o l e d d r a w o u t t h e b l o o d .

2. T h e t e x t i s c o r r u p t , a n d t r a n s l a t o r s u s u a l l y m a k e n o a t t e m p t t o

t r a n s l a t e t h e t w o q u o t a t i o n s , t h o u g h t h e f i r s t m a y p e r h a p s b e r e n d e r e d ,

‘ I s a w E p i c h a r e s o n h i s w a y t o M a r a t h o n . ‘ H o w e v e r , A r i s t o t l e ‘ s p o i n t i s

p r o b a b l y c l e a r e n o u g h w i t h o u t t r a n s l a t i o n . H o m e r o c c a s i o n a l l y l e n g t h e n s

a s h o r t v o w e l ‘ b y p o s i t i o n ‘ , a s w h e n h e b e g i n s Odyssey X I I , 423 w i t h

tirirovos; n o d o u b t o t h e r p o e t s d i d s o m o r e f r e q u e n t l y . E u c l e i d e s

b u r l e s q u e s t h i s p r a c t i c e b y d e v i s i n g p a s s a g e s w h i c h c a n b e r e a d a s v e r s e

i f s e v e r a l s h o r t v o w e l s a r e l e n g t h e n e d .

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The too obvious use of these tricks, then, is ridiculous;
moderation is necessary in all kinds of writing alike. The same
effect would be produced by anyone using metaphors, un­
familiar loan-words and other such devices ineptly and for the
mere sake of raising a laugh. How great a difference is made by
their being used properly may be seen in epic poetry if one
replaces them with ordinary everyday words in the verse; any­
one substituting common words for the unfamiliar words or
for the metaphors and other devices mentioned would see the
truth of what I am saying. For instance, Aeschylus and Euripi­
des wrote the same line of iambics, with the change only of a
single word; an unfamiliar word was substituted for an ordinary
one, and the new line is beautiful where the old was common­
place. This was the line as Aeschylus wrote it in his Philoctetes’.

(frayeoaiva. rj p,ov adpKas eadiei 7TOS6S.1

For iodUi (‘eats’) Euripides put doivdrai (‘feasts upon’). Just
suppose that in the line

vvv he /X’ ecbv SXlyos re KO.1 ovrihavos KO.1 DEI/OFC*

one were to use everyday words and say,

vvv he [A edjv puKpos re Kol doOeviKos Kal deihrjs*

Or suppose that for this line,

huffpov deiKeXiov Karadels 6Xiyr)v re Tpdrre^av,*

one were to read

hicf>pov p.oxB”qpov Ka.Ta.6els fiucpdv re rpdire^av.

Or that for rjioves {SOOIDOLV(‘the sea-shore is thundering’) one
were to read rjioves Kpdt,ovat.v (‘ the sea-shore is crying out’).

1 . ‘ T h e u l c e r t h a t e a t s t h e flesh o f m y f o o t . ‘ T h e P h i l o c t e t e s p l a y s o f

A e s c h y l u s a n d E u r i p i d e s a r e l o s t .

2. Odyssey I X , 5 1 5 ( e x c e p t t h a t CLKIKVS h a s b e e n m i s q u o t e d a s aeiiafc).
‘ A n d n o w a p u n y f e l l o w , u n g o o d l y a n d o f n o a c c o u n t , [ h a s b l i n d e d m e ] . ‘

A r i s t o t l e ‘ s i n f e r i o r v e r s i o n m i g h t b e r e n d e r e d , ‘ A n d n o w a l i t t l e , w e a k ,

u g l y f e l l o w . . . ‘ .

3 . Odyssey X X , 259. ‘ H a v i n g p l a c e d f o r h i m a n u n s e e m l y s t o o l a n d

a n i n s i g n i f i c a n t t a b l e . ‘ I n t h e i n f e r i o r v e r s i o n , ‘ H a v i n g p l a c e d f o r h i m a

s h a b b y s t o o l a n d a l i t t l e t a b l e . ‘

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Then again, Ariphrades ridiculed the tragedians for using
expressions that no one would use in ordinary speech, such as
Scofidrtov

•navvvxioi,1 bearing in mind that he also says, rj TOL OR is IREOLOV

TO TpojiKov ddprjoeiev, avXwv avplyyojv RE 6p,ah6v, the word
aTTavT€ . , a s 8«So/««r H i p p i a s t u r n s it i n t o a n i n f i n i t i v e

u s e d a s a n i m p e r a t i v e , w h i c h t r a n s f e r s t h e t e l l i n g o f a f a l s e h o o d f r o m Z e u s

t o t h e D r e a m – g o d a n d t h u s p r e s e r v e s Z e u s ‘ s r e p u t a t i o n f o r v e r a c i t y .

2. Iliad X X I I I , 328. T h e r e f e r e n c e is t o a n o l d w i t h e r e d s t u m p w h i c h ,

H o m e r s a y s , d o e s n o t r o t in t h e r a i n . T h i s s e e m s i n c r e d i b l e . I l o w e v e r , i f

H o m e r ‘ s ov ( ‘ n o t ‘ ) i s c h a n g e d t o ov ( ‘ o f w h i c h ‘ ) , a s A r i s t o t l e q u o t e s i t ,

t h e d i f f i c u l t y i s r e m o v e d .

3 . ‘ A n d s o o n t h e y g r e w m o r t a l t h a t f o r m e r l y l e a r n e d i m m o r t a l w a y s ,

a n d p u r e f o r m e r l y i n t e r m i n g l e d . ‘ T h i s n e c e s s a r i l y a w k w a r d t r a n s l a t i o n

i l l u s t r a t e s w h a t a p p e a r s t o b e t h e p r o b l e m o f w o r d – o r d e r a t i s s u e –

w h e t h e r ‘ f o r m e r l y ‘ i s t o b e t a k e n w i t h ‘ p u r e ‘ ( a s s e e m s p r e f e r a b l e ) , o r

w i t h ‘ i n t e r m i n g l e d ‘ . E m p e d o c l e s i s s p e a k i n g o f t h e e l e m e n t s .

4. Iliad X , 2 5 3 . ‘ A n d t h e n i g h t h a s a d v a n c e d m o r e [ t h a n t w o t h i r d s ,

b u t t h e t h i r d p a r t is s t i l l l e f t ] . ‘ T h e d i f f i c u l t y is t h a t , i f more t h a n t w o t h i r d s

h a d p a s s e d , a t h i r d c o u l d n o t b e l e f t . I t h a s b e e n s u g g e s t e d t h a t wMat i s

t o b e t a k e n , n o t a s ‘ m o r e ‘ , b u t a s ‘ f u l l ‘ : ‘ t h e n i g h t h a s a d v a n c e d f u l l

t w o t h i r d s . ‘

5. T h e g r e a v e s a r e m a d e o f b r o n z e , a n a l l o y o f t i n a n d c o p p e r , w h i c h

i s h e r e c a l l e d b y t h e n a m e o f t h e m o r e i m p o r t a n t m e t a l .

6 . T h e g o d s d r i n k n e c t a r , n o t w i n e ; b u t in a c c o r d a n c e w i t h w h a t i s

s a i d in C h a p t e r 2 1 , t h e d r i n k i s m e t a p h o r i c a l l y c a l l e d ‘ w i n e ‘ .

7. Iliad X X , 272 – a t t h e e n d o f a p a s s a g e d e s c r i b i n g h o w A c h i l l e s

t o o k o n h i s s h i e l d a s p e a r h u r l e d w i t h g r e a t f o r c e b y A e n e a s . T h e s h i e l d

c o n s i s t e d o f a l a y e r o f g o l d , t w o o f b r o n z e , a n d t w o o f t i n . H o m e r s a y s

7 2

A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

should think how best we shall avoid the fault described by
Glaucon when he says that critics make unreasonable pre­
suppositions, and go on to draw conclusions from their own
adverse comments on the poet; if his words conflict with the
conclusions they have thus reached, they censure him as
though he had actually said what they ascribe to him. This is
what has happened in the case of Icarius. Some critics be­
lieve that he was a Spartan, and therefore think it strange
that Telemachus should not have met him when he went to
Sparta. But the truth of the matter may be, as the Gephal-
lenians say, that Odysseus married in their country, and that
the name was Icadius, not Icarius. Thus it is probably through
a mistake that this particular difficulty has arisen.

Generally speaking, then, the ‘impossible’ has to be justified
on grounds either of poetic effect, or of an attempt to improve
on reality, or of accepted tradition. As far as poetic effect is con­
cerned, a convincing impossibility is preferable to an uncon­
vincing possibility. Even though it is impossible that there
should be such people as Zeuxis used to paint, yet it would be
better if there were, for the ideal type ought to be surpassingly
good.

Accepted tradition may justify the use of the irrational, as
may the plea that there are times when it is not irrational, for it
is probable enough that things should happen contrary to prob­
ability. Verbal inconsistencies should be examined in the same
way as refutations in dialectical exercises in order to see whether
the poet means the same thing, in the same relation and with
the same significance as you mean yourself, before you blame
him for contradicting either what he has himself said or what an
intelligent man would assume to be true. However, irrationality
and depravity are rightly censured when there is no need for
them and they are not properly used, as no good use is made of
the irrationality in Euripides’s introduction of Aegeus in the
Medea, or of the depravity of Menelaus in the Orestes.

There are, then, five grounds on which a passage may be

t h a t t h e s p e a r d r o v e t h r o u g h t w o l a y e r s , b u t w a s h e l d b y t h e g o l d —

w h i c h w o u l d p r e s u m a b l y b e t h e o u t s i d e l a y e r . B y w a t e r ‘ s s o l u t i o n o f t h e

d i f f i c u l t y i s t h e s u g g e s t i o n t h a t t h e s p e a r w a s i n f a c t h e l d b y t h e g o l d ,

e v e n t h o u g h i t s p o i n t p i e r c e d t o t h e l a y e r s b e n e a t h .

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74

censured: that it is impossible, irrational, immoral, inconsis­
tent, or technically at fault. And the answers are to be studied
in the light of the twelve criteria that I have already enumerated.

C H A P T E R 2 6

Epic and Tragedy Compared

I T may be asked which of the two forms of representation is the
better, the epic or the tragic. If the better form is the less vulgar,
and the less vulgar is always that which is designed to appeal to
the better type of audience, then it is obvious that the form that
appeals to everybody is extremely vulgar. And indeed, as
though you will not see them unless they thrust themselves on
your notice, performers are apt to go in for a great deal of un­
necessary movement; bad flute-players, for instance, throw
themselves about if they have to represent throwing a discus,
and keep pulling at the leader of the Chorus if they are perform­
ing ‘ Scylla \ This is what tragedy is like, we are told; it corres­
ponds with what the older actors thought of their successors
– for Mynniscus used to call Callipides’ the Ape’ on the grounds
that he overacted grossly, and the same was said of Pindarus.
The tragic art as a whole, then, stands in the same relationship
to the epic as these more recent actors do to the earlier. Thus
epic is said to appeal to cultivated readers who do not need the
help of visible forms, while tragedy appeals to meaner minds.
If then it is a vulgar art, it is obviously inferior to epic.

Now in the first place, this way of arguing is a criticism of
acting, not of poetry, for it is also possible for a bard to exag­
gerate his gestures while reciting, as Sosistratus used to do, and
for a singer too, like Mnasitheus the Opuntian. No more than
every kind of dancing is every kind of movement to be rejected,
but only that of the meaner types of people; Callipides was sub­
jected to the same criticism that is levelled against some modern
actors, that is, that they cannot act the parts of respectable
women. For another thing, tragedy fulfils its own special func­
tion even without the help of action, and in just the same way
as epic, for its quality can be seen from reading it. So that if

A R I S T O T L E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y

tragedy is in other respects the higher of the two arts, this dis­
advantage is not necessarily inherent in it. 1

In the second place, tragedy has everything that epic has, and
it can even use the epic measure; and as a not inconsiderable
addition, it offers scenic effects and music, the source of a dis­
tinct feeling of pleasure. Then the effect is as vivid when a play
is read as when it is acted. Moreover, this form of imitation
achieves its ends in shorter compass, and what is more compact
gives more pleasure than what is extended over a long period.
Just imagine the Oedipus of Sophocles spread out over as many
lines as there are in the Iliad. Then there is less unity in the imi­
tation of the epic poets, as is shown by the fact that any one work
of this kind contains matter for several tragedies, so that, if
these poets deal with a single plot, either it will appear trun­
cated if it is briefly set out, or it will give the impression of
being watered down if it observes the usual length of such
poems; I mean one composed of several actions, such as the
Iliad or the Odyssey, which have many parts, and each of a certain
amplitude – and yet these poems are constructed as well as they
could be, and each is, as far as this is possible, the representation
of a single action.

If, therefore, tragedy is superior to epic in all these respects,
and also in fulfilling its artistic function – for these forms of art
ought to give, not just any kind of pleasure, but the kinds I have
described – then obviously, in achieving its ends better than
epic, it must be the better form of art.

This is all I have to say about tragedy and epic poetry,
whether in general terms or in relation to their various forms
and constituent parts; about the number and the characteristics
of these parts; about the causes of their success or failure; and
about the various critical problems and their solutions.

I . The disadvantage claimed for it, that it appeals to meaner minds.

HORACE

On the Art of Poetry

H O R A C E
On the Art of Poetry

SupposiNGa painter chose to put a human head on a horse’s
neck, or to spread feathers of various colours over the limbs of
several different creatures, or to make what in the upper part is
a beautiful woman tail off into a hideous fish, could you help
laughing when he showed you his efforts ? You may take it from
me, my friends, that a book will have very much the same effect
as these pictures if, like a sick man’s dreams, the author’s idle
fancies assume such a shape that it is impossible to make head
or tail of what he is driving at. ‘But,’ you will say, ‘the right to
take liberties of almost any kind has always been enjoyed by
painters and poets alike.’ I know that; we poets do claim this
licence, and in our turn we concede it to others, but not to the
point of associating what is wild with what is tame, of pairing
snakes with birds or lambs with tigers.

Works that begin impressively and with the promise of carry­
ing on in the heroic strain often have one or two purple pas­
sages tacked on to catch the eye, giving a description of Diana’s
grove and altar, the meanderings of a stream through a pictur­
esque countryside, the River Rhine, or a rainbow. But this is
not the right place for things of that kind. Perhaps, too, you
know how to paint a cypress; but what is the point of that if
you are being paid to paint a shipwrecked man swimming for
dear life ? A potter sets out to make a two-handled wine-flagon:
why, as his wheel spins, does it turn into an ordinary water-jug ?
In short, whatever you set your hand to, you must be single-
minded about it and keep to the point.

Most of us poets, my friends, are led astray by our notions of
the right way to go to work. I try my hardest to be succinct, and
merely succeed in being obscure; I aim at smoothness, only to
find that I am losing fire and energy. One poet sets out to
achieve the sublime, and falls into turgidity; another is over­
cautious, and, nervous of spreading his wings, never leaves the
ground. Yet another, wishing to vary the monotony of his sub-

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80

ject with something out of the ordinary, introduces a dolphin
into his woods, or puts a boar among his waves. If art is lack­
ing, the avoidance of a petty fault may lead to a serious im­
perfection.

At the end of the row of stalls down by the Aemilian gladia­
torial school there is a craftsman in bronze who will mould
fingernails and reproduce wavy hair to the life, but the total
effect of his work is unsatisfactory because he cannot put to­
gether a complete figure. Now if 1 set out to write a poem, I
would no more want to be like him than to have a crooked nose,
much though I might be admired for my dark eyes and black
hair.

Choose a subject that is suited to your abilities, you who
aspire to be writers; give long thought to what you are capable
of undertaking, and what is beyond you. A man who chooses a
subject within his powers will never be at a loss for words, and
his thoughts will be clear and orderly. The virtue and attrac­
tion of order, I think I am right in saying, is that the poet will at
any moment be saying exactly what his poem at that moment
requires; he will be keeping back points for the time being or
leaving them out altogether, and showing what he thinks
admirable and what beneath notice.

Furthermore, you will make an excellent impression if you
use care and subtlety in placing your words and, by the skilful
choice of setting, give fresh meaning to a familiar word. If
it happens that you have to invent new terms for the discussion
of abstruse topics, you will have a chance to coin words that
were unknown to earlier generations of Romans, 1 and no one
will object to your doing this, as long as you do it with dis­
cretion. New and recently-coined words will win acceptance
if they are borrowed from Greek sources and drawn upon
sparingly. And indeed, why should we Romans allow this
privilege to Caecilius and Plautus, and refuse it to Virgil and
Varius ? Why should I be grudged the right to add a few words

1. H o r a c e ‘ s w o r d s a r e cinctutis . . . Cethegis, ‘ t h e g i r d l e d C e t h e g i ‘ . H e

i s r e f e r r i n g t o t h e t i m e , s o m e 200 y e a r s e a r l i e r , w h e n s u c h m e n a s M .

C o r n e l i u s C e t h e g u s ( c e n s o r B.C. 209, c o n s u l 204) w o r e a k i n d o f g i r d l e

o r l o i n – c l o t h {cinctus) u n d e r t h e t o g a i n s t e a d o f t h e t u n i c o f l a t e r , m o r e

e f f e m i n a t e t i m e s .

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8 1

to the stock if I can, when the language of Cato and Ennius has
enriched our native speech by the introduction of new terms?
It has always been accepted, and always will be, that words
stamped with the mint mark of the day should be brought into
currency. As the woods change their foliage with the decline
of each year, and the earliest leaves fall, 1 so words die out with
old age; and the newly born ones thrive and prosper just like
human beings in the vigour of youth. We are all destined to
die, we and all our works. Perhaps the land has been dug out
and an arm of the sea let in, to give protection to our fleets from
the northern gales (and what a royal undertaking this was!) ; a

or a marsh, long a barren waste on which oars were plied, has
been put under the plough and produces food for the neigh­
bouring towns ; 3 or a river has been made to change a course
ruinous to the cornfields and turned into a straighter channel:*
whatever they are, the works of men will pass away. How much
less likely are the glory and grace of language to have an en­
during life! Many terms that have now dropped out of use will
be revived, if usage so requires, and others which are now in
repute will die out; for it is usage which regulates the laws and
conventions of speech.

Homer showed us in what metre the exploits of kings and
commanders and the miseries of war were to be recorded. The
elegiac couplet was first used as the vehicle for lament, but was
later adopted for verses of thanksgiving; however, scholars
argue about who devised this slighter elegiac form, and the
case so far rests undecided. Archilochus invented the iambic
measure as the weapon for furious satire; it was adopted both
for comedy and for high tragedy, since it is appropriate for

1 . I n w a r m c o u n t r i e s d e c i d u o u s t r e e s d o n o t n e c e s s a r i l y s h e d al l t h e i r

f o l i a g e i n a u t u m n , b u t t h e o l d e s t l e a v e s a r e l i k e l y t o f a l l .

2. T h i s m a y b e a r e f e r e n c e t o t h e P o r t u s J u l i u s , a n a r t i f i c i a l h a r b o u r

w h i c h A g r i p p a , t h e f r i e n d o f A u g u s t u s a n d h i s a d m i r a l i n t h e B a t t l e o f

A c t i u m , f o r m e d o n t h e c o a s t o f C a m p a n i a b y c o n s t r u c t i n g s t r o n g c h a n n e l s

b e t w e e n L a k e L u c r i n u s a n d t h e s e a a n d b e t w e e n L a k e L u c r i n u s a n d

L a k e A v e r n u s .

3. P r o b a b l y a r e f e r e n c e t o t h e d r a i n i n g o f t h e P o n t i n e M a r s h e s , p r o ­

j e c t e d b y J u l i u s C a e s a r a n d p e r h a p s p a r t l y c a r r i e d o u t b y A u g u s t u s .

4. P r o b a b l y a r e f e r e n c e t o t h e s t r a i g h t e n i n g o f t h e c o u r s e o f the T i b e r –

a n o t h e r o f J u l i u s C a e s a r ‘ s s c h e m e s c a r r i e d o u t i n t h e t i m e o f A u g u s t u s .

