On The Four Things Producing an Effect of

Wonder According to Aristotle

An Investigation Pertaining to Texts Concerning the
Structure of the Plot as found in Poetics Chapters 9 & 24

(c) 2013; 2019; 2024 Bart A. Mazzetti

1
 Introduction

In my paper1 immediately preceding this one, I have argued that the last discrete section of
Chapter 9 should come right after the treatment of the right size for the plot; then gave a
reason why the preceding part, on the task of the poet, would come next; then, in a final
note, qualified that judgment by pointing out that an additional passage concerning what
produces an effect of wonder found in our Chapter 24 may be fitted between the two, a
subject to which I now turn.

In what follows, I shall begin with what the last section of my reordered text, followed by
the passage from Chapter 24 (itself requiring a single reordering of its parts), before
appending certain notes explaining their interrelations.

1
‘Perfect and Whole:’ Aristotle on the Structure of the Plot.

2
 REORDERED TEXT FROM CHAPTERS 9 & 24

1. Poetics 9 (1452a 2-11):

But since tragedy is not only the imitation of a perfect action, but also of things evoking
fear and pity, but they become such to the greatest extent when, contrary to expectation, they
are accomplished through each other [para ten doxan di allela], <it is evident that they ought
to be made to happen in this way>. For then they will have more of the wonderful [thau-
maston] than if <they were brought about> by chance and luck, since even in things brought
about by luck, these seem most wonderful whenever they appear to have been accomplished
as though [10] by design [hôsper epitêdes phainetai gegonenai], as, for instance, the statue
of Mitys of Argo killed the man responsible for Mitys’ death, falling upon him while he was
looking at it; for such things seem not to have happened at random. And so such plots of
necessity are more beautiful.1

2. Poetics 24 (1460a 13-18; 1460a 27-1460b 1):

It is necessary therefore in tragedies to produce the wonderful, but what is irrational [a-
logos],2 through which the wonderful itself chiefly comes about, is more permissible in epic
because one does not behold the person doing something; seeing that [15] the circumstances
concerning the pursuit of Hector [Hektoros dioxis],3 if they were accomplished on the stage,
would appear laughable—these men standing around and not pursuing, but <Achilles> ges-
turing <to restrain them>—but they escape notice in verses.

<text occurring here moved below>

Now on the one hand, those things that are impossible but likely are preferable to those
that are possible but incredible;4 but on the other, the stories should not be constructed from
irrational parts, but to the greatest extent possible they should have nothing irrational. If
not, at least they should be outside the plot as represented [exo tou muthematos], such as
Oedipus’ not knowing how Laius died; but not within [30] the drama itself, as in the Electra,
the one giving an account of the Pythian games,5 or in the Mysians, the man who came to
Mysia from Tegea without making a sound.6

1
By way of anticipating our argument below, that such things are possible is clear since, if they were not,
they would not have happened. Nevertheless, they are quite unlikely, and therefore difficult to believe. Cf.
Aristotle’s remark below on the assigning of names in tragedy, as opposed to the practice of comic poets.
2
Cf. Phys., VIII. 1 (252a 10-23) where Aristotle explains that, since nature is a principle of order in things,
nothing disordered is natural. But that which is unnatural by having no order has no logos or ratio—that is, it
is alogos or ‘irrational’. Hence, inasmuch as the comparison of one thing with another is the proper and con-
natural act of reason (cf. S.Th., Ia-IIae, q. 32, art. 8, c.), whatever does not admit of such comparison will be
deemed irrational; that is, what is ‘without reason’, or ‘inexplicable’, or ‘unaccountable’, or ‘illogical’.
3
Cf. Il.22. 205.
4
That is, unbelievable [apithanon]; a remark making it clear that the unlikely and the incredible are, in some
sense at least, interchangable. Note also that the examples he gives here illustrate something irrational in the
composition of the incidents precisely because they involve something impossible, thereby rendering them
errors against the poetic art as such, as I explain in my separate treatment of Chapter 25.
5
Cf. the note ad loc. by W. H. Fyfe (cf. Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 23, translated by W. H. Fyfe.
Cambridge and London, 1932): “In Sophocles' Electra the plot hinges on a false story of Orestes' death by an
accident at the Pythian games. Presumably the anachronism shocked Aristotle.” That is to say, the games had
not yet been established.
6
Cf. Malcolm Heath’s note ad loc. (Aristotle: Poetics [London, 1996]), p. 60: “…Aeschylus and Sophocles
both wrote a play entitled Mysians, concerned with Telephus; because of the blood-guilt incurred by the
killing of his uncle…, he could speak to no one in the course of his lengthy journey.”