8l- Io6] C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

dialogue, is capable of drowning the noises of the audience,1

and is by its nature well suited to accompany action. To lyrical
poetry the Muse assigned the task of celebrating the gods and
their offspring, the winner in a boxing-match, and the horse
that led the field; the task, too, of singing the woes of young
lovers and the pleasures of wine. 2 If I have not the ability and
skill to adhere to these well-defined functions and styles of
poetic forms, why should 1 be hailed as a poet ? Why out of
false shame should I prefer to remain ignorant rather than to
learn my craft? A comic subject is not susceptible of treatment
in a tragic style, and similarly the banquet of Thyestes cannot
be fitly described in the strains of everyday life or in those that
approach the tone of comedy. Let each of these styles be kept
for the role properly allotted to it. Yet even comedy at times
uses elevated language, and an angry Chremes rails in bom­
bastic terms ; 3 while in tragedy Telephus and Peleus often ex­
press their grief in prosaic language, and each of them in his
poverty-stricken exile renounces his usual rant and his ses­
quipedalian words 4 when he wants to move the spectator’s
pity with his lamentation.

It is not enough that poems should have beauty; if they are
to carry the audience with them, they must have charm as well.
Just as smiling faces are turned on those who smile, so is
sympathy shown with those who weep. If you want to move
me to tears, you must first feel grief yourself; then, Telephus
and Peleus, your misfortunes will grieve me too, whereas, if
your speeches are out of harmony with your feelings, I shall
either fall asleep or burst out laughing. Pathetic language is
appropriate to the face of sorrow, and violent language to the

1. T h e m u r m u r o f a n a u d i e n c e m i g h t d r o w n a n y b u t t h e c l e a r e s t

e l o c u t i o n ; t h e r e g u l a r l y r e c u r r i n g s t r e s s o f t h e i a m b i c l i n e w o u l d

c o n t r i b u t e t o w a r d s t h e r e q u i r e d c l a r i t y .

2. G r e e k l y r i c a l p o e t r y i n c l u d e d h y m n s t o t h e g o d s a n d h e r o e s , o d e s

( s u c h a s t h o s e o f P i n d a r ) c e l e b r a t i n g v i c t o r i e s i n t h e g a m e s , a n d a m a t o r y

a n d c o n v i v i a l p o e m s ( s u c h a s t h o s e o f S a p p h o , A l c a e u s , a n d A n a c r e o n ) .

3. T e r e n c e u s e s t h e n a m e C h r e m e s f o u r t i m e s i n h i s c o m e d i e s , t h r e e

t i m e s f o r o l d m e n . T h e r e f e r e n c e i s p r o b a b l y t o t h e Heaulonlimorumenos

V , i v , w h e r e t h e o l d m a n C h r e m e s r a i l s a t h i s s o n .

4. Sesquiptdalia verba: l i t e r a l l y ‘ w o r d s a f o o t a n d a h a l f l o n g * . T e l e p h u s

a n d P e l e u s p r o v i d e d s u b j e c t s f o r s e v e r a l t r a g e d i e s .

82

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face of anger; a sportive diction goes with merry looks, and a
serious with grave looks. For nature has so formed us that we
first feel inwardly any change in our fortunes; it is she that
cheers us or rouses us to anger, she that torments us and bows
us to the ground with a heavy burden of sorrow, and it is only
afterwards that she expresses these feelings in us by means of
the tongue. If the speaker’s words are out of key with his for­
tunes, a Roman audience will cackle and jeer to a man. It will
make a great difference whether a god or a hero is speaking, a
man of ripe years or a hot-headed youngster in the pride of
youth, a woman of standing or an officious nurse, a roving
merchant or a prosperous farmer, a Colchian or an Assyrian, a
man from Thebes or one from Argos.

Either follow the beaten track, or invent something that is
consistent within itself. If in your play you happen to be rep­
resenting the illustrious Achilles, let him be energetic, pas­
sionate, ruthless, and implacable; let him say that laws are not
meant for him, and think that everything must yield to the
force of arms. See to it that Medea is fierce and indomitable,
Ino tearful, Ixion faithless, Io a wanderer, and Orestes sorrow­
ful. If you introduce an untried subject to the stage, or are so
bold as to invent a new character, be sure that it remains the
same all the way through as it was at the beginning, and is en­
tirely consistent.

It is hard to be original in treating well-worn subjects,1 and
it is better for you to be putting a Trojan tale into dramatic
form than that you should be first in the field with a theme
hitherto unknown and unsung. 2 A theme that is familiar can
be made your own property as long as you do not waste your
time on a hackneyed treatment; nor should you try to render
your original word for word like a slavish translator, or in
imitating another writer plunge yourself into difficulties from
which shame, or the rules you have laid down for yourself,
prevent you from extricating yourself. And you must not, like

1. Difficile est proprie communia dicere. S o m e e d i t o r s w o u l d t r a n s l a t e

communia a s ‘ s u b j e c t s o f g e n e r a l i n t e r e s t ‘ , o t h e r s a s ‘ s u b j e c t s n o t t r e a t e d

b e f o r e ‘ .

2. T h i s p a s s a g e s u g g e s t s t h a t t h e y o u n g P i s o is a c t u a l l y w r i t i n g , or

i n t e n d i n g t o w r i t e , a p l a y o n a H o m e r i c t h e m e .

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the cyclic poet of old, 1 begin: ‘Of Priam’s fate I’ll sing and
war’s renown.’ What will emerge that can live up to such
extravagant promises? The mountains will fall into labour,
and there will be born – an absurd little mouse. How much
more to the purpose are the words of the man who makes no
foolish undertakings: ‘ Sing for me, Muse, the man who, after
the fall of Troy, made himself acquainted with the ways of
many men and their cities.’ This poet does not mean to let his
flash of fire die away in smoke, but to make the smoke give way
to light, when he may with striking effect relate his tales of
wonder, tales of Antiphates and Scylla and Charybdis and the
Cyclops. He does not trace Diomede’s return right back to the
death of Meleager, or the Trojan War to the twin eggs of
Leda. 2 All the time he is hurrying on to the crisis, and he
plunges his hearer into the middle of the story as if it were
already familiar to him; and what he cannot hope to embellish
by his treatment he leaves out. Moreover, so inventive is he,
and so skilfully does he blend fact and fiction, that the middle is
not inconsistent with the beginning, nor the end with the
middle.

I will tell you what I, and with me the public as a whole,
look for in a play. If you want an appreciative hearer who will
wait for the curtain and remain in his seat until the player calls
out, ‘Give us your applause’, you must note the behaviour of
people of different ages, and give the right kind of manners to
characters of varying dispositions and years. The child who
has just learnt to speak and to plant his feet firmly on the ground
loves playing with his friends, will fly into a temper and with
as little reason recover from it, and will change every hour. The
beardless youth who has at last got rid of his tutor finds his
pleasures in horses and dogs and the grassy sports-fields of the
Campus Martius; pliant as wax, he is easily persuaded to
vicious courses, is irritable with his counsellors, slow to pro-

1. T h e c y c l i c p o e t s w e r e e p i c p o e t s , p r o b a b l y l a t e r t h a n H o m e r , w h o

w r o t e u p o n l e g e n d s c o n n e c t e d w i t h t h e T r o j a n a n d T h e b a n w a r s . T h e i r

p o e m s w e r e a r r a n g e d i n t o c y c l e s b y t h e A l e x a n d r i a n s c h o l a r s .

2. T h a t i s , t o t h e b i r t h o f H e l e n . L e d a w a s v i s i t e d b y Z e u s in t h e f o r m

o f a s w a n , a n d b r o u g h t f o r t h t w o e g g s , f r o m o n e o f w h i c h H e l e n i s s u e d ,

a n d f r o m t h e o t h e r C a s t o r a n d P o l l u x .

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85

vide for his needs, lavish with his money, of high aspirations
and passionate desires, and quick to abandon the objects of his
fancy. When he is become a man in years and spirit, his inclina­
tions change; he sets out to acquire wealth and influential con­
nexions, aims at securing public offices, and is careful to avoid
doing anything which he might later wish had been done other­
wise. The old man is beset by many troubles; either he tries to
make money, but holds back miserably when it comes his way
and is afraid to use it, or he is cautious and faint-hearted in all
his dealings; he puts things off, clings to his hopes, and remains
inactive in an eager desire to prolong his life; he is obstinate,
too, and querulous, and given to praising the days when he was
a boy and criticizing and rebuking his juniors. Advancing years
bring with them many blessings, but many of these are taken
away in the decline of life. Thus, in order not to give a young
man the characteristics of old age, or the child those of a
grown man, we shall always dwell upon the qualities that are
appropriate to a particular time of life.

An episode is either acted on the stage, or reported as having
taken place. However, the mind is less actively stimulated by
what it takes in through the ear than by what is presented to it
through the trustworthy agency of the eyes – something that
the spectator can see for himself. But you will not bring on to
the stage anything that ought properly to be taking place be­
hind the scenes, and you will keep out of sight many episodes
that are to be described later by the eloquent tongue of a
narrator. Medea must not butcher her children in the presence
of the audience, nor the monstrous Atreus cook his dish of
human flesh within public view, nor Procne be metamor­
phosed into a bird, nor Cadmus into a snake. I shall turn in
disgust from anything of this kind that you show me.

If you want your play to be called for and given a second per­
formance, it should not be either shorter or longer than five
acts. A dens ex machina should not be introduced unless some
entanglement develops which requires such a person to un­
ravel it. And there should not be more than three speaking
characters on the stage at the same time. 1

The Chorus should sustain the role and function of an
I . L i t e r a l l y , ‘ A n d l e t n o t a f o u r t h c h a r a c t e r s t r i v e t o s p e a k . ‘

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actor, and should not sing anything between the acts that does
not contribute to the plot and fit appropriately into it. It should
side with the good characters and give them friendly advice, and
should control those who are out of temper and show approval
to those who are anxious not to transgress. It should commend
moderation in the pleasures of the table, the blessings of law
and justice, and times of peace when the gates lie open; it
should respect confidences, and should pray and beseech the
gods to let prosperity return to the wretched and desert the
proud.

At one time the flute – not as now bound with brass and a
rival to the trumpet, but simple and delicate in tone and with
only a few stops – was of service in giving the note to the
Chorus and accompanying it; and its soft music filled rows of
seats that were not yet overcrowded, where an audience small
enough to be counted came together – simple, thrifty folk,
modest and virtuous in their ways. But when a conquering
race began to extend its territories, and cities grew in size, and
the tutelary deity could be propitiated without fear of censure
by drinking in the daytime on festal occasions, a greater free­
dom was allowed in the choice both of rhythms and melodies.
For what taste could be expected in a crowd of uneducated men
enjoying a holiday from work, when country bumpkins rubbed
shoulders with townsfolk, and slum-dwellers with men of rank ?
Thus the flute-player introduced wanton movements that were
unknown in the style of earlier days, and trailed his robe as he
made his way over the stage. The grave lyre, too, acquired new
notes, 1 and a more abrupt type of eloquence brought with it
a new style of speech in which wise saws and prophecies of the
future caught the very manner of the Delphic oracle. 2

The poet originally competed in tragic verse for the paltry
prize of a goat; 3 soon he introduced wild and naked satyrs on
to the stage, and without loss of dignity tried his hand at a

1. B y t h e a d d i t i o n o f f u r t h e r s t r i n g s .

2. T h e y b e c a m e a s o b s c u r e a n d u n h e l p f u l a s t h e u t t e r a n c e s o f t h e

D e l p h i c o r a c l e .

3. T h e d e r i v a t i o n o f t h e w o r d ‘ t r a g e d y ‘ f r o m rpayos (tragos, ‘ h e – g o a t ‘ ) ,

b e c a u s e t h e p r i z e in t h e c o m p e t i t i o n f o r t r a g e d y w a s a h e – g o a t , is n o

l o n g e r a c c e p t e d . H o w e v e r , i n t h e e a r l i e s t s t a g e s o f G r e e k t r a g e d y t h e

C h o r u s c o n s i s t e d o f s a t y r s , t h e p r i m i t i v e , g o a t – l i k e f o l l o w e r s o f D i o n y s u s ,

H O R A C E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y [ 2 2 2 – 4 8

* 7

form of crude jesting; for an audience that was tipsy after ob­
serving the Bacchic rites and in a lawless mood could only be
held by the attraction of some enticing novelty. But if jesters
and mocking satyrs are to win approval, and a transition made
from the serious to the light-hearted, it must be done in such a
way that no one who has been presented as a god or hero, and
who a moment ago was resplendent in purple and gold, is trans­
ported into a dingy hovel and allowed to drop into the speech
of the back streets, or alternatively to spout cloudy inanities
in an attempt to rise above vulgarity. Tragedy scorns to babble
trivialities, and, like a married woman obliged to dance at a
festival, will look rather shamefaced among the wanton satyrs.
If ever I write satyric dramas, my dear fellows, I shall not be
content to use merely the plain, unadorned language of every­
day speech; I shall try not to depart so far from the tone of
tragedy as to make no distinction between the speech of a
Davus, or of a bold-faced Pythias who has managed to trick
Simo out of a talent, and that of Silenus, who after all was the
guardian and attendant of the young god Bacchus. I shall aim
at a style that employs no unfamiliar diction, one that any
writer might hope to achieve, but would sweat tears of blood
in his efforts and still not manage it – such is the power of words
that are used in the right places and in the right relationships,
and such the grace that they can add to the commonplace when
so used. If you are going to bring woodland fauns on to the
stage, I do not think you should ever allow them to speak as
though they had been brought up in the heart of the city; do not
let them be too youthfully indiscreet in the lines you give them,
or crack any filthy or obscene jokes. For such things give
offence to those of knightly or freeborn rank and the more

n o d o u b t c l a d i n g o a t – s k i n s . T h e s a t y r – p l a y , w h i c h H o r a c e g o e s o n t o

d i s c u s s , w a s a s h o r t p l a y a p p e n d e d t o a t r a g i c t r i l o g y , u s u a l l y d e a l i n g i n

c o m i c f a s h i o n w i t h a t h e m e r e l a t e d t o t h a t o f t h e t r i l o g y , a n d h a v i n g a

C h o r u s o f s a t y r s . T h e o n l y c o m p l e t e s u r v i v i n g s a t y r – p l a y i s t h e Cyclops

o f E u r i p i d e s , b e s t k n o w n i n S h e l l e y ‘ s v e r s i o n a n d r e c e n t l y t r a n s l a t e d f o r

t h e P e n g u i n C l a s s i c s b y R o g e r L a n c c l y n G r e e n . I t i s d o u b t f u l w h e t h e r , a s

H o r a c e s u g g e s t s , t h e s a t y r i c d r a m a c a m e i n t o b e i n g l a t e r t h a n t r a g e d y ;

t h e t w o f o r m s s e e m r a t h e r t o b e d i f f e r e n t d e v e l o p m e n t s o f t h e s a m e

o r i g i n s . L i t t l e i s k n o w n o f s a t y r i c d r a m a i n R o m e ; p e r h a p s P i s o , o r e v e n

H o r a c e h i m s e l f , w a s h o p i n g t o r e v i v e i t .

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substantial citizens; these men do not take kindly to what meets
with the approval of the masses, the buyers of roast beans and
chestnuts, nor do they give it a prize.

A long syllable following a short one is called an iambus,
which is a fast-moving foot. From this the name ‘trimeters’ be­
came attached to the iambic line, since it produced six beats;
and the metre was the same throughout the line. 1 But not so
very long ago, so that it might fall upon the ear with rather more
weight and deliberation, the iambic line obligingly opened its
ranks to the steady spondee, but did not extend its welcome to
the point of giving way to it in the second or fourth foot. The
true iambic measure is rarely found in the ‘ noble’ trimeters of
Accius; and on the verse, too, with which Ennius so pon­
derously burdened the stage lies the reproach of over-hasty
and careless composition, or of ignorance of his art. Not every­
one is critical enough to be aware of rhythmical faults in verse,
and an indulgence has been shown to our Roman poets that
true poets should not need. Is that a reason for loose and law­
less writing on my part ? Or should I assume that everyone will
notice my transgressions, and therefore proceed cautiously,
keeping within the bounds in which I may safely hope for
indulgence ? If I do so, I shall have escaped censure, indeed,
but shall not have deserved any praise. For yourselves, my
friends, you must give your days and nights to the study of
Greek models. But, you will say, your grandfathers were en­
thusiastic about the versification and wit of Plautus. They were
altogether too tolerant, not to say foolish, in their admiration
of both these things in him, if you and I have any idea of how
to discriminate between coarseness and graceful wit, and
how to pick out the right rhythm both by counting and by
ear.

Thespis is given the credit for having invented tragedy as a
new genre; 2 he is said to have taken his plays about to be sung

1. Cum . . . redderet i s u s u a l l y t r a n s l a t e d ‘although it p r o d u c e d ‘ . B u t

H o r a c e h a s c a l l e d t h e i a m b u s a f a s t – m o v i n g o r l i g h t f o o t , a n d h e s e e m s

t o b e s a y i n g t h a t b e c a u s e o f t h i s l i g h t n e s s t h e s i x i a m b i c s g i v e t h e e f f e c t

o f a t r i m e t e r , t w o i a m b i c s f o r m i n g a metrum.

2. H e d i d t h i s b y i n t r o d u c i n g a n a c t o r w h o w a s i n d e p e n d e n t o f t h e

C h o r u s , a n d w h o c o u l d s p e a k a p r o l o g u e a n d e n g a g e i n d i a l o g u e w i t h

t h e l e a d e r o f t h e C h o r u s . T h u s h e m a d e t r a g e d y d r a m a t i c

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89

and acted on wagons by players whose faces were smeared with
the lees of wine. After him came Aeschylus, who devised the
mask and the dignified robe of tragedy; it was he who laid
down a stage with planks of moderate size, and who intro­
duced the grand style into tragedy and increased the actor’s
height with buskins. These playwrights were succeeded by
those of the Old Comedy, which enjoyed a fairly considerable
favour; but its freedom degenerated into an offensive violence
of language which had to be curbed by law. This law was ob­
served, and the Chorus, deprived of its right to be abusive, fell
into a shamed silence.

Our own poets have tried their hand in every style; and they
have enjoyed some of their greatest successes when they have
had the courage to turn aside from the paths laid down by the
Greeks and sing of deeds at home, and this in both tragedies
and comedies with Roman backgrounds. Indeed Italy would
be no less renowned in the arts of language than she is in
valour and the arts of war, were it not that her poets, one and
all, shrink from the tedious task of polishing their work. But
you, my dear fellows, the descendants of Numa Pompilius,
you must have nothing to do with any poem that has not been
trimmed into shape by many a day’s toil and much rubbing out,
and corrected down to the smallest detail.

Because Democritus believes that native genius is worth any
amount of piddling art, and will not allow a place on Mount
Helicon to poets with rational minds, a good many will not take
the trouble to trim their nails and their beards; they haunt
solitary places, and keep away from the public baths. For they
will gain the repute and title of poets, they think, if they never
submit to the ministrations of the barber Licinus a head that all
the hellebore of all the Anticyras in the world could never
reduce to sanity. 1 What an ass I am to purge the bile out of my
system as the season of spring comes along! Otherwise no man
would write better poetry. But the game’s not worth the candle.
So I will play the part of a whetstone, which can put an edge on
a blade, though it is not itself capable of cutting. Even if
I write nothing myself, I will teach the poet his duties and

1. H e l l e b o r e , w h i c h g r e w a b u n d a n t l y a t A n t i c y r a i n P h o c i s , w a s

p r e s c r i b e d a s a c u r e f o r m a d n e s s .

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9 0

obligations; I will tell him where to find his resources, what
will nourish and mould his poetic gift, what he may, and may
not, do with propriety, where the right course will take him,
and where the wrong.

The foundation and fountain-head of good composition is a
sound understanding. The Socratic writings will provide you
with material, and if you look after the subject-matter the
words will come readily enough. The man who has learnt his
duty towards his country and his friends, the kind of love he
should feel for a parent, a brother, and a guest, the obligations
of a senator and of a judge, and the qualities required in a
general sent out to lead his armies in the field – such a man will
certainly know the qualities that are appropriate to any of his
characters. I would lay down that the experienced poet, as an
imitative artist, should look to human life and character for his
models, and from them derive a language that is true to fife.
Sometimes a play that has a few brilliant passages showing a
true appreciation of character, even if it lacks grace and has
little depth or artistry, will catch the fancy of an audience, and
keep its attention more firmly than verse which lacks substance
but is filled with well-sounding trifles.

To the Greeks the Muses gave native wit and the ability to
turn phrases, and there was nothing they craved more than
renown. We Romans in our schooldays learn long calculations
for dividing the pound into dozens of parts. ‘Here, young
Albinus, you tell me: if you take an ounce from five-twelfths of
a pound, what’s left ? Come on now, you could have answered
by now.’ ‘A third of a pound.’ ‘Good! You’ll be able to look
after yourself all right. If you add an ounce, what does that
come to ? ” A half.’ When once this corroding lust for profit has
infected our minds, can we hope for poems to be written that
are worth rubbing over with cedar oil 1 and storing away in cases
of polished cypress ?

Poets aim at giving either profit or delight, or at combining
the giving of pleasure with some useful precepts for life. When
you are giving precepts of any kind, be succinct, so that re­
ceptive minds may easily grasp what you are saying and retain
it firmly; when the mind has plenty to cope with, anything

1. A s a p r e s e r v a t i v e .

H O R A C E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y [337-65

9 1

superfluous merely goes in one ear and out of the other. Works
written to give pleasure should be as true to life as possible, and
your play should not demand belief for just anything that catches
your fancy; you should not let the ogress Lamia gobble up a
child, and later bring it out of her belly alive. The centuries of
the elder citizens will disapprove of works lacking in edifica­
tion, while the haughty Ramnes will have nothing to do with
plays that are too serious. 1 The man who has managed to blend
profit with delight wins everyone’s approbation, for he gives
his reader pleasure at the same time as he instructs him. This is
the book that not only makes money for the booksellers, but is
carried to distant lands and ensures a lasting fame for its author.

However, there are faults that we should be ready to forgive;
for the lute-string does not always give the note intended by the
mind and hand, but often returns a high note when a low one is
required, and the bow will not always hit the mark aimed at.
When there are plenty of fine passages in a poem, I shall not
take exception to occasional blemishes which the poet has care­
lessly let slip, or which his fallible human nature has not
guarded against. What then is our conclusion about this ? Just
as the literary scribe gets no indulgence if he keeps on making
the same mistake however often he is warned, and the lutenist
is laughed at if he always goes wrong on the same string, so the
poet who is often remiss seems to me another Choerilus,2 whose
two or three good lines I greet with an amused surprise; at the
same time I am put out when the worthy Homer nods, although
it is natural that slumber should occasionally creep over a long
poem.

A poem is like a painting: the closer you stand to this one the
more it will impress you, whereas you have to stand a good dis­
tance from that one; this one demands a rather dark corner, but
that one needs to be seen in full light, and will stand up to the
keen-eyed scrutiny of the art-critic; this one only pleased you

1. T h e R a m n e s w e r e o n e o f t h e t h r e e c e n t u r i e s o f k n i g h t s . T h e y s e e m

h e r e t o s t a n d , i n c o n t r a s t t o t h e c e n t u r i e s o f e l d e r s , a s r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s o f

t h e a r i s t o c r a t i c y o u n g b l o o d s o f t h e d a y .

2. C h o e r i l u s o f I a s o s , a n i n f e r i o r e p i c p o e t o f t h e t i m e o f A l e x a n d e r

t h e G r e a t . A c r o n , t h e c o m m e n t a t o r o n H o r a c e , s a y s t h a t t h e r e w e r e o n l y

s e v e n g o o d l i n e s i n h i s p o e m o n t h e e x p l o i t s o f A l e x a n d e r .

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the first time you saw it, but that one will go on giving pleasure
however often it is looked at.

A word to you, the elder of the Piso boys. Though you have
been trained by your father to form sound judgements and have
natural good sense, take this truth to heart and do not forget it:
that only in certain walks of life does the second-rate pass
muster. An advocate or barrister of mediocre capacity falls
short of the eloquent Messalla in ability, and knows less than
Aulus Cascellius, yet he is not without his value; on the other
hand, neither gods nor men – nor, for that matter, booksellers
– can put up with mediocrity in poets. Just as at a pleasant
dinner-party music that is out of tune, a coarse perfume, or
poppy-seeds served with bitter Sardinian honey give offence,
for the meal could just as well have been given without them,
so is it with a poem, which is begotten and created for the soul’s
delight; if it falls short of the top by ever so little, it sinks right
down to the bottom. A man who does not understand the
games keeps away from the weapons of the Campus Martius,
and if he has no skill with the ball or quoit or hoop, he stands
quietly aside so that the crowds round the side-lines will not
roar with laughter at his expense; yet the man who knows
nothing about poetry has the audacity to write it. And why not ?
he says. He is his own master, a man of good family, and above
all he is rated as a knight in wealth and there is nothing against
him.

You, I am sure, will not say or do anything counter to the
will of Minerva; you have judgement and sense enough for
that. But if at any time you do write anything, submit it to the
hearing of the critic Maecius, and your father’s and mine as
well; then put the papers away and keep them for nine years.
You can always destroy what you have not published, but
once you have let your words go they cannot be taken back.

While men still roamed the forests, they were restrained
from bloodshed and a bestial way of life by Orpheus, the
sacred prophet and interpreter of the divine will – that is why
he is said to have tamed tigers and savage lions. Amphion, too,
the founder of Thebes, is credited with having moved stones
by the strains of his lyre, and led them where he would with this
sweet blandishment. At one time this was the way of the wise

H O R A C E ! O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y [ 3 9 6 – 4 2 7

9 3

man: to distinguish between public and personal rights and
between things sacred and profane, to discourage indiscrimi­
nate sexual union and make rules for married life, to build
towns, and to inscribe laws on tablets of wood. For this reason
honour and fame were heaped upon the bards, as divinely in­
spired beings, and upon their songs. After them the illustrious
Homer and Tyrtaeus fired the hearts of men to martial deeds
with their verses. In song, too, oracles were delivered, and the
way to right living taught; the favour of kings was sought in
Pierian strains; and singing-festivals were devised as a close to
the year’s long toils. So there is no need for you to blush for the
Muse, with her skill in song, and for Apollo the god of singers.

The question has been asked whether a fine poem is the pro­
duct of nature or of art. I myself cannot see the value of applica­
tion without a strong natural aptitude, or, on the other hand,
of native genius unless it is cultivated – so true is it that each re­
quires the help of the other, and that they enter into a friendly
compact with each other. The athlete who strains to reach the
winning-post has trained hard as a boy and put up with a great
deal, sweating, and shivering in the cold, and keeping away
from women and wine; the flautist who plays at the Pythian
games has first had to learn his art under a stern master. Yet
nowadays it is enough for a man to say: ‘I write marvellous
poems – the devil take the hindmost! 1 It would be dreadful if
I fell behind and had to admit that I know absolutely nothing
about what, after all, I’ve never learnt.’

Like the auctioneer who gathers a crowd round him anxious
to buy his wares, the poet who has plenty of property and
plenty of money accumulating interest is a standing invitation
to flatterers to swarm round for what they can make out of him.
But if he is a man who can put on a first-class dinner in proper
style, or stand security for a poor man of little credit, or rescue
him when he is tied up in a dismal lawsuit, I shall be surprised
if, for all his apparent happiness, he can tell a true friend from a
false. And you, if you have given or intend to give anyone a
present, do not ask him in the first flush of his delight to listen

I . A n a l l u s i o n t o a g a m e l i k e ‘ T o u c h m e ‘ o r t a g i n w h i c h t h e c h i l d r e n

c r i e d o u t , ‘ T h e d e v i l t a k e t h e h i n d m o s t . ‘ H o r a c e i m p l i e s t h a t s o m e p e o p l e

m e r e l y p l a y a t w r i t i n g p o e t r y .

4 2 7 – 6 0 ] C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

94

to your own poems. 1 Lovely!’ he will exclaim. 1 That’s excellent
– it’s absolutely first-rate!’ He will turn quite pale with emotion,
and will even be so amiable as to squeeze out a tear or two; he
will dance with excitement, or tap out his approval with his
foot. Just as at a funeral the paid mourners are on the whole
more active and vocal than those who are really suffering deeply,
so the mock admirer shows more appreciation than the man
who is sincere in his praise. It is said that when kings are anxious
to test thoroughly whether a man is worthy of their friendship,
they put him to the trial with wine, and ply him with many
bumpers. If you are going to write poetry, see to it that you are
never put upon by people with the hidden cunning of the fox.

When anything was read to Quintilius Varus, he would say:
‘You must put this right – and this too, please.’ If after two or
three ineffectual attempts you said you could not do any better,
he would tell you to get rid of the passage; the lines were badly
turned and would have to be hammered out again. If you chose
to defend a weakness rather than correct it, he would not say
another word, nor waste any effort in trying to prevent you
from regarding yourself and your work as unique and un­
rivalled. An honest, sensible man will condemn any lines that
are lifeless, will find fault with them if they are rough, and will
run his pen through any that are inelegant; he will cut out any
superfluous adornment, will force you to clarify anything that
is obscure, and will draw attention to ambiguities; in fact he
will prove another Aristarchus and point out everything that
requires changing. 1 He will not say, ‘Why should I quarrel
with a friend over trifles?’ Those trifles will bring his friend
into serious trouble when once his efforts have been taken amiss
and he has become an object of ridicule.

Just as happens when a man is plagued by a nasty rash, or by
jaundice, or a fit of lunacy, so men of sense are afraid to have
any dealings with a mad poet, and keep clear of him; but child­
ren boldly follow him about and tease him. While he is wander­
ing about, spouting his lines with his head in the air like a fowler
intent on his game, he can fall into a well or pit, and no one will

I . A r i s t a r c h u s , a n A l e x a n d r i a n c r i t i c o f t h e s e c o n d c e n t u r y B.C., h a s

b e e n d e s c r i b e d a s ‘ t h e g r e a t e s t c r i t i c o f a n t i q u i t y ‘ . H i s w o r k o n t h e

H o m e r i c p o e m s h a s b e e n t h e b a s i s o f a l l l a t e r t e x t s .

H O R A C E : O N T H E A R T O F P O E T R Y [4C.O-7

bother to pull him out however long he goes on shouting to the
passers-by for help. And if anyone should take the trouble to
lend a hand and let down a rope,’ How do you know he didn’t
jump down there on purpose,’ 1 shall say, ‘and doesn’t want to
be rescue”d?’ and I shall tell the story of the Sicilian poet
Empedocles’ death. Eager to be regarded as one of the immor­
tal gods, Empedocles in cold blood leapt into the flames of
Etna. And poets should have the right to take their own lives.
To save a man who does not want to be saved is as good as
murdering him. This is not the first time he has tried, and if he
is pulled out he will not immediately become a normal human
being and abandon his desire to win notoriety by his death. Nor
is it very clear why he goes on trying to write poetry — whether
because he has defiled his father’s ashes, or sacrilegiously viola­
ted a place struck by lightning. It is certain, at any rate, that he is
raving mad, and like a bear that has been strong enough to
burst the bars of its cage, he makes everyone, learned and ignor­
ant alike, take to their heels when he embarks on his detestable
recitations. He will fasten on to anyone he manages to catch,
and read him to death – just like a leech that will not drop off
your skin until it is gorged with blood.

LONGINUS

On the Sublime

L O N G I N U S
On the Sublime

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Cecilius’s Treatise and Its Shortcomings

A s you will remember, my dear Postumius Terentianus, when
we were working together on Cecilius’s little treatise on the
sublime, it seemed to us too trivial a handling of the subject as
a whole; it showed no grasp of the main points, and offered its
readers little of the practical help that it should be the writer’s
main object to supply. In any systematic treatise two things are
essential: first, there must be some definition of the subject;
second in order of treatment, but of greater importance, there
must be some indication of the methods by which we may our­
selves reach the desired goal. Now Cecilius, assuming us to be
ignorant, sets out to establish the nature of the sublime by
means of innumerable examples; but he leaves out of account,
apparently considering it unnecessary, the means by which we
may be enabled to raise our faculties to the proper pitch of
grandeur. However, we ought perhaps rather to praise him for
the industry he has shown in carrying out his purpose than find
fault with him for his deficiencies.

99

C H A P T E R I

First Thoughts on Sublimity

S I N C E you have urged me in my turn to write down my
thoughts on the sublime for your gratification, we should con­
sider whether my views contain anything of value to men in
public life. And as your nature and your sense of fitness prompt
you, my dear friend, you will help me to form the truest pos­
sible judgements on the various details; for it was a sound
answer that was given by the man who, when asked what we
have in common with the gods, replied, ‘Benevolence and
truth’.

As I am writing for you, Terentianus, who are a man of some
erudition, I almost feel that I can dispense with a long preamble
showing that sublimity consists in a certain excellence and
distinction in expression, and that it is from this source alone
that the greatest poets and historians have acquired their pre­
eminence and won for themselves an eternity of fame. For the
effect of elevated language is, not to persuade the hearers, but
to entrance them; and at all times, and in every way, what
transports us with wonder is more telling than what merely
persuades or gratifies us. The extent to which we can be per­
suaded is usually under our own control, but these sublime
passages exert an irresistible force and mastery, and get the
upper hand with every hearer. Inventive skill and the proper
order and disposition of material are not manifested in a good
touch here and there, but reveal themselves by slow degrees
as they run through the whole texture of the composition; on
the other hand, a well-timed stroke of sublimity scatters every­
thing before it like a thunderbolt, and in a flash reveals the full
power of the speaker. But I should think, my dear Terentianus,
that you could develop these points and others of the same
kind from your own experience.

I O O

C H A P T E R 2

If there an Art of the Sublime?

B E F O R E going any farther, I must take up the question
whether there is such a thing as an art of sublimity or profun­
dity, for some people think that those who relate matters of
this kind to a set of artistic precepts are on a completely wrong
track. Genius, they say, is innate; it is not something that can
be learnt, and nature is the only art that begets it. Works of
natural genius are spoilt, they believe, are indeed utterly de­
based, when they are reduced to the bare bones of rules and
systems. However, I suggest that there is a case for the opposite
point of view when it is considered that, although nature is in
the main subject only to her own laws where sublime feelings
are concerned, she is not given to acting at random and wholly
without system. Nature is the first cause and the fundamental
creative principle in all activities, but the function of a system
is to prescribe the degree and the right moment for each, and
to lay down the clearest rules for use and practice. Furthermore,
sublime impulses are exposed to greater dangers when they
are left to themselves without the ballast and stability of know­
ledge; they need the curb as often as the spur.

Speaking of the life of mankind as a whole, Demosthenes
declares that the greatest of all blessings is good fortune, and
that next to it comes good counsel, which, however, is no
less important, since its absence leads to the complete destruc­
tion of what good fortune brings. Applying this to diction, we
might say that nature fills the place of good fortune, and art
that of good counsel. Most important, we must remember that
the very fact that certain linguistic effects derive from nature
alone cannot be learnt from any other source than art. If then
the critic who censures those who want to learn this art would
take these points into consideration, he would no longer, I
imagine, regard the study of the topic I am treating as super­
fluous and unprofitable.

(Here two pages of the manuscript are missing)

1 0 1

C H A P T E R 3

Defects that Militate against Sublimity
. . . Q u e l l t h e y t h e o v e n ‘ s f a r – f lung s p l e n d o u r – g l o w I

H a , l e t m e b u t o n e h c a r t h – a b i d e r m a r k –

O n e f l a m e – w r e a t h t o r r e n t – l i k e I ‘ l l w h i r l on h i g h ;

I ‘ l l b u r n t h e r o o f , t o c i n d e r s s h r i v e l i t ! –

Nay, now m y c h a n t i s not of n o b l e s t r a i n . 1

S U C H things as this are not tragic, but pseudo-tragic – the
‘flame-wreaths’, the ‘vomiting forth to heaven’, the represen­
tation of Boreas as a flute-player, and all the rest. They are
turbid in expression, and the imagery is confused rather than
suggestive of terror; each phrase, when examined in the light
of day, sinks gradually from the terrible to the contemptible.

Now even in tragedy, which by its very nature is majestic
and admits of some bombast, misplaced tumidity is unpar­
donable; still less, I think, would it be appropriate to factual
narration. This is why people laugh at Gorgias of Leontini 2

when he writes of ‘Xerxes the Zeus of the Persians’, or of
‘vultures, animated sepulchres’. Similarly certain expressions
of Callisthenes3 are ridiculed as being high-flown and not
sublime; still more are some of Cleitarchus’s4 – a frivolous
fellow who, in the words of Sophocles,6 blows ‘on wretched
pipes without control of breath’. Such effects will be found
also in Amphicrates and f legesias and Matris, 6 for often when

1. I h a v e a d o p t e d t h e t r a n s l a t i o n p r o v i d e d b y A . S . W a y f o r R o b e r t s ‘ s

e d i t i o n , s i n c e it b r i n g s o u t s o w e l l t h e b o m b a s t i c , p s e u d o – t r a g i c q u a l i t y

t o w h i c h L o n g i n u s t a k e s e x c e p t i o n . T h e l i n e s p r o b a b l y c o m e f r o m a l o s t

Orilhyia b y A e s c h y l u s .

2. A S i c i l i a n r h e t o r i c i a n o f t h e fifth c e n t u r y B.C.

} . A h i s t o r i a n w h o w r o t e a t t h e e n d o f t h e f o u r t h a n d b e g i n n i n g o f t h e

t h i r d c e n t u r i e s B.C.

4. A n o t h e r h i s t o r i a n , c o n t e m p o r a r y w i t h C a l l i s t h e n e s ; c e l e b r a t e d t h e

d e e d s o f A l e x a n d e r t h e G r e a t .

5. T h e w o r d s , p r o b a b l y f r o m a l o s t Orilbyia b y S o p h o c l e s , a r e q u o t e d

i n a f u l l e r f o r m b y C i c e r o (Ad Atticum).

6. A m p h i c r a t e s o f A t h e n s (Jl. 90 B . C ) , H e g e s i a s o f M a g n e s i a (fl. 270

B.C.), a n d M a t r i s o f T h e b e s (/?. ? 200 B . C ) w e r e r h e t o r i c i a n s .

I O Z

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

they believe themselves to be inspired they are not really
carried away, but are merely being puerile.

Tumidity seems, on the whole, to be one of the most difficult
faults to guard against. For somehow or other, all those who
aim at grandeur in the hope of escaping the charge of feeble­
ness and aridity fall naturally into this very fault, putting their
trust in the maxim that ‘to fall short of a great aim is at any
rate a noble failure*. As in the human body, so also in diction
swellings are bad things, mere flabby insincerities that will
probably produce an effect opposite to that intended; for as
they say, there is nothing drier than a man with dropsy.

Tumidity, then, arises from the desire to outdo the sublime.
Puerility, on the other hand, is the complete antithesis of
grandeur, for it is entirely low and mean-spirited, and is indeed
the most ignoble of faults. What then is puerility? Is it not,
surely, a thought which is pedantically elaborated until it tails
off into frigidity ? Writers slip into this kind of fault when they
strive for unusual and well-wrought effects, and above all for
attractiveness, and instead flounder into tawdriness and affec­
tation.

Related to this there is a third type of fault in impassioned
writing which Theodorus 1 called parenthyrsus, or false senti­
ment. This is misplaced, hollow emotionalism where emotion
is not called for, or immoderate passion where restraint is what
is needed. For writers are often carried away, as though by
drunkenness, into outbursts of emotion which are not relevant
to the matter in hand, but are wholly personal, and hence
tedious. To hearers unaffected by this emotionalism their work
therefore seems atrocious, and naturally enough, for while they
are themselves in an ecstasy, their hearers are not. However, I
am leaving this matter of the emotions for treatment in another
place.

I . T h e o d o r u s o f G a d a r a , a r h e t o r i c i a n (y?. 30 B . C . ) .

1 0 3

C H A P T E R 4

Frigidity

O F the second fault I mentioned, that is, frigidity, there are
plenty of examples in Timaeus,1 in other respects a writer of
some ability, and not incapable of occasional grandeur – a man,
indeed, of much learning and inventiveness. However, while
he was very fond of criticizing the failings of others, he re­
mained blind to his own, and his passion for continually em­
barking upon odd conceits often led him into the most trifling
puerilities. I shall give you only one or two examples from this
author, since Cecilius has anticipated me with most of them. In
his eulogy of Alexander the Great he says of him that’ he gained
possession of the whole of Asia in fewer years than lsocrates 2

took to write his Panegyric advocating war against the Persians.’
How remarkable is this comparison of the great Macedonian
with the rhetorician! For it is obvious, Timaeus, that, seen in
this light, the Spartans were far inferior in prowess to lsocrates,
since they took thirty years over the conquest of Messene,
whereas he took no more than ten over the composition of his
Panegyric. Then look at the way in which he speaks of the
Athenians captured in Sicily:’ They had behaved sacrilegiously
towards Hermes and mutilated statues of him, and it was for
this reason that they were punished, very largely through the
efforts of a single man, Hermocrates the son of Hermon,
who on his father’s side was descended from the outraged
god.’ I am surprised, my dear Terentianus, that he does not
write of the tyrant Dionysius that, ‘having been guilty of
impious conduct towards Zeus and Heracles, he was therefore

1 . T i m a e u s o f T a u r o m e n i u m (Jl. 3 1 0 B.C.), a S i c i l i a n h i s t o r i a n w h o w a s

s o f o n d o f finding f a u l t s in t h e w o r k o f o t h e r w r i t e r s t h a t h e w a s

n i c k n a m e d E p i t i m a e u s . i . e . , ‘ f a u l t – f i n d e r ‘ .

2. l s o c r a t e s (436-338 B.C.), t h e g r e a t A t h e n i a n o r a t o r a n d r h e t o r i c i a n .

I n h i s Panegyric (380 B.C.) h e u r g e d t h e A t h e n i a n s a n d t h e S p a r t a n s t o l a y

a s i d e t h e i r r i v a l r y a n d u n i t e a g a i n s t P e r s i a .

1 0 4

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

deprived of his sovereignty by Dion and Heracleides.’1

But why speak of Timaeus when even such demigods as
Xenophon and Plato, trained as they were in the school of
Socrates, forget themselves at times for the sake of such trivial
effects? In his Constitution of Sparta Xenophon writes: ‘In fact
you would hear their voices less than those of marble statues,
and would turn aside their gaze less easily than those of bronze
figures; and you would think them more modest even than
the maidens in their eyes.’ 2 It would have been more charac­
teristic of Amphicrates 3 than Xenophon to speak of the pupils
of our eyes as modest maidens. And good heavens, to ask us to
believe that every single one of them had modest eyes, when
it is said that the shamelessness of people is revealed in nothing
so much as in their eyes! ‘You drunken sot with the eyes of a
dog,’ as the saying goes. 4 However, Timaeus could not let
Xenophon keep even this frigid conceit to himself, but laid his
thieving hands on it. At all events, speaking of Agathocles, and
how he abducted his cousin from the unveiling ceremony when
she had been given in marriage to another man, he asks, ‘Who
would have done this if he had not had strumpets in his eyes
instead of maidens ?’

As for the otherwise divine Plato, he says, when he means
merely wooden tablets, ‘They will inscribe memorials of
cypress-wood and place them in the temples;’ 5 and again,
‘ With regard to walls, Megillus, I would agree with Sparta that
the walls be allowed to remain lying asleep in the ground, and
not rise again.’6 And Herodotus’s phrase for beautiful women,
when he calls them ‘tortures for the eyes’, 7 is not much better.
However, Herodotus can in some measure be defended, for it
is barbarians who use this phrase in his book, and they in their
cups. All the same, it is not proper to put low terms into the

1 . T h e g e n i t i v e o f Z e u s i s D i o s , a n d I x i n g i n u s i r o n i c a l l y b a s e s o n t h i s

a c o n c e i t i n t h e m a n n e r o f T i m a e u s ‘ s f a r – f e t c h e d p u n o n H e r m e s a n d

H e r m o c r a t e s t h e s o n o f H e r m o n .

2. B e c a u s e it r e f l e c t s a t i n y i m a g e o f t h e p e r s o n g a z i n g i n t o i t , t h e

p u p i l o f t h e e y e w a s c a l l e d kore, o r m a i d e n .

3 . A n A t h e n i a n r h e t o r i c i a n a t t h e b e g i n n i n g o f t h e first c e n t u r y B.C.

4. Iliad I , 2 2 5 . 5. Luus V , 7 4 1 C .
6. i b i d . V I , 778 D .

7. H e r o d o t u s , V , 1 8 .

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

1 0 6

mouths even of such people as these, and thereby lay oneself
open to the censure of later ages.

C H A P T E R 5

The Origins of Literary Impropriety

A L L these ignoble qualities in literature arise from one cause —
from that passion for novel ideas which is the dominant craze
among the writers of today; for our faults spring, for the most
part, from very much the same sources as our virtues. Thus
while a fine style, sublime conceptions, yes, and happy turns of
phrase, too, all contribute towards effective composition, yet
these very factors are the foundation and origin, not only of
success, but also of its opposite. Something of the kind applies
also to variations in manner, to hyperbole, and to the idiomatic
plural, and I shall show later the dangers which these devices
seem to involve. At the moment I must cast about and make
some suggestions how we may avoid the defects that are so
closely bound up with the achievement of the sublime.

C H A P T E R 6

Criticism and the Sublime

T H E way to do this, my friend, is first of all to get a clear under­
standing and appreciation of what constitutes the true sublime.
This, however, is no easy undertaking, for the ability to judge
literature is the crowning achievement of long experience.
Nevertheless, if I am to speak by way of precept, we can per­
haps learn discrimination in these matters from some such
considerations as those which follow.

C H A P T E R 7

The True Sublime

I T must be understood, my dear friend, that, as in everyday life
nothing is great which it is considered great to despise, so is it
with the sublime. Thus riches, honours, reputation, sove­
reignty, and all the other things which possess in marked
degree the external trappings of a showy splendour, would
not seem to a sensible man to be great blessings, since contempt
for them is itself regarded as a considerable virtue; and indeed
people admire those who possess them less than those who
could have them but are high-minded enough to despise them.
In the same way we must consider, with regard to the grand
style in poetry and literature generally, whether certain pas­
sages do not simply give an impression of grandeur by means
of much adornment indiscriminately applied, being shown up
as mere bombast when these are stripped away – passages
which it would be more noble to despise than to admire. For
by some innate power the true sublime uplifts our souls; we are
filled with a proud exaltation and a sense of vaunting joy, just
as though we had ourselves produced what we had heard.

If an intelligent and well-read man can hear a passage several
times, and it does not either touch his spirit with a sense of
grandeur or leave more food for reflection in his mind than the
mere words convey, but with long and careful examination
loses more and more of its effectiveness, then it cannot be an
example of true sublimity – certainly not unless it can outlive a
single hearing. For a piece is truly great only if it can stand up to
repeated examination, and if it is difficult, or, rather, impossible
to resist its appeal, and it remains firmly and ineflaceably in the
memory. As a generalization, you may take it that sublimity in
all its truth and beauty exists in such works as please all men at
all times. For when men who differ in their pursuits, their ways
of life, their ambitions, their ages, and their languages all think
in one and the same way about the same works, then the
unanimous judgement, as it were, of men who have so little in

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

common induces a strong and unshakeable faith in the object
of admiration.

C H A P T E R 8

Five Sources of Sublimity
I T may be said that there are five particularly fruitful sources of
the grand style, and beneath these five there lies as a common
foundation the command of language, without which nothing
worth while can be done. The first and most important is the
ability to form grand conceptions, as I have explained in my
commentary on Xenophon. Second comes the stimulus of
powerful and inspired emotion. These two elements of the
sublime are very largely innate, while the remainder are the
product of art – that is, the proper formation of the two types
of figure, figures of thought and figures of speech, together
with the creation of a noble diction, which in its turn may be
resolved into the choice of words, the use of imagery, and the
elaboration of the style. The fifth source of grandeur, which
embraces all those I have already mentioned, is the total effect
resulting from dignity and elevation.

We must consider, then, what is involved under each of
these heads, with a preliminary reminder that Cecilius has left
out of account some of the five divisions, one of them ob­
viously being that which relates to emotion. Now if he thought
that these two things, sublimity and emotion, were the same
thing, and that they were essentially bound up with each other,
he is mistaken. For some emotions can be found that are
mean and not in the least sublime, such as pity, grief, and fear;
and on the other hand many sublime passages convey no
emotion, such as, among countless examples, the poet’s daring
lines about the Aloadae:

Keenly they strove to set Ossa upon Olympus, and upon Ossa
the forest-clad Pelion, that they might mount up to heaven;
and the still greater conception that follows:

And this would they have accomplished.1

With the orators, again, their eulogies, ceremonial addresses,
I . Odyssey X I , 3 1 J – 1 6 ; 3 1 7 .

1 0 8

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

and occasional speeches contain touches of majesty and gran­
deur at every point, but as a rule lack emotion; thus emotional
speakers are the least effective eulogists, while, on the other
hand, those who excel as panegyrists avoid emotionalism. But
if Cecilius believed that emotion contributes nothing at all to
the sublime, and for this reason considered it not worth
mentioning, once again he was making a very serious mistake;
for I would confidently maintain that nothing contributes so
decisively to the grand style as a noble emotion in the right
setting, when it forces its way to the surface in a gust of frenzy,
and breathes a kind of divine inspiration into the speaker’s
words.

C H A P T E R 9

Nobility of Soul

N o w since the first of these factors, that is to say, nobility of
soul, 1 plays the most important part of them all, here too, even
though it is a gift rather than an acquired characteristic, we
should do all we can to train our minds towards the production
of grand ideas, perpetually impregnating them, so to speak,
with a noble inspiration. By what means, you will ask, is this
to be done? Well, I have written elsewhere to this effect:
‘Sublimity is the echo of a noble mind.’ Thus, even without
being spoken, a simple idea will sometimes of its own accord
excite admiration by reason of the greatness of mind that it
expresses; for example, the silence of Ajax in ‘The Calling Up
of the Spirits’ 2 is grand, more sublime than any words.

First, then, it is absolutely necessary to indicate the source
of this power, and to show that the truly eloquent man must
have a mind that is not mean or ignoble. For it is not possible
that those who throughout their lives have feeble and servile
thoughts and aims should strike out anything that is remark­
able, anything that is worthy of an immortality of fame; no,

1. T h e first o f t h e five s o u r c e s o f s u b l i m i t y , l i s t e d i n t h e p r e v i o u s

c h a p t e r a s ‘ t h e a b i l i t y t o f o r m g r a n d c o n c e p t i o n s ‘ .

2. Odyssey X I , 543 ff.

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

greatness of speech is the province of those whose thoughts
are deep, and stately expressions come naturally to the most
high-minded of men. Alexander’s reply to Parmenio when he
said, ‘I would have been content. . . ‘*

(Here six pages of the manuscript are missing)

. . . the distance from earth to heaven; and it might be said
that this is the stature of Homer as much as of Strife.*

Quite different from this is Hesiod’s description of Trouble
– if indeed The Shield is to be ascribed to Hesiod

Rheum was running from her nostrils.

The image he has presented is not powerful, but offensive. But
see how Homer exalts the heavenly powers:

And as far as a man can see with his eyes into the hazy distance
as he sits upon a mountain-peak and gazes over the wine-dark
sea, even so far is the leap of the loudly-neighing steeds of the
gods.4

He measures their mighty leap in terms of cosmic distances.
Might one not exclaim, from the supreme grandeur of this,
that if the steeds of the gods make two leaps in succession they
will no longer find room on the face of the earth ? And vast
also are the images he conjures up for the Battle of the Gods:

And round them rolled the trumpet-tones of the wide heavens
and of Olympus. And down in the underworld Hades, monarch
of the realm of the shades, leapt from his throne and cried aloud
in dread, lest the earth-shaker Poseidon thereafter should cleave
the earth apart, and reveal to the gaze of mortals and immortals

1. Arrian (II, 2 5 , 2) records that Parmenio said to Alexander that, if
he had been Alexander, he would have been content to end a war on
the terms offered without wishing to go further, to which Alexander
replied that, if he had been Parmenio, he would have done so.

2. Evidently Longinus has referred to Homer’s description of Strife
(Iliad IV, 442) .

3. Hesiod, who belongs probably to the eighth century B.C., is best
known for his Works and Days. The Shield of Heracles, on the authorship
of which Longinus casts doubt, is probably the work of an imitator.

4. Iliad V, 770 ff.

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L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

alike those grim and festering abodes which the very gods look
upon with abhorrence.1

You see, my friend, how the earth is split from its foundations
upwards, how Tartarus itself is laid bare, how the whole uni­
verse is turned upside down and torn apart, and everything
alike, heaven and hell, things mortal and immortal, shares in
the conflict and peril of the combat.

And yet, awe-inspiring as these things are, from another
aspect, if they are not taken as allegory, they are altogether un­
godly, and do not preserve our sense of what is fitting. In his
accounts of the wounds suffered by the gods, their quarrels,
their vengeful actions, their tears, their imprisonment, and all
their manifold passions, Homer seems to me to have done
everything in his power to make gods of the men fighting at
Troy, and men of the gods. But while for us mortals, if we
are miserable, death is appointed as a refuge from our ills,
Homer has given the gods immortality, not only in their
nature, but also in their misfortunes.

But far superior to the passages on the Battle of the Gods are
those which represent the divine nature as it really is, pure,
majestic, and undcfilcd; for example, the lines on Poseidon, in
a passage on which many others before me have commented:

And the far-stretched mountains and woodlands, and the peaks,
and the Trojan city and the ships of the Achaeans trembled
beneath the immortal feet of Poseidon as he strode forth. And
he went on to drive over the swelling waters, and from all round
the monsters of the deep came from their hiding-places and gambol­
led about him, for they knew their lord. And in rapture the sea
parted her waves, and onwards they flew.*

So too the lawgiver of the Jews, no ordinary person, having
formed a high conception of the power of the Divine Being,
gave expression to it when at the very beginning of his Laws
he wrote: ‘ God said’ – what ? ‘ Let there be light, and there was
light; let there be land, and there was land.’

I should not, I think, seem a bore, my friend, if I were to put
before you still one more passage from Homer – one dealing

1 . A conflation of Iliad X X I , 338 and X X , 6 1 – 5 .

2. Another conflation: Iliad X I I I , 1 8 ; X X , 6 0 ; X I I I , 1 9 ; 27-9.

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

with human affairs – in order to show how he habitually associa­
tes himself with the sublimity of his heroic themes. All of a
sudden the battle of the Greeks is plunged into the impene­
trable darkness of night, and then Ajax, utterly at a loss what
to do, cries out:

Father Zeus, do but rescue the sons of Achaea from out of the
gloom, give us fair weather, and grant that wc may see with our
eyes. So long as it be in the light of day, even destroy us. 1

These are truly the feelings of an Ajax. He does not beg for life,
for this plea would be too base for the hero: but since in the
crippling darkness he can turn his valour to no noble purpose,
he is annoyed that this prevents him from getting on with the
fight, and prays for the immediate return of daylight, resolved
at least to find a death worthy of his courage, even though Zeus
should be fighting against him. Here indeed Homer breathes
in the inspiration of the fray, and is affected by it just as if he
himself

is raging madly, like Arcs the spear-hurler, or as when ruinous
flames rage among the hills, in the thickets of a deep forest, and
foam gathers about his lips.2

Howevei, throughout the Odyssey, which for a number of
reasons must be taken into consideration, Homer shows that
when a great genius is falling into decline, it is a special mark
of his old age that he should be fond of fables. For it is clear on
many grounds that he produced this work as his second com­
position, besides the fact that throughout the Odyssey he intro­
duces remnants of the experiences at Troy as episodes from the
Trojan War. And indeed he there pays a debt of mourning and
lamentation to his heroes as something long due to them. In
fact the Odyssey is nothing more than an epilogue to the Iliad:

There lies Ajax the great warrior, there Achilles, there too
Patroclus, peer of the gods in counsel; and there too my own dear
son.3

1. Iliad XVII, 6 4 5 – 7 .
2. Iliad X V , 605-7.
3 . Odyssey III, 1 0 9 – 1 1 . Nestor is telling Telemachus about the siege

of Troy.

1 1 2

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

It was, T suppose, for the same reason that, writing the Iliad
in the prime of life, he filled the whole work with action and
conflict, whereas the greater part of the Odyssey is narrative, as
is characteristic of old age. Thus in the Odyssey Homer may be
likened to the setting sun, whose grandeur remains without its
intensity; for no longer there does he maintain the same pitch
as in those lays of Troy. The sublime passages have not that
consistency which nowhere lapses into mediocrity, nor is there
the same closely-packed profusion of passions, nor the ver­
satile and oratorical style studded with images drawn from real
life. As though the ocean were withdrawing into itself and re­
maining quietly within its own bounds, from now on we see
the ebbing of Homer’s greatness as he wanders in the realms of
the fabulous and the incredible. In saying this I have not for­
gotten the storms in the Odyssey and the episode of the Cyclops
and other things of the kind. I am speaking indeed of old age,
but after all it is the old age of a Homer. Nevertheless, in every
one of these passages the fabulous predominates over the actual.

As I said, I have digressed in this way in order to show how
very easily a great spirit in his decline may at times be misled
into writing nonsense; examples are the episodes of the wine­
skin, 1 of the men whom Circe fed like swine, and whom Zoilus*
described as ‘ wailing piglets’, of Zeus nurtured by the doves
like a nestling, and of the man remaining without food on the
wreck for ten days, 3 and the incredible story of the killing of
the suitors. For how else are we to describe these things than as
veritable dreams of Zeus ?

There is another reason why these comments should be made
on the Odyssey, and that is that you should understand how the
decline of emotional powers in poets and prose-writers leads
to the study of character. For of this kind are the facts, given
from the point of view of character, of the way of life in
Odysseus’s household; they constitute what is in effect a
comedy of character.

1. Odyssey X , 17. T h e w i n e – s k i n in w h i c h A e o l u s e n c l o s e d f o r O d y s s e u s

t h e u n f a v o u r a b l e w i n d s , w h i c h w e r e r e l e a s e d b y h i s f o l l o w e r s .

2. A g r a m m a r i a n a n d c r i t i c o f t h e f o u r t h c e n t u r y B.C. w h o w a s n i c k ­

n a m e d ‘ H o m e r ‘ s S c o u r g e ‘ f o r h i s c a r p i n g c r i t i c i s m o f H o m e r .

3 . A r e f e r e n c e t o O d y s s e u s ‘ s t e n – d a y s w i m a t t h e e n d o f Odyssey X H .

” 3

C H A P T E R I O

The Selection and Organisation of Material

N E X T we must consider whether there is anything else that
makes for sublimity of style. Now as we naturally associate
with all things certain elements that are inherent in their sub­
stance, so it necessarily follows that we shall find one source of
the sublime in the unerring choice of the most felicitous of
these elements, and in the ability to relate them to one another
in such a way as to make of them a single organism, so to speak.
For one writer attracts the hearer by his choice of matter,
another by the cumulative effect of the ideas he chooses. For
example, Sappho in her poetry always chooses the emotions
attendant on the lover’s frenzy from among those which accom­
pany this passion in real life. And wherein does she demonstrate
her excellence ? In the skill with which she selects and fuses the
most extreme and intense manifestations of these emotions:

A peer of the gods he seems to me, the man who sits over
against you face to face, listening to the sweet tones of your voice
and the loveliness of your laughing; it is this that sets my heart
fluttering in my breast. For if I gaze on you but for a little while,
I am no longer master of my voice, and my tongue lies useless,
and a delicate flame runs over my skin. No more do I see with
my eyes, and my ears are rilled with uproar. The sweat pours down
me, I am all seized with trembling, and I grow paler than the grass.
My strength fails me, and I seem little short of dying.1

Are you not astonished at the way in which, as though they
were gone from her and belonged to another, she at one and
the same time calls up soul and body, ears, tongue, eyes, and
colour; how, uniting opposites, she freezes while she burns, is
both out of her senses and in her right mind ? For she is either
terrified or not far from dying. And all this is done so that not

i. This ode of Sappho (born about the middle of the seventh century
B.C.) is traditionally regarded as a farewell song written for one of her
favourite pupils, Anactoria. Imitation of the ode occurs in Catullus,
Carmina LI.

I I 4

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

one emotion alone may be seen in her, but a concourse of emo­
tions. All such emotions as these are awakened in lovers, but it
is, as I said, the selection of them in their most extreme forms
and their fusion into a single whole that have given the poem
its distinction.

In the same way Homer in describing storms singles out their
most terrifying properties. The author of the Arimaspeia1

thinks the following passage to be awe-inspiring:

This also to our minds is a great marvel. There are men dwelling
in the waters of the ocean, far away from land. Wretched creatures
they are, for grievous is the trouble they undergo, fixing their
gaze upon the stars and their spirit upon the waters. Often, me-
thinks, they lift up their hands to the gods, and with their hearts
raised heavenwards they pray in their misery.

It is obvious to anyone, I imagine, that this passage is more
flowery than terrifying. But how does Homer set about it?
Let us choose one out of many possible examples:

And he fell upon them like a wave which, swollen by the storm-
winds beneath the lowering clouds, bursts furiously over a hurrying
ship. And the ship is all lost in foam, and the terrifying blast roars
in the sail, and the souls of the crew are seized with a fearful
shuddering, for barely can they slip out from under the clutch
of death.2

Aratus made an attempt to adapt this same idea to his own
purposes:

And a slender plank wards off destruction.8

However, he has made it trivial and elegant instead of terrifying.
Furthermore, by saying that a plank keeps away destruction,
he has kept the danger within bounds – after all, the plank does
keep it away. On the other hand, Homer does not for a moment
limit the terror, but draws a picture of his sailors again and
again, all the time, on the brink of destruction with the coming
of each wave. Moreover, in ‘out from under the clutch of

1 . Aristeas of Proconnesus (fl. 580 B.C.) wrote an epic in three books
on the Arimaspi, the dwellers of the far north.

2. Odyssey X V , 6 2 4 – 8 .
3. Line 299 of the Phaenomena of Aratus, an Alexandrian poet writing

in the first half of the third century B.C.

” 5

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

death’ he has exerted an abnormal force in thrusting together
prepositions not usually compounded, and has thus twisted his
language to bring it into conformity with the impending disas­
ter; and by this compressed language he has supremely well
pictured the disaster and all but stamped on the diction the very
image of the danger – ‘ slip out from under the clutch of death’.
Not dissimilar are the passage of Archilochus’ relating to the
shipwreck, and that in which Demosthenes, describing the
bringing of the news, begins, ‘For it was evening . . . ‘. 2 It
might be said that these writers have brought out the striking
points in order of merit and massed them together, finding no
place among them for anything frivolous, undignified, or long-
winded. For such faults as these ruin the total effect of a pas­
sage, like air-holes and other orifices foisted on to impressive
and harmonious buildings whose walls are ordered into a co­
herent structure.3

C H A P T E R I I

Amplification

A M E R I T associated with those already presented is that which
is called amplification, that is, when the matters under discus­
sion or the points of an argument allow of many pauses and
many fresh starts from section to section, and the grand
phrases come rolling out one after another with increasing
effect.

This may be managed either by the rhetorical development of
a commonplace, or by exaggeration, whether facts or arguments
are to be stressed, or by the orderly disposition of factual points
or of appeals to the feelings. There are, indeed, countless forms
of amplification. Yet the speaker must be aware that, without
the help of sublimity, none of these methods can of itself form
a complete whole, unless indeed in the expression of pity or

1 . A r c h i l o c h u s o f P a r o s (fl. 650 B.C.).

2. D e m o s t h e n e s , De Corona, 169.

j . T h i s s e n t e n c e is a b o u t t h e b e s t t h a t c a n b e m a d e o f a c o r r u p t p a s s a g e

w h i c h h a s b e e n v a r i o u s l y e m e n d e d .

I l 6

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

disparagement. In other forms of amplification, when you take
away the element of the sublime, it will be like taking the soul
out of the body; for their vigour will be completely drained
away without the sustaining power of the sublime.

However, in the interests of clarity I must briefly indicate
how my present precepts differ from those about which I have
just spoken, that is, the marking-out of the most striking points
and their organization into a single whole, and in what general
respects sublimity is to be distinguished from the effects of
amplification.

C H A P T E R 1 2

Amplification Defined

N o w the definition of the writers on rhetoric is not, in my view,
acceptable. Amplification, they say, is language which invests
the subject with grandeur. But obviously this definition could
apply equally well to sublimity and to the emotional and the
figurative styles, since these too invest language with some
degree of grandeur. As I see it, they are to be distinguished
from one another by the fact that sublimity consists in ele­
vation, amplification in quantity; thus sublimity is often
contained in a single idea, whereas amplification is always
associated with quantity and a certain amount of redundancy.
To sum it up in general terms, amplification is the accumulation
of all the small points and incidental topics bearing on the
subject-matter; it adds substance and strength to the argu­
ment by dwelling on it, differing from proof in that, while
the latter demonstrates the point at issue . . .

(Here two pages of the manuscript are lost)

. . . extremely rich; like some ocean, he 1 often swells into a
mighty expanse of grandeur. From this I should say that, where
language is concerned, the orator, 2 being more concerned with
the emotions, shows much fire and vehemence of spirit, whilst

1 . C h a p t e r 1 3 m a k e s it c l e a r t h a t t h i s r e f e r s t o P l a t o .

2. D e m o s t h e n e s .

” 7

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

Plato, standing firmly based upon his supreme dignity and
majesty, though indeed he is not cold, has not the same vehe­
mence.

It seems to me that it is on these same grounds, my dear
Terentianus – if we Greeks may be allowed an opinion in this
matter – that Cicero is to be differentiated from Demosthenes in
his use of the grand style. Demosthenes is characterized by a
sublimity which is for the most part rugged, Cicero by pro­
fusion. Demosthenes, by reason of his force, yes, and his speed
and power and intensity, may be likened to a thunderbolt or
flash of lightning, as it were burning up or seizing as his own
all that he falls upon. But Cicero is, in my opinion, like a wide-
spreading conflagration that rolls on to consume everything
far and wide; he has within him an abundance of steady and en­
during flame which can be let loose at whatever point he desires,
and which is fed from one source after another.

However, you Romans should be able to form a better judge­
ment in this matter. But the right place for the Demosthenean
sublimity and intensity is in passages where hyperbole and
powerful emotions are involved, and where the audience are
to be swept off their feet. On the other hand, profusion is in
order when it is necessary to flood them with words. It is for
the most part appropriate to the treatment of rhetorical com­
monplaces, and of perorations and digressions; well suited,
too, to all descriptive and epideictic1 writings, to works of
history and natural philosophy, and to a number of other types
of literature.

C H A P T E R 1 3

Plato and the Sublime. Imitation

N o w although Plato – for I must return to him – flows with
such a noiseless stream, he none the less achieves grandeur.
You are familiar with his Republic and know his manner. ‘Those,

1. E p i d e i c t i c o r a t i o n s w e r e o n e o f t h e t y p e s o f s e t s p e e c h d e f i n e d i n t h e

r h e t o r i c a l s y s t e m s o f t h e a n c i e n t s – i n L a t i n genus demonstrativum; t h e y

i n c l u d e s u c h t h i n g s a s f u n e r a l o r a t i o n s , p a n e g y r i c s , a n d s p e e c h e s o f

d i s p r a i s e .

1 1 8

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

therefore,’ he says, 1 ‘who have no experience of wisdom and
goodness, and are always engaged in feasting and similar
pleasures, are brought down, it would seem, to a lower level,
and there wander about all their lives. They have never looked
up towards the truth, nor risen higher, nor tasted of any pure
and lasting pleasure. In the manner of cattle, they bend down
with their gaze fixed always on the ground and on their feed­
ing-places, grazing and fattening and copulating, and in their
insatiable greed for these pleasures they kick and butt one
another with horns and hoofs of iron, and kill one another if
their desires are not satisfied.’

Provided that we are ready to give him due attention, this
author shows us that, in addition to those already mentioned,
there is another way that leads to the sublime. And what kind
of a way is this ? It is the imitation and emulation of the great
historians and poets of the past. Let us steadfastly keep this aim
in mind, my dear fellow. For many authors catch fire from the
inspiration of others – just as we are told that the Pythian pries­
tess, when she approaches the tripod standing by a cleft in the
ground from which, they say, there is breathed out a divine
vapour, is impregnated thence with the heavenly power, and
by virtue of this afflatus is at once inspired to speak oracles. So
too, as though also issuing from sacred orifices, certain
emanations are conveyed from the genius of the men of old
into the souls of those who emulate them, and, breathing in
these influences, even those who show very few signs of in­
spiration derive some degree of divine enthusiasm from the
grandeur of their predecessors.

Was Herodotus alone an extremely Homeric writer? No,
for even earlier there was Stesichorus,8 and Archilochus, and
above all others Plato, who for his own use drew upon count­
less tributary streams from the great Homeric river. I should
perhaps have had to prove this had not Ammonius 8 and his
followers selected and recorded the facts.

1 . Republic I X , 586.
2. S t e s i c h o r u s (c. 640 – c. 555 B . C ) , o n e o f t h e g r e a t l y r i c a l p o e t s .

j . A m m o n i u s (Jl. 140 B.C.) c a r r i e d o n a t A l e x a n d r i a t h e w o r k o f h i s

m a s t e r A r i s t a r c h u s , w h o h a s b e e n d e s c r i b e d a s ‘ t h e f o u n d e r o f s c i e n t i f i c

s c h o l a r s h i p ‘ .

I I 9

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

I 2 0

Now this procedure is not plagiarism; rather it is like taking
impressions from beautiful pictures or statues or other works
of art. I do not think there would have been so fine a bloom
on Plato’s philosophical doctrines, or that he would so often
have embarked on poetic subject-matter and phraseology, had
he not been striving heart and soul with Homer for first place,
like a young contestant entering the ring with a long-admired
champion, perhaps showing too keen a spirit of emulation in
his desire to break a lance with him, so to speak, yet getting
some profit from the endeavour. For as Hesiod says, 1 ‘This
strife is good for mortals.’ And indeed the fight for fame and
the crown of victory are noble and very well worth the winning
where even to be worsted by one’s predecessors carries no dis­
credit.

C H A P T E R 1 4

Some Practical Advice

I T is well, then, that we too, when we are working at some­
thing that demands grandeur both of conception and of ex­
pression, should carefully consider how perhaps 1 lomer might
have said this very thing, or how Plato, or Demosthenes, or
Thucydides in his History, might have given it sublimity. For
conjured up before our eyes, as it were, by our spirit of emula­
tion, these great men will raise our minds to the standards we
have laid down for ourselves.

Still more will this be so if we put to ourselves the further
query, ‘How would Homer or Demosthenes, if he had been
present, have listened to this passage of mine, and how would it
have affected him?’ For indeed it would be a severe ordeal to
bring our own utterances before such a court of justice and
such a theatre as this, to make a pretence of submitting our
writings to the scrutiny of such semi-divine judges and wit­
nesses.

It would be even more stimulating if you added the question,
‘What kind of hearing should I get from all future ages if I

I . Works and Days 24.

L O N G I N U S ! O N T H E S U B L I M E

wrote this ?’ But if anyone shrinks from the expression of any­
thing beyond the comprehension of his own time and age, the
conceptions of his mind are obviously obscure and incomplete,
and are bound to come to nothing, since they are by no means
brought to such perfection as to ensure their fame in later ages.

C H A P T E R I 5

Imagery and the Power of the Imagination

F U R T H E R M O R E , my dear boy, dignity, grandeur, and powers
of persuasion are to a very large degree derived from images –
for that is what some people call the representation of mental
pictures. In a general way the term ‘image’ is used of any men­
tal conception, from whatever source it presents itself, which
gives rise to speech; but in current usage the word is applied
to passages in which, carried away by your feelings, you imagine
you are actually seeing the subject of your description, and
enable your audience as well to see it. You will have noticed
that imagery means one thing with orators and another with
poets – that in poetry its aim is to work on the feelings, in
oratory to produce vividness of description, though indeed
in both cases an attempt is made to stir the feelings.

Mother, I beseech you, do not set upon me those blood-boltered
and snake-like hags. See there, see there, they approach, they leap
upon me! 1

and again,
Ah! She will slay me! Whither shall I fly?»

In these passages the poet himself had ‘ seen’ the Furies, and he
almost compelled his audience, too, to see what he had ima­
gined.

Now Euripides expends his highest powers in giving tragic
expression to these two passions, madness and love, and he is
more brilliantly successful with these, I think, than with any
others, although he is not afraid to make incursions into other

1 . Euripides, Orestes 2 5 5 – 7 .

2. Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris 291.
I Z I

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

realms of the imagination. While he is very far from possessing
a natural grandeur, yet on many occasions he forces his genius
to tragic heights, and where sublimity is concerned, each time,
in the words of Homer,

with his tail he lashes his ribs and flanks on both sides, and
goads himself on to fight.1

For example, when the Sun hands the reins to Phaethon, he
says:

‘And do not as you drive venture into the Libyan sky, for being
tempered with no moisture it will burn up your wheel.’*

And he goes on,

‘But speed your course towards the seven Pleiades.’ And hearing
this, the boy took hold of the reins, and lashed the flanks of his
winged team, and they winged their path up to the cloudy ridges
of the sky. And hard behind rode his father, astride the Dog-Star’s
back, schooling his son: ‘Drive that way! Now this way guide
the chariot, this way!’

Now would you not say that the soul of the poet goes into the
chariot with the boy, sharing his danger and joining the horses
in their flight ? For he could never have formed such an image
had he not been swept along neck by neck with these celestial
activities. You will find the same in the words he gives to
Cassandra:

Yet, you Trojans, lovers of steeds . . . 8

Aeschylus, too, ventures on images of a most heroic cast, as
when he says in his Seven against Thebes:

Seven resistless warrior-captains have slit a bullock’s throat over
an iron-rimmed shield, and have brushed their hands over the
bullock’s blood and sworn an oath by War and Havoc and Terror,
the lover of blood . . .*

1 . IliaJXX, 1 7 0 – 1 .
2. This and the following passage are taken from the lost Pbaetbon of

Euripides.
3. From another lost play of Euripides.
4. Seven against Tbebes, 42-6.

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L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

Here they pledge themselves by a joint oath to a pitiless death.
Sometimes, however, Aeschylus introduces ideas that are un­
finished and crude and harsh; yet Euripides in a desire to
emulate him comes dangerously near to committing the same
faults. For example, in Aeschylus the palace of Lycurgus at the
appearance of Dionysus is described in unusual terms as being
divinely possessed:

Then t h e house is in an ecstasy, and the roof is inspired with a
Bacchic frenzy.1

Euripides has expressed the same idea differently, softening it
down:

And the whole mountain joined with them in their Bacchic
frenzy.*

Sophocles, too, has used excellent imagery in describing the
death of Oedipus as he entombs himself amid portents from
the sky, 3 and in his account of how, at the departure of the
Greeks, Achilles shows himself above his tomb to those who
are sailing away, 4 a scene which I think no one has depicted more
vividly than Simonides.

But it would be out of the question to quote all the examples.
However, as I have said, those from the poets display a good
deal of romantic exaggeration, and everywhere exceed the
bounds of credibility, whereas the finest feature of the orator’s
imagery is always its adherence to reality and truth. Whenever
the texture of the speech becomes poetical and fabulous, and
falls into all sorts of impossibilities, such deviations seem strange
and unnatural. Our brilliant modern orators, for example, see
Furies, heaven help us, just as though they were tragedians, and,
noble fellows that they are, they cannot even understand that
when Orestes says,

B e o f f , f o r y o u a r e o n e of my avenging Furies clasping my waist
to hurl m e d o w n t o h e l l , 5

he is imagining this because he is mad.
1 . F r o m a l o s t p l a y o f Aeschylus.
2. E u r i p i d e s , Racchae 726.

3. S o p h o c l e s , Oedipus at Co/onus 1 , 586-666 .

4 . I n h i s l o s t Polyxena. T h e p o e m in which Simonides describes the
6 a m e e p i s o d e is a l s o l o s t .

5. E u r i p i d e s , Orestes 2 6 4 – 5 .

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

What, then, is the effect of imagery when it is used in oratory ?
Among other things, it can infuse much passion and energy
into speeches, but when it is combined with the argumentative
passages it not only persuades the hearer, but actually masters
him.

1 Suppose,’ says Demosthenes, 1 to give an example, ‘suppose
that at this very moment an uproar were to be heard in front of
the courts, and someone were to tell us that the prison had been
broken open and the prisoners were escaping, there is no one,
old or young, so irresponsible that he would not give all the
help in his power; moreover, if someone were to come and tell
us that so-and-so was the person who let them out, he would
at once be put to death without a hearing.’ Then of course
there is Hyperides,2 who was put on trial when he had pro­
posed the enfranchisement of the slaves after the great defeat;
his answer was that it was not himself, the advocate, who had
framed the measure, but the battle of Chaeronea. Here the
orator has at one and the same time developed an argument and
used his imagination, and his conception has therefore trans­
cended the bounds of mere persuasion. In all such cases our ears
always, by some natural law, seize upon the stronger element,
so that we are attracted away from the demonstration of fact
to the startling image, and the argument lies below the surface
of the accompanying brilliance. And it is not unreasonable that
we should be affected in this way, for when two forces are com­
bined to produce a single effect, the greater always attracts to
itself the virtues of the lesser.

I have gone far enough in my discussion of sublimity of
thought, as it is produced by greatness of mind, imitation, or
imagery.

1 . D e m o s t h e n e s , Timocrales 208.

2. H y p e r i d e s ( 3 8 9 – 2 2 B . C ) , a d i s t i n g u i s h e d A t t i c o r a t o r . S e e C h a p t e r

34. P l u t a r c h r e l a t e s (Mora/ia 849 A ) t h a t a f t e r t h e A t h e n i a n d e f e a t a t

C h a e r o n e a H y p e r i d e s p r o p o s e d a n e x t e n s i o n o f t h e f r a n c h i s e , a n d , w h e n

h e w a s i m p e a c h e d f o r t h e i l l e g a l i t y o f h i s p r o p o s a l , d e c l a r e d , ‘ T h e a r m s

o f t h e M a c e d o n i a n s o b s c u r e d m y v i s i o n ; i t w a s n o t I w h o p r o p o s e d t h e

m e a s u r e , b u t t h e b a t t l e o f C h a e r o n e a . ‘

1 2 4

C H A P T E R l 6

Rhetorical Figures: Adjuration

W E now come to the place which I have duly set aside for
rhetorical figures, for they too, when properly handled, will
contribute in no small measure, as 1 have said, to the effect of
grandeur. However, since it would be a toilsome and indeed
endless business to consider them all closely at this stage, I shall
merely, in order to confirm my proposition, run over a few
of those which make for grandeur of utterance.

In the following passage Demosthenes is putting forward
an argument in support of his policy. What was the natural
procedure for doing this? ‘You were not wrong, you who
undertook the struggle for the freedom of the Greeks, and you
have a precedent for this here at home. For those who fought
at Marathon were not wrong, nor those at Salamis, nor those
at Plataea.’1 But when, as though carried away by a divine
enthusiasm and by the inspiration of Phoebus himself, he
uttered his oath by the champions of Greece, ‘ By those who
stood the shock at Marathon, it cannot be that you were wrong,’
it would seem that, by his use of this single figure of adjuration,
which I here give the name of apostrophe, he has deified his
ancestors by suggesting that we ought to swear by men who
have died such deaths as we swear by gods; he has instilled into
his judges the spirit of the men who stood there in the fore­
front of the danger, and has transformed the natural flow of his
argument into a passage of transcending sublimity, endowing
it with the passion and the power of conviction that arise from
unheard-of and extraordinary oaths. At the same time he has
infused into the minds of his audience words which act in some
sort as an antidote and a remedy, so that, uplifted by these
eulogies, they come to feel just as proud of the war against
Philip as of the triumphs at Marathon and Salamis. By all these

I . De Corona 208. D e m o s t h e n e s i s d e f e n d i n g , b y r e f e r e n c e t o t h e p a s t ,

h i s a g g r e s s i v e p o l i c y w h i c h r e s u l t e d i n t h e A t h e n i a n d e f e a t a t C h a e r o n e a .

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

means he has been able to carry his hearers away with the figure
he has employed.

It is said, indeed, that Demosthenes found the germ of this
oath in Eupolis: 1

For by the fight I fought at Marathon, no one of them shall vex
my heart and not pay for it.

But there is nothing grand about the mere swearing of an
oath; we must take into account the place, the manner, the cir­
cumstances, and the motive. In the Eupolis there is nothing but
an oath, and that addressed to the Athenians while they were
still enjoying prosperity and in no need of consolation. More­
over, the poet has not in his oath deified the warriors in order
to engender in his audience a high opinion of their valour, but
has wandered away from those who stood the shock to some­
thing inanimate, that is, the fight. In Demosthenes the oath is
designed for men who have suffered defeat, so that the Athe­
nians may no longer regard Chaeronea as a disaster; and at the
same time it is, as I said, a proof that no wrong has been done,
an example, a demonstration of the efficacy of oaths, a eulogy,
and an exhortation. And since the orator was likely to be faced
with the objection, ‘You are speaking of a defeat that resulted
from your policy, yet your oath relates to victories,’ in what
follows he keeps on the safe side and measures every word,
showing that even in orgies of the imagination it is necessary
to remain sober. “Those who stood in the forefront of the
battle at Marathon,’ he says,’ and those who fought aboard ship
at Salamis and Artemisium, and those who stood shoulder to
shoulder at Plataea.’ Nowhere does he speak of the ‘victors’;
everywhere he cunningly avoids mention of the result, since it
was a happy one and the reverse of what happened at Chaeronea.
Thus he anticipates objections and carries his audience with
him. ‘To all of whom, Aeschines,’ he adds, ‘the state gave a
public funeral, not only to those who were successful.’

I . E u p o l i s (c. 446 – t. 4 1 1 B .C.) w a s a p o e t o f t h e O l d C o m e d y . T h e

l i n e s c o m e f r o m h i s l o s t c o m e d y Demi.

1 2 6

C H A P T E R 1 7

Rhetorical Figures and Sublimity

I N this matter, my dear friend, I must not omit an observation
of my own, which, however, shall be quite concisely stated.
This is that, by some quality innate in them, the rhetorical
figures reinforce the sublime, and in their turn derive a mar­
vellous degree of support from it. 1 will tell you where and how
this happens. The unconscionable use of figures is peculiarly
subject to suspicion, and engenders impressions of hidden traps
and plots and fallacies. This is true when the speech is addressed
to a judge with absolute authority, and still more to despots,
kings, or rulers in high places, for such a one is at once an­
noyed if, like a simple child, he is caught on the wrong foot by
the rhetorical devices of a highly-skilled orator. Accepting the
fallacy as a personal insult, he sometimes turns quite savage,
and even if he masters his rage, he becomes utterly impervious
to the persuasive quality of the speech. Thus a rhetorical figure
would appear to be most effective when the fact that it is a figure
is not apparent.

Sublimity and the expression of strong feeling are, therefore,
a wonderfully helpful antidote against the suspicion that attends
the use of figures. The cunning artifice remains out of sight,
associated from now on with beauty and sublimity, and all sus­
picion is put to flight. Sufficient evidence of this is the passage
already mentioned,’ I swear by the men of Marathon!’ But by
what means has the orator here concealed his figure? Ob­
viously by its very brilliance. For in much the same way as dim
lights vanish in the radiance of the sun, so does the all-pervad­
ing effluence of grandeur utterly obscure the artifices of
rhetoric.

Something of the same kind occurs also in painting. For al­
though light and shade as represented by colours may lie side
by side on the same surface, it is the light that first catches the
eye and seems not only to stand out, but also to be much nearer.
So also is it with literature: by some natural affinity and by their

1 2 7

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

1 2 8

brilliance, things that appeal to our feelings and sublime con­
ceptions he nearer to our hearts, and always catch our attention
before the figures, overshadowing their artistry, and keeping
it out of sight, so to speak.

C H A P T E R i 8

Rhetorical Questions

B U T what are we to say on the matter of questions and answers ?
Does not Demosthenes aim at enhancing the grandeur and
effectiveness of his speeches very considerably by the very way
in which he exploits these figures and their appeal to the imagi­
nation ? ‘ Now tell me, do you want to go about asking one
another, “Is there any news?” ? For what stranger news could
there be than that of a Macedonian conquering Greece? “Is
Philip dead ? ” ” No, but he is ill.” What difference does it make
to you ? For even if anything should happen to him, you will
soon invent another Philip.’ 1 And again, ‘Let us sail against
Macedonia,’ he says. ‘”But where shall we land?” someone
asks. The mere fact of our fighting will find out the weak spots
in Philip’s strategy.’2 If this had been given as a bald statement,
it would have been completely ineffective; but as it is, the in­
spired rapidity in the play of question and answer, together
with the device of meeting his own objections as though they
were someone else’s, has not only added to the sublimity of his
words, but also given them greater conviction, and all this by
the use of this particular figure. For a display of feeling is more
effective when it seems not to be premeditated on the part of
the speaker, but to have arisen from the occasion; and this
method of asking questions and providing your own answers
gives the appearance of being a natural outburst of feeling.
Those who are being questioned by others are stimulated into
answering the questions spontaneously, and with energy and
complete candour; in the same way the rhetorical figure of
question and answer beguiles the audience into thinking that

1 . D e m o s t h e n e s , Philippic I, 1 0 .

2. i b i d . 44.

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

each deliberately considered point has been struck out and put
into words on the spur of the moment. Furthermore – for the
following passage has been accepted as one of the most sublime
in Herodotus – if thus . . .

(Here two pages of the manuscript are missing)

C H A P T E R 19

Asyndeton, or the Omission of Conjunctions

. . . the words come gushing out, as it were, set down without
connecting links, and almost outstripping the speaker himself.
‘And, locking their shields,’ says Xenophon, 1′ they pressed for­
ward, fought, slew, were slain.’ Then there are the words of
Eurylochus:

We came through the oak-coppice, as you bade, renowned
Odysseus. We saw amid the forest-glens a beautiful palace.*

The phrases, disconnected, but none the less rapid, give the
impression of an agitation which at the same time checks the
utterance and urges it on. And the poet has produced such an
effect by his use of asyndeton.

C H A P T E R 2 0

The Accumulation of Figures

A C O M B I N A T I O N of figures for a common purpose usually
has a very moving effect – when two or three unite in a kind of
partnership to add force, persuasiveness, and beauty. Thus in
Demosthenes’ speech against Meidias you will find examples
of asyndeton interwoven with the figures of anaphora and
diatyposis: 3 ‘For the aggressor might do many things, some

1 . Xenophon, Historia Graeca I V , 3 , 1 9 .
2. Odyssey X , 2 5 1 – 2 .
3 . Anaphora is the repetition of words; diatyposis is vivid description.

1 2 9

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

of which the victim would be unable to describe to anyone
else, by his manner, his looks, his voice.’ Then, in order that
the speech may not, as it proceeds, remain at a standstill as far
as these particular effects are concerned (for standing still con­
notes calm, whereas emotion, being an upheaval or agitation
of the soul, connotes disorder), he at once hurries on to fresh
examples of asyndeton and anaphora: ‘By his manner, his
looks, his voice, when he acts with insolence, when he acts with
hostility, when he strikes you with his fists, when he strikes you
like a slave.’ In this way the orator does just the same as the
aggressor; he belabours the judges’ minds with blow after blow.
He goes on from here to make yet another hurricane onslaught:
‘When he strikes you with his fists,’ he says, ‘when he beats
you about the face – this rouses you, this drives men out of their
wits when they are not used to being trampled underfoot. No
one describing this could bring out the strength of its effect.’
Thus all the way through, although with continual variations,
he preserves the essential character of the repetitions and the
asyndeta, and thus too his order is disordered, and similarly his
disorder embraces a certain element of order.

C H A P T E R 2 1

Conjunctions: Some Disadvantages

N o w , if you will, tryputtingin the conjunctions, in the manner
of Isocrates1 and his disciples: ‘Furthermore, this too must not
be overlooked, that the aggressor might do many things, first
by his manner, then by his looks, and then again by his mere
voice.’ If you amplify it like this, phrase by phrase, you will see
that the drive and ruggedness of the emotion that is being ex­
ploited, toned down into smoothness by the use of the con­
junctions, lapse into pointlessness and at once lose all their
fire. If you tie runners together you will deprive them of their
speed; in exactly the same way emotion resents being hampered

I . I s o c r a t e s ( 4 3 6 – 3 3 8 B.C.), a g r e a t A t h e n i a n o r a t o r . H i s d i s c i p l e s

i n c l u d e d H y p e r i d e s ( s e e C h a p t e r s 15 a n d 34) a n d T h e o p o m p u s ( s e e

C h a p t e r s 3 1 a n d 4 3 ) .

1 3 0

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

by conjunctions and other appendages of the kind, for it then
loses its freedom of motion and the impression it gives of being
shot from a catapult.

C H A P T E R 2 2

The Figure of Hyperbaton, or Inversion

H Y P E R B A T A , or inversions, must be put into the same class.
These consist in the arrangement of words or ideas out of their
normal sequence, and they carry, so to speak, the genuine
stamp of powerful emotion. There are people who, when they
are angry or frightened or irritated or carried away by jealousy
or any other feeling – for there are innumerable forms of emo­
tion, and indeed no one would be able to say just how many –
will sometimes let themselves be deflected; and often, after
they have brought forward one point, they will drop in others
without rhyme or reason, and then, under the stress of their
agitation, they will come right round to their original position
just as though they were being chased by a whirlwind. Dragged
in every direction by their rapid changes of mood, they will
keep altering the arrangement of their words and ideas, losing
their natural sequence and introducing all sorts of variations.
In the same way the best authors will use inversion in such a
way that their representations will assume the aspect of natural
processes at work. For art is perfect only when it looks like
nature, and again, nature hits the mark only when she conceals
the art that is within her.

This may be exemplified by the words of Dionysius the
Phocaean in Herodotus: 1 ‘For our affairs stand on a razor’s
edge, men of Ionia, whether we are to be free men or slaves,
and runaway slaves at that. Now, therefore, if you are prepared
to accept hardships, straightway there is toil for you, but you
will be able to overcome your enemies.’ Here the normal order
would have been, ‘O men of Ionia, now is the time for you to
take toil upon you; for our affairs stand on a razor’s edge.’ How­
ever, the speaker has transposed ‘men of Ionia’, starting at

I . H e r o d o t u s , V I , I I .

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

once with the thought of the fear, as though in this pressing
danger he would not even address his hearers first. Furthermore,
he has inverted the order of his ideas; for instead of saying that
they must endure toil, which is the point of his exhortation, he
first gives them the reason why they must toil when he says,
‘Our affairs stand on a razor’s edge.’ Thus what he says does
not seem premeditated, but forced out of him.

Thucydides is even more skilful in his use of inversions to
dissociate things which are by their nature one and indivisible.
Demosthenes, though indeed he is not as wilful as Thucydides,
is the most immoderate of all in his use of this kind of figure,
and through inversions he gives the impression of speaking
extremely masterfully, and, what is more, of speaking im­
promptu ; moreover, he carries his audience with him to share
in the dangers of his long inversions. For he will often hold up
the sense of what he has begun to express, and meanwhile he
will in a strange and unlikely order pile one idea on top of
another, drawn from any kind of source and just dropped into
the middle of what he is saying, inducing in his hearer the fear
that the whole structure of the sentence will fall to pieces, and
compelling him in his agitation to share in the risk the speaker
is taking; and then unexpectedly, after a long interval, he will
bring out the long-awaited phrase just where it is most effective,
at the very end, and thus, by the very audacity and recklessness
of his inversions, he administers a much more powerful shock.
1 forbear to give examples, since there are so many of them.

C H A P T E R 2 3

Polyptoton: Interchange of Singular and Plural

T H E figures called polyptota 1 (accumulations, variations, and
climaxes) are, as you know, very powerful auxiliaries in the
production of elegance and of every kind of sublime and
emotional effect. Observe, too, how greatly an exposition is

I . S t r i c t l y s p e a k i n g , p o l y p t o t o n is t h e u s e o f m o r e t h a n o n e c a s e o f t h e

s a m e w o r d , b u t L o n g i n u s s e e m s t o a p p l y i t a l s o t o r h e t o r i c a l e f f e c t s

g a i n e d b y c h a n g e s i n n u m b e r , p e r s o n , t e n s e , o r g e n d e r .

1 3 2

L O N G I N U S ! O N T H E S U B L I M E

diversified and enlivened by changes in case, tense, person,
number, and gender. In the matter of number, I can say that the
decorative quality of a passage is not enhanced only by words
which are singular in form, but which on close examination are
found to have a plural meaning, as in

Straightway a countless host ranged along the beaches send out
a cry, ‘Tunny!’ 1

But it is more noteworthy that at times the use of the plural in
place of the singular has a more resounding effect, and impresses
us by the very idea of multitude implied in the plural number.
This is exemplified by Sophocles in some lines spoken by
Oedipus:

O marriages, marriages, it is you that begot me and gave me
birth, and then brought to light again the same seed, and showed
fathers, brothers, and sons as being all kindred blood, and brides,
wives, and mothers, too, and all the foulest deeds that are done
among men.2

All these relate to a single name, that of Oedipus, with that of
Jocasta on the other side; however, the expansion of the
number serves to pluralize the misfortunes as well.

There is the same kind of multiplication in the line, ‘Forth
came Hectors, and Sarpedons too ; ‘ 3 and again in Plato’s pas­
sage on the Athenians which I have also quoted in another
work : ‘ For no Pelopes nor Cadmi nor Aegypti and Danai, nor
any other hordes of barbarians by birth share our home with us,
but we who are pure Greeks and not semi-barbarians live here’,
and the rest of it. 4 For naturally the facts sound more impressive
from this accumulation of names in groups. However, this
should not be done except on occasions when the subject
admits of amplification or redundancy or exaggeration or emo­
tionalism – any one or more of these; for to be hung all over
with bells is altogether too pretentious. 6

1 . Author unknown. Presumably the passage refers to a crowd of
fishcrfolk hailing the appearance of a shoal of tunny.

2. Oedipus Tyrannus 1 4 0 3 – 8 .
3 . Author unknown.
4. P l a t o , Menexenus 245 D .

5. The metaphor here refers to the bells hung on the trappings of a
war-horse. Roberts translates, ‘a richly caparisoned style’.

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C H A P T E R 2 4

Poljptoton: Conversion of Plural to Singular

F U R T H E R M O R E , the opposite process, the contraction of
plural ideas into a singular form, sometimes achieves an out­
standing effect of sublimity. ‘Afterwards,’ says Demosthenes, 1

‘the whole Peloponnese was at variance.’ Again, ‘And when
Phrynicus produced his play The Capture of Miletus the theatre
burst into tears.’2 To compress the number from multiplicity
into unity gives a stronger impression of a single entity. In
both examples the reason for the striking effect is, I think, the
same. Where the words are singular, to turn them into the
plural suggests an unexpected burst of feeling; where they are
plural, and are fused into a fine-sounding singular, the change
in the opposite direction produces an effect of surprise.

C H A P T E R 2 5

Poljptoton: Interchange of Tenses

A G A I N , if you introduce circumstances that are past in time as
happening at the present moment, you will turn the passage
from mere narrative into vivid actuality. ‘Someone,’ says
Xenophon,’ has fallen under Cyrus’s horse, and being trampled
on, strikes the horse in the belly with his sword. It rears and
throws Cyrus, and he falls to the ground.’ 3 Thucydides is par­
ticularly fond of this device.

1 . De Corona 18 .
2 . H e r o d o t u s , V I , 2 1 . P h r y n i c u s w a s a t r a g i c p l a y w r i g h t c o n t e m p o r a r y

w i t h A e s c h y l u s . H e r o d o t u s c o n t i n u e s t h e a n e c d o t e q u o t e d h e r e b y

r e c o u n t i n g t h a t t h e A t h e n i a n s fined P h r y n i c u s 1 0 0 0 d r a c h m a s f o r r e m i n d ­

i n g t h e m i n I be Capture of Miletus o f a d i s a s t e r w h i c h h a d b e f a l l e n a

f r i e n d l y s t a t e , a n d o r d e r e d t h a t t h e p l a y s h o u l d n e v e r a g a i n b e p e r f o r m e d .

3 . X e n o p h o n , Cyropaedia V I I , i , 37.

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C H A P T E R 2 6

Polyptoton: Variations of Person, or Personal Address

I N the same way the change of person is striking, and often
makes the hearer feel that he is moving in the thick of the danger:

You would say that they met in the shock of war, all unwearied
and undaunted, so impetuously did they rush into the fray.1

Then there is Aratus’s

Do not in that month entrust yourself to the surges of the ocean.1

Herodotus does much the same kind of thing: ‘From the city
of Elephantine you will sail upwards, until you come to a level
plain; and after you have crossed this tract, you will board
again another ship and sail for two days, and then you will come
to a great city whose name is Meroe.’ 3 You see, my friend, how,
as he takes you in imagination through the places in question,
he transforms hearing into sight. All such passages, by their
direct personal form of address, bring the hearer right into the
middle of the action being described. When you seem to be
addressing, not the whole audience, but a single member of it –

But you would not have known of Tydeus’s son for which of
the armies he fought – 4

you will affect him more profoundly, and make him more atten­
tive and full of active interest, if you rouse him by these appeals
to him personally.

1 . Iliad X V , 6 9 7 – 8 .

2. A r a t u s (JI. 270 B . C ) , o n e o f t h e d i d a c t i c p o e t s o f A l e x a n d r i a . T h i s

is l i n e 299 o f h i s Phaenomtna.

3. H e r o d o t u s , 1 1 , 29.

4 . Iliad V , 85 .

1 3 5

C H A P T E R 2 7

Poljptoton: Conversion to the First Person

A G A I N , there are times when a writer, while speaking of a

character, suddenly breaks off and converts himself into that
character. A figure of this kind is in a way an outburst of
emotion:

And with a far-echoing shout Hector cried out to the Trojans
to rush against the ships and leave the blood-spattered spoils. And
if I spy anyone who of his own will holds back from the ships, I
will surely bring about his death.1

Here the poet has taken upon himself the presentation of the
narrative, as is appropriate, and then suddenly, without any
warning, has attributed the abrupt threat to the angry chieftain.
Had he inserted, ‘ Hector said so and so’, it would have given
a frigid effect; as it is, the change in form of the passage has
anticipated the sudden change of speakers. Accordingly this
figure should be used for preference when a sudden crisis will
not give the author time to linger, but compels him to change
at once from one character to another.

There is another example in Hecataeus:8 ‘Ceyx took this
badly and at once ordered the descendants of Heracles to depart.
For it is not in my power to help you. Therefore, in order that
you may not perish yourselves and injure me, take yourselves
off to some other country.’

In his Arislogeilon Demosthenes has by a rather different
method used change of person to indicate a rapid play of emo­
tion. ‘And will none of you,’ he says, ‘be found to feel disgust
and indignation at the violence of this vile and shameless
creature, who – O, you most abandoned of men – whose un­
bridled speech is not shut in by gates and doors which might
well be opened . . . .’ 3 With his sense incomplete, he has made

1 . IliadXV, 3 4 6 – 9 .
2. Hecataeus of Miletus (_/?. 520 B.C) , historian and geographer.
5. Demosthenes, Aristogtiton I, 27 .

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L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

a sudden change, and in his indignation has all but split a single
phrase between two persons – ‘ who – O, you most abandoned
. . . \ Thus, while he has turned his speech round to address
Aristogeiton, and seems to have left him out of account, 1

yet with this display of passion he has turned it on him much
more forcefully. The same thing occurs in Penelope’s speech:

H e r a l d , w h y h a v e t h o s e h i g h b o r n s u i t o r s s e n t y o u h e r e ? I s i t t o

t e l l t h e h a n d m a i d s o f t h e g o d l i k e O d y s s e u s t o c e a s e f r o m t h e i r

l a b o u r s a n d p r e p a r e a b a n q u e t f o r t h e m ? W o u l d t h a t t h e y h a d

n e v e r w o o e d m e , n o r e l s e w h e r e g a t h e r e d t o g e t h e r , t h a t t h i s n o w

w e r e t h e l a t e s t a n d l a s t o f t h e i r f e a s t i n g , y o u t h a t a s s e m b l e t o g e t h e r

a n d w a s t e s o m u c h o f o u r s u b s t a n c e , t h e s t o r e o f t h e p r u d e n t

T e l e m a c h u s . N o r d i d y o u e v e r i n t h e b y g o n e d a y s o f y o u r c h i l d h o o d

h e a r f r o m y o u r f a t h e r s w h a t m a n n e r o f m a n O d y s s e u s w a s . 2

C H A P T E R 2 8

“Periphrasis

N o one, I think, would dispute that periphrasis contributes to
the sublime. For as in music the sweetness of the dominant
melody is enhanced by what are known as the decorative addi­
tions, so periphrasis often harmonizes with the direct expression
of a thought and greatly embellishes it, especially if it is not
bombastic or inelegant, but pleasantly tempered.

This is pretty well illustrated by Plato at the beginning of his
Funeral Oration: 3 ‘We have done what gives them the tribute
that is their due, and having gained this, they proceed along
their appointed path, escorted publicly by their country, and
each man privately by his kinsfolk.’ Death, you see, he calls
‘their appointed path’, and their having been granted the
accustomed rites he describes as a kind of’ public escort on the

1 . T h e r e i s a n i n c o n s i s t e n c y h e r e . W . H a m i l t o n F y f c h a s in h i s t r a n s l a ­

t i o n a c c e p t e d a c o n j e c t u r a l e m e n d a t i o n w h i c h e n a b l e s h i m t o r e a d , ‘ w h i l e

s w i n g i n g h i s s p e e c h r o u n d o n t o A r i s t o g e i t o n a n d a p p e a r i n g t o a b a n d o n

t h e j u r y . . . . ‘

2. Odyssey I V , 6 8 1 – 9 .
3 . P l a t o , Menexenus 2 3 6 D .

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

part of their native land’. Surely he has considerably increased
the dignity of his conception here. Has he not made music of
the unadorned diction that was his starting-point, and shed
over it with something of a tuneful harmony the melodiousness
that arises from his periphrasis ?

Then there is Xenophon: ‘ You regard toil as the guide to a
life of pleasure; you have garnered in your hearts the best of all
possessions and the fittest for warriors. For nothing rejoices
you so much as praise.’1 By rejecting ‘you are willing to work
hard’ in favour of’ you make toil the guide to a life of pleasure’,
and by expanding the rest of the sentence in the same way, he
has added to his eulogy a certain grandeur of thought. And this
is true also of that inimitable sentence in Herodotus: ‘ Upon
those Scythians who despoiled her temple the goddess cast a
malady that made women of them.’*

C H A P T E R 2 9

The Dangers of Periphrasis

H O W E V E R , periphrasis is a hazardous business, more so than
any other figure, unless it is used with a certain sense of propor­
tion. For it quickly lapses into insipidity, akin to empty chatter
and dullness of wit. This is why even Plato, who always uses
figures with skill, but sometimes with a certain lack of timeli­
ness, is mocked when he says in his “Laws that ‘neither golden
nor silver treasure should be allowed to establish itself and dwell
in a city’; 3 so that if he had been forbidding people to possess
herds, says the critic, he would obviously have said ‘ ovine and
bovine treasure’.

However, my digression on the use of figures and their
bearing on the sublime has gone on long enough, my dear
Terentianus. They are all means of increasing the animation
and the emotional impact of style, and emotional effects play
as large a part in the production of the sublime as the study of
character does in the production of pleasure.

1 . X e n o p h o n , Cyropaedia I , v , 1 2 . 2. H e r o d o t u s , I , 1 0 5 .

3 . Laws 801 B .

1 3 8

C H A P T E R 3 0

The Proper Choke of Diction

S I N C E in discourse thought and diction are for the most part
mutually interdependent, we must further consider whether
any other elements that come under the heading of diction
remain to be studied. It is probably superfluous to explain to
those who already know it how wonderfully the choice of
appropriate and high-sounding words moves and enchants an
audience, and to remind them that such a choice is the highest
aim of all orators and authors; for of itself it imparts to style, as
though to the finest statues, at once grandeur, beauty, mellow­
ness, weight, force, power, and any other worthy quality you
can think of, and endows the facts as it were with a living voice.
For words finely used are in truth the very light of thought. Yet
it would not do to use such grand diction all the time, for to
apply great and stately terms to trifling matters would be like
putting a big tragic mask on a tiny child. However, in poetry
and . . . «

(Here four pages of the manuscript are missing)

C H A P T E R 3 1

Familiar Language
. . . very thought-provoking and powerful; so too is Anacreon’s
‘No longer do I care for the Thracian filly.’1 In this way also
that unusual term employed by Theopompus deserves praise,
for by reason of the analogy implied it seems to me to be highly
expressive, although Cecilius for some reason finds fault with
it: ‘Philip,’ says Theopompus, ‘had a genius for stomaching

1. F r o m a f r a g m e n t o f A n a c r e o n , t h e s i x t h – c e n t u r y l y r i c p o e t . T h e

w o r d ‘ f i l l y ‘ u s e d h e r e i s d e r i v e d f r o m a c o n j e c t u r a l e m e n d a t i o n w h i c h

i s s u g g e s t e d b y t h e c o n t e x t , a n d w h i c h s e e m s a p p r o p r i a t e t o t h e p o i n t

t h a t L o n g i n u s i s m a k i n g .

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

things.’ Now the homely term is sometimes much more ex­
pressive than elegant diction, for, being taken from everyday
life, it is at once recognized, and carries the more conviction
from its familiarity. Thus, in connexion with a man whose
greedy nature makes him put up patiently and cheerfully with
things that are shameful and sordid, the words ‘stomaching
things’ are extremely vivid. 1 Much the same may be said of
Herodotus’s expressions: ‘Cleomenes in his madness cut his
own flesh into strips with a dagger until, having made a
thorough mince of himself, he perished;’ and ‘Pythes con­
tinued fighting on the ship until he was all cut into shreds.’2

These expressions are on the very edge of vulgarity, but their
expressiveness saves them from actually being vulgar.

C H A P T E R 32

Metaphor

W I T H regard to the appropriate number of metaphors, Cecilius
appears to side with those who lay down that two, or at most
three, should be brought together in the same passage.
Demosthenes is again the standard in this context. The appro­
priate occasion for their use is when the emotions come pour­
ing out like a torrent, and irresistibly carry along with them
a host of metaphors.’ Men,’ he says,’ who are steeped in blood,
who are flatterers, who have each of them mutilated the limbs
of their own fatherlands, who have pledged their liberty by
drinking first to Philip, and now to Alexander, measuring their
happiness by their bellies and their basest appetites, and who
have uprooted that liberty and that freedom from despotism
which were to the Greeks of earlier days the rules and stand­
ards of integrity.’3 Here the orator’s indignation against the
traitors casts a veil over the number of figurative expressions
he has used.

1. T h e o p o m p u s w a s a h i s t o r i a n o f t h e m i d f o u r t h c e n t u r y B.C., a

d i s c i p l e o f I s o c r a t e s .

2. H e r o d o t u s , V I , 7 5 ; V I I , 181.

3. De Corona 296.

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Now Aristotle and Theophrastus declare that the following
phrases have a softening effect on bold metaphors: ‘ as if, and
‘as it were’, and ‘if one may put it like this’, and ‘if one may
venture the expression’; for the qualifications, they say, miti­
gate the boldness. I accept this, but at the same time, as I said
when I was talking about rhetorical figures, the timely expres­
sion of violent emotions, together with true sublimity, is the
appropriate antidote for the number and boldness of metaphors.
For the onward rush of passion has the property of sweeping
everything before it, or rather of requiring bold imagery as
something altogether indispensable; it does not allow the
hearer leisure to consider the number of metaphors, since he is
carried away by the enthusiasm of the speaker.

Furthermore, in the handling of commonplaces and of des­
cription nothing so much confers distinction as a continuous
series of metaphors. It is by this means that the anatomy of the
human body is superbly depicted in Xenophon, 1 and still more
divinely in Plato. 2 The head, says Plato, is a citadel, and the
neck is constructed as an isthmus between the head and the
breast; and the vertebrae, he says, are set below like pivots.
Pleasure tempts men to evil, and the tongue is the touchstone
of taste. The heart is the fuel-store of the veins, the fountain
from which the blood begins its vigorous course, and it keeps
its station in the guard-house of the body. The various pas­
sages he calls the lanes. ‘And for the thumping of the heart
which takes place when danger is imminent or when anger is
rising, when it becomes fiery-hot, the gods,’ he says, ‘have de­
vised some relief by implanting the lungs, which, being soft
and bloodless, and pierced inwardly with pores, serve as a
kind of buffer, so that when anger boils up in the heart, it may
throb against a yielding substance and not be damaged.’ The
seat of the desires he compares with the women’s apartments,
and that of anger with the men’s. Then the spleen is the napkin
of the entrails, from which it is filled with waste matter, and
swells and festers. ‘And after this,’ he says, ‘they covered
everything over with flesh, which they put there, like felt mat­
ting, as a protection against attacks from outside.’ And he

It Memorabilia I , i v , 5 .
2. T h e d e s c r i p t i o n s a r e d r a w n f r o m t h e Timaeus 6 5 C — 8 5 E .

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

called the blood the fodder of the flesh, adding that, ‘in order
to provide nourishment, they irrigated the body, cutting chan­
nels as is done in gardens, so that, the body being perforated
with conduits, the rivulets of the veins might flow on as though
from some never-failing source.’ And when the end comes, he
says, the cables of the soul, like those of a ship, are loosed, and
she is set free. These and innumerable similar metaphors form
a continuous succession. But those 1 have mentioned are enough
to show that figurative language is a natural source of grandeur,
and that metaphors contribute to sublimity; and also that it is
emotional and descriptive passages that most gladly find room
for them.

However, it is obvious, even without my stating it, that the
use of metaphors, like all the other beauties of style, is liable to
lead to excess. In this respect even Plato is severely criticized, on
the ground that he is often carried away by a kind of linguistic
frenzy into harsh and intemperate metaphors and bombastic
allegory. ‘For it is not easy to see,’ he says, ‘that a city needs
to be mixed like a bowl of wine, in which the strong, raging
wine seethes as it is poured in, but when it is chastened by
another god who is sober, its association with such good com­
pany turns it into an excellent and temperate drink.’ 1 To call
water ‘a sober god’, say the critics, and to describe mixing as
‘chastening’, is to use the language of some poet who is not
in fact sober.

Cecilius, too, has picked on such defects as these, and in the
works he has written in praise of Lysias he has actually dared to
represent Lysias as being in all respects superior to Plato. But
here he has given way to two uncritical impulses; for although
he is even fonder of Lysias than of himself, his hatred for Plato
altogether surpasses his love for Lysias. However, he is merely
being contentious, and his premisses are not, as he thought,
admitted. For he prefers the orator, whom he regards as fault­
less and without blemish, to Plato, who often made mistakes.
But this is not the truth of the matter, nor anything like the
truth.

I . Plato, Lavs 7 7 3 C.

1 4 2

C H A P T E R 3 3

Superiority of Flawed Sublimity toFlawless Mediocrity

S U P P O S E we take some writer who really may be considered
flawless and beyond reproach. In this context we must surely
ask ourselves in general terms, with reference to both verse
and prose, which is superior, grandeur accompanied by a few
flaws, or mediocre correctness, entirely sound and free from
error though it may be. Yes, and further, whether in literature
the first place should rightly be given to the greater number of
virtues, or to virtues which are greater in themselves. For these
questions are proper to a study of sublimity, and for every
reason they should be resolved.

Now I am well aware that the highest genius is very far from
being flawless, for entire accuracy runs the risk of descending to
triviality, whereas in the grand manner, as in the possession of
great wealth, something is bound to be neglected. Again, it
may be inevitable that men of humble or mediocre endow­
ments, who never run any risks and never aim at the heights,
should in the normal course of events enjoy a greater freedom
from error, while great abilities remain subject to danger by
reason of their very greatness. And in the second place, I
know that it is always the less admirable aspects of all human
endeavours that are most widely noticed; the remembrance of
mistakes remains ineradicable, while that of virtues quickly
melts away.

I have myself observed a good many faults in Homer and our
other authors of the highest distinction, and I cannot say that
I enjoy finding these slips; however, I would not call them wil­
ful errors, but rather careless oversights let in casually and at
random by the heedlessness of genius. I am none the less certain
that the greater virtues, even if they are not consistently shown
throughout the composition, should always be voted into the
first place – for the greatness of mind that they represent, if for
no other reason. Now Apollonius reveals himself in his

M 3

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

Argonautica1 as an impeccable poet, and Theocritus is extremely
successful in his pastorals, apart from a few surface blemishes.
Yet would you not rather choose to be Homer than Apollonius ?

And again, is Eratosthenes in his Erigone,2 which is an en­
tirely flawless little poem, a greater poet than Archilochus,
whose verse is often ill-arranged, but who has surges of a
divine inspiration which it would be difficult to bring under
the control of rules? Furthermore, would you choose as a
lyrical poet to be Bacchylides rather than Pindar? And in
tragedy Ion of Chios rather than Sophocles ? Bacchylides and
Ion are, it is true, faultless and elegant writers in the polished
manner. But Pindar and Sophocles seem at times in their im­
petuous career to burn up everything in their path, although
their fire is often unaccountably quenched, and they lapse into
a most miserable flatness. Yet would anyone in his senses put
the whole series of Ion’s works on the same footing as the single
play of Oedipus ?

C H A P T E R 3 4

Hyperides and Demosthenes

I F success in composition were not judged according to true
standards, then Hyperides would be ranked altogether higher
than Demosthenes. For he has more variety of tone than
Demosthenes, and more numerous merits. In every branch of
his art he is very nearly in the first flight, like the pentathlete;
in each contest he is inferior to the champions among his
rivals, but comes first among the amateurs.

Now Hyperides not only imitates all the virtues of Demos­
thenes except his talent in composition; he has also with un­
common success taken to his province the merits and graces of

1. A p o l l o n i u s R h o d i u s (fl. 2 4 0 B.C.) w a s t h e f o r e m o s t A l e x a n d r i a n e p i c

p o e t ; h i s Argonautica, a n e p i c i n f o u r b o o k s o n t h e s t o r y o f J a s o n a n d

t h e A r g o n a u t s , i s e x t a n t .

2. E r a t o s t h e n e s , a v e r s a t i l e A l e x a n d r i a n a u t h o r a n d s c h o l a r o f t h e

t h i r d c e n t u r y B.C. T h e Erigone is a n e l e g y b a s e d o n t h e s t o r y o f I c a r i u s ,

h i s d a u g h t e r E r i g o n e , a n d h i s d o g M a e r a .

1 4 4

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

Lysias. For he talks plainly, when this is required, and does not
like Demosthenes make all his points in a monotonous series.
He has, too, a gift for characterization, seasoned with charm and
simplicity. Moreover, he has considerable wit, a most urbane
raillery, true nobility of manner, a ready skill in exchanges of
irony, a fund of jokes which, in the Attic manner, are neither
tasteless nor ill-bred, but always to the point, a clever touch in
satire, and plenty of comic force and pointed ridicule combined
with a well-directed sense of fun – and all this invested with an
inimitable elegance. He is very well endowed by nature with
the power to awaken pity. He is a fluent story-teller, and with
his easy flow of inspiration has an excellent faculty for winding
his way through a digression, as of course he shows in his some­
what poetic handling of the story of Leto. And he has treated
his Funeral Oration as, I think, no one else could have done it.

Demosthenes, on the other hand, is not good at describing
character. He is not concise, nor has he any fluency nor any
talent for delivering set orations. In general he partakes of
none of the merits that have just been listed. When he is forced
into attempting a joke or a witticism, he does not so much raise
laughter at what he says as make himself the object of laughter,
and when he wants to exert a little charm, he comes nowhere
near doing so. If he had tried to write the little speeches on
Phryne or Athenogenes, he would have made us think even
more highly of Hyperides. 1 All the same, in my opinion the
virtues of Hyperides, many as they may be, are wanting in the
requisite grandeur; the productions of a sober-hearted fellow,
they are staid and do not disturb the peace of mind of the
audience – certainly no one who reads Hyperides is frightened
by him. But when Demosthenes takes up the tale, he displays
the virtues of great genius in their highest form: a sublime in­
tensity, lifelike passions, copiousness, readiness, speed, where
it is appropriate, and his own unapproachable power and
vehemence. Having, I say, made himself master of all the
riches of these mighty, heaven-sent gifts – for it would not be
right to call them human – he invariably, by reason of the vir­
tues he possesses, puts down all his rivals, and this even where

I . H y p e r i d e s ‘ s s p e e c h a g a i n s t A t h e n o g e n e s w a s r e c o v e r e d l a s t c e n t u r y ;

h i s d e f e n c e o f P h r y n e i s l o s t .

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

the qualities he does not possess are concerned; it might be
said, indeed, that he overpowers with his thunder and lightning
the orators of every age. One could more easily outface a descen­
ding thunderbolt than meet unflinchingly his continual out­
bursts of passion.

C H A P T E R 3 5

Plato and Lysias

I N the case of Plato and Lysias there is, as I have said, a further
point of difference. Lysias is much inferior to Plato in both the
greatness and the number of his merits, and at the same time he
surpasses him in his faults even more than he falls short of him
in his virtues.

What then was in the mind of those godlike authors who,
aiming at the highest flights of composition, showed no respect
for detailed accuracy ? Among many other things this – that
nature has adjudged us men to be creatures of no mean or ig­
noble quality. Rather, as though inviting us to some great
festival, she has brought us into life, into the whole vast uni­
verse, there to be spectators of all that she has created and the
keenest aspirants for renown; and thus from the first she has
implanted in our souls an unconquerable passion for all that is
great and for all that is more divine than ourselves. For this
reason the entire universe does not satisfy the contemplation
and thought that he within the scope of human endeavour; our
ideas often go beyond the boundaries by which we are cir­
cumscribed, and if we look at life from all sides, observing how
in everything that concerns us the extraordinary, the great, and
the beautiful play the leading part, we shall soon realize the
purpose of our creation.

This is why, by some sort of natural instinct, we admire, not,
surely, the small streams, beautifully clear though they may be,
and useful too, but the Nile, the Danube, the Rhine, and even
more than these the Ocean. The little fire that we have kindled
ourselves, clear and steady as its flame may be, does not strike
us with as much awe as the heavenly fires, in spite of their often

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L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

being shrouded in darkness; nor do we think it a greater marvel
than the craters of Etna, whose eruptions throw up from their
depths rocks and even whole mountains, and at times pour out
rivers of that pure Titanian fire. In all such circumstances, I
would say only this, that men hold cheap what is useful and
necessary, and always reserve their admiration for what is out
of the ordinary.

C H A P T E R 36

Sublimity and Literary Fame

N o w with regard to authors of genius, whose grandeur always
has some bearing on questions of utility and profit, 1 it must be
observed at the outset that, while writers of this quality are far
from being faultless, yet they all rise above the human level. All
other attributes prove their possessors to be men, but sub­
limity carries one up to where one is close to the majestic mind
of God. Freedom from error escapes censure, but the grand
style excites admiration as well. It need scarcely be added that
each of these outstanding authors time and again redeems all
his failures by a single happy stroke of sublimity; and, most
decisive of all, that if we were to pick out all the blunders of
Homer, Demosthenes, Plato, and the greatest of all our other
authors, and were to put them all together, it would be found
that they amounted to a very small part, say rather an infinitesi­
mal fraction, of the triumphs achieved by these demigods on
every page. That is why the judgement of all ages, which envy
itself cannot convict of perversity, has awarded them the palm
of victory, guarding it as their inalienable right, and likely so
to preserve it ‘as long as rivers run and tall trees flourish’.2

As for the writer who maintains that the faulty Colossus is
not superior to Polycleitus’s spearman, one obvious retort,
among many others, is to point out that meticulous accuracy

1. W h i c h i s n o t t h e c a s e w i t h a l l t h e g r a n d e u r s o f n a t u r e n a m e d i n t h e

p r e v i o u s c h a p t e r .

2 . A u t h o r u n k n o w n . A l s o q u o t e d i n a s l i g h t l y d i f f e r e n t f o r m a s p a r t

o f a l o n g e r q u o t a t i o n i n P l a t o , Pbaedrus 2 6 4 C

147

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

C H A P T E R 3 7

Comparisons and Similes

C L O S E L Y related to metaphors – for we must go back to them –
are comparisons and similes, which differ only in t h i s . . . .

(Here two pages of the manuscript are missing)

C H A P T E R 3 8

Hyperboles
. . . and such hyperboles as, ‘ Unless you carry your brains
trodden down in your heels’. 2 One must therefore know in
each case where to draw the line, for sometimes if one over­
shoots the mark one spoils the effect of the hyperbole, and if
such expressions are strained too far they fall flat, and some­
times produce the opposite effect to that which was intended.
Isocrates, for example, unaccountably lapsed into childishness
through the ambition which led to his fondness for exaggera­
tion. The theme of his Panegyric is that Athens is superior to

1. S e e C h a p t e r 2 .

2. F r o m a w o r k a t o n e t i m e a s c r i b e d t o D e m o s t h e n e s , De Halonneso 4 5 .

148

is admired in art, grandeur in the works of nature, and that it
is by nature that man is endowed with the power of speech.
Moreover, in statues we look for the likeness of a man, whereas
in literature, as I have said, we look for something transcending
the human. However, to revert to the doctrine with which I
began my commentary, 1 since freedom from faults is usually
the result of art, and distinction of style, however unevenly
sustained, is due to genius, it is right that art should every­
where be employed as a supplement to nature, for in coopera­
tion the two may bring about perfection.

So much it has been necessary to say in order to resolve the
problems before us. But everyone is welcome to his own taste.

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

Sparta in the benefits that she has conferred on the Greeks, but
at the very beginning he declares: ‘Moreover, words have such
power that they can make what is grand humble, and endow
petty things with greatness; they can express old ideas in a new
way, and discuss what has just happened in the style of long
ago.’ 1 ‘Do you then by these means, lsocrates,’ says someone,
‘intend to interchange the roles of the Athenians and the Spar­
tans ?’ For in his eulogy of the power of language he has all but
made a prefatory announcement to his auditors that he himself
is not to be trusted. Perhaps then, as I said earlier about rhetori­
cal figures,2 the best hyperboles are those which conceal the fact
that they are hyperboles. And this happens when, under the in­
fluence of powerful emotion, they are used in connexion with
some great circumstance, as is the case with Thucydides when
he speaks of those who perished in Sicily.’ For the Syracusans,’
he says, ‘went down and began their slaughter, especially of
those who were in the river. And the water was immediately
polluted; but none the less it was drunk, thick though it was
with mud and blood, and most of them still thought it was worth
fighting for.’ 3 That a drink of mud and blood should still be
worth fighting for is made credible by the height of the emo­
tions excited by the circumstances.

The same is true of Herodotus’s account of those who fought
at Thermopylae. ‘In this place,’ he says, ‘as they were defend­
ing themselves with their daggers, such of them as still had
daggers, and with their very hands and mouths, the barbarians
buried them.’ 4 Here you may ask what is meant by fighting
against armed men’ with their very mouths’, and being’ buried’
with arrows. At the same time the expressions carry conviction,
for the incident does not seem to be introduced for the sake
of the hyperbole, but the hyperbole seems to take its rise quite
plausibly from the incident. For as 1 keep on saying, actions
and feelings which come close to sweeping us off our feet
serve as an excuse and a lenitive for any kind of daring phrase­
ology. This is why, even when they reach the point of being

1. l s o c r a t e s , Panegyric 8.

2 . C h a p t e r 1 7 .

3. T h u c y d i d e s , V I I , 84.

4 . H e r o d o t u s , V I I , 2 5 5 .

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C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

actually incredible, the shafts of comedy also seem plausible
from their very laughability, as in

The field he had was smaller than a letter.1

For laughter, too, is an emotion, related as it is to pleasure.
Hyperboles may apply just as much to petty things as to

great, an overstraining of the facts being the common element.
In a sense satire is the exaggeration of pettiness.

C H A P T E R 39

Composition, or Disposition of Material

T H E fifth of the factors contributing to the sublime which I
specified at the beginning remains to be dealt with, my friend,
and that is the arrangement of the words in due order. On this
matter I have already in two treatises given an adequate account
of such conclusions as I could reach; for my present purpose I
need only add the essential fact that men find in a harmonious
arrangement of sounds, not only a natural medium of persuasion
and pleasure, but also a marvellous instrument of grandeur and
passion. For does not the flute instil certain emotions into those
that hear it, seeming to carry them away and fill them with a
divine frenzy? Does it not give rhythmic movement, and
compel the hearer to conform to the melody and adapt his own
movements to this rhythm, even if he is not in the least musical ?
Then the tones of the harp, in themselves meaningless, often cast
a wonderful spell, as you know, by their variations in sound and
the throbbing interplay and harmonious blending of the notes
struck.

Yet these are mere semblances, spurious counterfeits of the
art of persuasion, and not, as I have mentioned, a genuine
expression of human nature. Now composition is a kind of
harmony of the words which are implanted in man at his birth,
and which affect not his hearing alone but his very soul, and it is
my belief that it brings out manifold patterns of words,
thoughts, deeds, beauty, and melody, all of them originally

i. Author unknown.

1 5 0

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

born and bred in us; moreover, by the blending of its myriad
tones it brings into the hearts of the bystanders the actual
emotion of the speaker, and always induces them to share it;
and finally it builds up an accumulation of phrases into a grand
and harmonious structure. Are we not to believe that by these
means it casts a spell on us, and draws our thoughts towards
what is majestic and dignified and sublime, and towards any
other potentialities which it embraces, gaining a complete
mastery over our minds ? But it is madness to dispute on matters
which are the subject of such general agreement, since experi­
ence is sufficient proof.

An idea which appears sublime, and which is certainly to be
admired, is that which Demosthenes associates with his decree:
‘ This decree caused the peril which at that time encompassed
the city to pass away just like a cloud.’ 1 But its ring owes no less
to the harmony than to the thought, for its delivery rests
entirely on the dactylic rhythms, which are the noblest of
rhythms and make for grandeur – which is why the heroic
measure, the most beautiful of known measures, is composed of
dactyls. And indeed, if you moved it wherever you liked away
from its proper place, 2 and said, ‘this decree, just like a cloud,
caused the peril at that time to pass away’, or if you cut out a
single syllable and said,’ caused to pass away like a cloud’, you
would realize how far the harmony of sound chimes in with the
sublimity. For ‘just like a cloud’ starts off with a long rhythm,
consisting of four metrical beats, and if you remove a single
syllable and write ‘like a cloud’, by this abbreviation you at
once mutilate the effect of grandeur. And again, if you stretch
the phrase out with ’caused to pass away just as if a cloud’,
the meaning is the same, but it no longer falls on the ear with the
same effect because, by the drawing out of the final beats, the
sheer sublimity of the passage is robbed of its solidity and of its
tension.

1. De Corona 1 8 8 .
2. T h e a w k w a r d n e s s h e r e i s d u e t o c o r r u p t i o n i n t h e t e x t , t h e l o s s

p e r h a p s o f a p h r a s e , p e r h a p s o f a p r e c e d i n g s e n t e n c e , w h i c h w o u l d h a v e

i n d i c a t e d t h a t ‘ i t ‘ r e f e r s t o t h e l a s t p h r a s e o f t h e d e c r e e , ‘ j u s t l i k e a

c l o u d ‘ . I t i s d i f f i c u l t t o f i n d E n g l i s h e q u i v a l e n t s f o r m o s t o f t h e

t e c h n i c a l i t i e s o f t h i s p a r a g r a p h .

1 5 1

C H A P T E R 4 0

The Structure of the Sentence
A M O N G the chief agents in the formation of the grand style is
the proper combination of the constituent members – as is true
of the human body and its members. Of itself no single member,
when dissociated from any other, has anything worthy of note
about it, but when they are all mutually interconnected they
make up a perfect whole. Similarly, when the elements of
grandeur are separated from one another, they carry the sub­
limity along with them, dispersing it in every direction; but
when they are combined into a single organism, and, moreover,
enclosed within the bonds of harmony, they form a rounded
whole, and their voice is loud and clear, and in the periods thus
formed the grandeur receives contributions, as it were, from a
variety of factors. I have, however, sufficiently demonstrated
that many writers both of prose and verse who have no natural
gift of sublimity, or even of grandeur, and who for the most
part employ common and popular words which carry no
extraordinary associations, have nevertheless, by merely com­
bining and fitting these words together in the right order,
achieved dignity and distinction and an appearance of grand­
e u r – among many others Philistus,1 for example, Aristophanes
at times, and Euripides as a rule.

After the slaughter of his children Heracles says,
I am stowed to the hatches with woes, and there is no room

for more.2

The expression is extremely vulgar, but it becomes sublime by
reason of its aptness to its setting. If you fit the passage together
in any other way, you will realize that Euripides is a poet rather
by virtue of his power of composition than of his ideas. Writing
of Dirce being dragged away by the bull, he says:

And wheresoever he chanced to wheel around, he seized and
dragged along at once woman or rock or oak, now this, now that.8

1 . A S i c i l i a n h i s t o r i a n o f t h e f o u r t h c e n t u r y .

2 . Euripides, Hercules l’urens 1 2 4 5 .

3 . F r o m t h e l o s t Antiope o f E u r i p i d e s .

1 5 2

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

1 5 3

This idea is excellent in itself, but gains further strength from
the fact that the rhythm is not hurried or as it were carried along
on rollers, but the words offer resistance to one another and
derive support from the pauses, and take their stand in a firmly-
based grandeur.

C H A P T E R 4 1

Some Impediments to Sublimity

W H E R E the sublime is concerned nothing has so debasing an
effect as broken or agitated rhythms, such as pyrrhics ( w w ) ,
trochees (— w ), and dichorees (—w— w ) , which drop right down
to the level of dance-music. For all over-rhythmical styles are
at once felt to be cheap and affected; the monotonous jingle
seems superficial, and does not penetrate our feelings – and the
worst of it is that, just as choral lyrics distract the audience’s
attention from the action of the play and forcibly turn it to
themselves, so also an over-rhythmical style does not com­
municate the feeling of the words, but only of the rhythm. And
so there are times when the hearers foresee the likely endings
and themselves break in on the speaker, and, as might happen
in dancing, they anticipate the steps and finish too soon.

Equally wanting in grandeur are passages which are too
close-packed, or cut up into tiny phrases and words with short
syllables, giving the impression of being roughly and unevenly
held together with pins.

C H A P T E R 4 2

Conciseness

F U R T H E R M O R E , excessive conciseness in expression reduces
sublimity, for grandeur is marred when it is too closely com­
pressed. You must take this to mean, not compression that is
properly used, but what is entirely broken up into fragments
and thus frittered away. For excessive conciseness curtails the

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

sense where brevity goes straight to the point. On the other
hand, it is clear that prolixity is lifeless, since it entails an un­
seasonable length.

C H A P T E R 4 3

Triviality of Expression, and Amplification

T H E use of trivial words terribly disfigures passages in the
grand style. For example, as far as content is concerned, the
storm in Herodotus is marvellously described, but the descrip­
tion contains certain details which are, heaven knows, too far
below the dignity of the subject. One might perhaps instance
1 when the sea boiled’, where the word’ boiled’ is so cacophon­
ous as to detract greatly from the sublimity. Then ‘the wind,’
he says, ‘grew fagged’; and ‘an unpleasant end’ awaited those
who were clinging to the wreck. 1 The phrase ‘grew fagged’ is
uncouth, and lacks dignity, and ‘unpleasant’ is inappropriate
to so great a disaster.

Similarly, when Theopompus had given a marvellous
account of the Persian King’s descent into Egypt, he spoiled the
whole description by the use of some trivial words.’ For which
city and which tribe of all those in Asia,’ he says, ‘did not send
envoys to the King ? And which of the products of the earth or
of the beautiful or precious achievements of art was not brought
to him as an offering ? Were there not many costly coverlets and
mantles, purple and white and multi-coloured, many pavilions
of gold furnished with all things needful, many robes of state
and costly couches? Further, there was silver and gold plate
richly wrought, goblets and mixing-bowls, some of which you
might have seen studded with jewels, others embellished in a
cunning and costly fashion. In addition to these there were
countless myriads of weapons, both Greek and barbarian, and
beasts of burden beyond number, and sacrificial victims fattened
for the slaughter; and many bushels of spices, and bags and
sacks and sheets of papyrus and all other useful things; and
such a store of preserved flesh from every kind of victim as to

i . H e r o d o t u s , V I I , 1 8 8 ; V I I , 1 9 1 ; V I I I , 1 3 .

1 5 4

L O N G I N U S : O N T H E S U B L I M E

form piles so large that anyone approaching them from a
distance took them for mounds and hills confronting them.’

Here Theopompus runs from the sublime to the trivial where
he ought, on the contrary, to have been heightening his effects.
By mixing bags and spices and sacks with the wonderful report
of the equipment as a whole, he has almost given the impression
of a cook-shop. Suppose that among all those decorative
objects, among the golden and jewelled mixing bowls, the silver
plate, the pavilions of pure gold, and the goblets – suppose that
someone had actually brought paltry bags and sacks and placed
them in the midst of all these, his action would have produced
an effect that offended the eye. Well, in the same way the un­
timely introduction of such words as these as it were disfigures
and debases the description. He could have given a general
account, as he speaks of the ‘ hills’ of flesh being built up, and
with regard to the rest of the provisions have spoken of wagons
and camels and a host of baggage-animals laden with everything
that ministers to the luxury and the pleasures of the table; or he
could have called them piles of all kinds of grain and of all that
conduces to fine cooking and good living; or if he had to put it
so explicitly, he could have spoken of all the delicacies of
caterers and good cooks.

In sublime passages we ought not to resort to sordid and con­
temptible terms unless constrained by some extreme necessity.
We should use words that suit the dignity of the subject, and
imitate nature, the artist who has fashioned man, for she has not
placed in full view our private parts or the means by which our
whole frame is purged, but as far as possible has concealed them,
and, as Xenophon says, 1 has put their passages into the farthest
background so as not to sully the beauty of the whole figure.

However, there is no urgent need to enumerate and classify
the things that lead to triviality. For as I have previously indi­
cated the qualities that furnish style with nobility and sublimity,
it is obvious that their opposities will for the most part make it
mean and ugly.

T. Memorabilia I, iv, 6 .

155

C H A P T E R 4 4

The Decay of Eloquence

H O W E V E R , as in view of your love of learning I will not hesi­
tate to add, my dear Terentianus, there remains to be cleared up
a problem to which a certain philosopher has recently applied
his wits.’ I wonder,’ he said,’ as no doubt do many other people,
why it is that in our age there are men well fitted for public life
who are extremely persuasive, who are keen and shrewd, and
especially well endowed with literary charm, and yet really sub­
lime and transcendent natures are, with few exceptions, no
longer produced. Such a great and world-wide dearth of litera­
ture attends our age! Are we,’ he went on, ‘are we to accept the
well-worn view that democracy is the kindly nurse of great men,
and that great men of letters may be said to have flourished only
under democracy and perished with it ? For freedom, they say,
has the power to foster the imaginations of high-souled men
and to inspire them with hope, and with it there spreads the
keenness of mutual rivalry and an eager competition for the
first place. Furthermore, by reason of the prizes which are open
to all in republics, the intellectual gifts of orators are continually
sharpened by practice and as it were kept bright by rubbing,
and, as might be expected, these gifts, fostered in freedom, help
to shed light on the affairs of state. Nowadays,’ he continued,
‘we seem to absorb from our childhood onwards the lessons
of the slavery to which we are accustomed, all but swaddled in
the infancy of our minds as we are in slavish customs and
observances, and never tasting of the finest and most produc­
tive source of eloquence, by which I mean freedom; and thus
we emerge as nothing but sublime flatterers.’

This, he maintained, was the reason why, although all other
faculties may fall to the lot even of menials, no slave ever
becomes an orator; for the fact that he has no freedom of speech,
that he lives as it were a dungeoned life, and that he is always
liable to be beaten, comes bubbling up to the surface. As
Homer puts it, ‘ The day of our enslavement takes away half

156

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our manhood.’ 1 ‘And so,’ went on the philosopher, ‘just as the
cages in which they keep the Pygmies, or dwarfs, as they call
them, not only stunt the growth of these who are imprisoned in
them, if what I hear is true, but also shrink them by reason of
the fetters fixed round their bodies, so all slavery, however just
it may be, could well be described as a cage of the soul, a com­
mon prison-house.’

However, I took him up and said: ‘It is easy, my good sir,
and a characteristic of human nature, always to be finding fault
with the present state of affairs. But consider whether it may be
that it is not the peace of this world of ours that corrupts great
natures, but much rather this endless war which holds our
desires in its grasp, yes, and further still the passions that
garrison our lives nowadays and utterly devastate them.
For the love of money, that insatiable craving from which we
all now suffer, and the love of pleasure make us their slaves,
or rather, one might say, sink our lives (body and soul) into
the depths, the love of money being a disease that makes us
petty-minded, and the love of pleasure an utterly ignoble
attribute.

‘On further reflection, indeed, I do not see how, if we value
the possession of unlimited wealth, or, to give the truth of the
matter, make a god of it, we can avoid allowing the evils that
naturally attend its entry into our souls. For vast and unlimited
wealth is closely followed – step by step, as they say – by
extravagance, and no sooner has the one opened the gates of
cities and houses than the other comes in and joins it in setting
up house there. With the passing of time, according to the
philosophers, they build nests in our lives, and soon set about
begetting offspring, giving birth to pretentiousness, vanity, and
luxury – no bastards these, but very much their true-born issue.
And if these children of wealth are allowed to reach maturity
they soon breed in our hearts implacable masters, insolence and
lawlessness and shamelessness. This will inevitably happen, and
then men will no longer lift up their eyes nor take any further
thought for their good name; the ruin of their lives will grad­
ually be completed as their grandeur of soul withers and
fades until it sinks into contempt, when they become lost in

I . Odyssey X V I I , 3 3 2 .

I J 7

C L A S S I C A L L I T E R A R Y C R I T I C I S M

admiration of their mortal capabilities and neglect to develop
the immortal.

‘A man who has accepted a bribe for a verdict would never be
a sound and unbiased judge of what is just and honourable, for
a corrupt judge must necessarily regard his own private inter­
ests as honourable and just. And where bribery now governs all
our lives, and we hunt others to death, and lay traps for legacies,
and bargain our souls for gain from any and every source,
having become slaves to [luxury], can we expect, in this pestil­
ential ruin of our lives, that there should still remain an unbiased
and incorruptible judge of works which possess grandeur or
enduring life, and that he would not be overcome by his passion
for gain ? For such men as we are, indeed, it is perhaps better
that we should be ruled than live in freedom. If we were given
complete liberty, like released prisoners, our consuming greed
for out neighbours’ possessions might set the world on fire
with our deeds of evil.’

In short, I maintained that what wears down the spirit of the
present generation is the apathy in which, with few exceptions,
we all pass our lives; for we do no work nor show any enter­
prise from any other motives than those of being praised or
being able to enjoy our pleasures – never from an eager and
honourable desire to serve our fellows.

‘It is best to leave such things at a guess’, 1 and to pass on to
the next problem, that is, the emotions, about which I prev­
iously undertook to write in a separate treatise, for they seem to
me to share a place in literature generally, and especially in the
sublime . . .

(The rest is lost)

I . E u r i p i d e s , E/ectra 3 7 9 .