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 And so to say that the plot would be ruined [if the irrational things were removed] is laugh-
able: for such things ought not to be composed in the first place.

But if <an irrationality> [35] be laid down, and it appear that it could have been worked
out more in accord with reason, it will also be absurd [atopon],1 since the irrational things
in the Odyssey—about the manner of <Odysseus’> exposure2—would clearly be intolerable
if a bad poet will have produced them. [1460b] As it is, the poet conceals the absurdity by
rendering it pleasing through other excellences.

3. Poetics 24 (1460a 18-26):

The wonderful, however, pleases. Its sign is that all men recount a deed by adding to it in
order to gratify [their hearers].3

But Homer chiefly taught others how one must tell a lie. And this is [20] paralogism
[false reasoning]. For men suppose that, this existing or being done when that is or is done,
if what comes after is, the first also is or comes to be; but this is false. The reason is that,
even if the first is false, still, when the thing that comes after exists, it is supposed <that the
first> must exist or be done. For when we know this is true, our souls falsely reason [sc.
paralogize] that the first is also true. An example of this is the Washing [25] [i.e. the Bath-
Scene in the Odyssey].4

N.B. For the connection the following text has to the preceding, see further below.
1
On what is atopos, cf. Proclus Diadochus, Commentaries of Proclus on the Timaeus of Plato (1829 Vol. 1).
Translated by Thomas Taylor. p. 67:

But the word “surprising” (atopon) manifests that which happens contrary to expectation, as in the
Gorgias, “It is surprising, O Socrates,” (atopa ge w Swxrathj); or that which is paradoxical, as in
the Crito, “What a surprising dream, Socrates;” (wj atopon enupion Swxrathj); or the wonderful,
as in the Theaetetus, “And it is not surprising, but it would be much more wonderful, if it were not a
thing of this kind.” (kai ouden ge atopon, allal polu qaumasstoteron ei mh toiotoj en.)

2
I.e. since he had been set down asleep on the shore of Ithaca. Cf. Fyfe’s note ad loc.: “Hom. Od. 13.116ff. It
seemed to the critics inexplicable that Odysseus should not awake when his ship ran aground at the harbour
of Phorcys in Ithaca and the Phaeacian sailors carried him ashore.”
3
But what men add is to muthodes, fabulous or incredible marvels, as with mythical creatures like the cen-
taur or chimera, or mythologems like the divine descent of Achilles or Herakles, for which see my discussion
below. And note here that, as will be explained below, the rationale producing this species of the wonderful
consists in what is not only impossible but also unlikely, being impossible to nature as such, rather than just
to human nature, as one grants the existence of the Land of Oz or the Wonderland of the Alice books, and so
differs from the preceding case. Cf. the next note.
4
Cf. Fyfe’s note ad loc.:

Odyssey 19. Odysseus tells Penelope that he is a Cretan from Gnossus, who once entertained O. on
his voyage to Troy. As evidence, he describes O.'s dress and his companions (Hom. Od. 19.164-260).
P. commits the fallacy of inferring the truth of the antecedent from the truth of the consequent: “If his
story were true, he would know these details; But he does know them; Therefore his story is true.”
The artist in fiction uses the same fallacy, e.g.: “If chessmen could come to life the white knight
would be a duffer; But he is a most awful duffer (look at him!); Therefore chessmen can come to
life.” He makes his deductions so convincing that we falsely infer the truth of his hypothesis.

Note that Fyfe’s example from Through the Looking-Glass belongs rather to the preceding case inasmuch as
the antecedent is impossible to nature as such, but the consequent is made to appear to follow, whereas one
paralogizes when the antecedent is possible but the consequent does not follow (being what logicians call the
fallacy of the consequent, as Fyfe notes, and which I discuss at length below).

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 CONTINUATION

4. Poetics 9 (1451a 36—1451b 33) (tr. B.A.M.):

But it is also apparent from what has been said that the task of the poet is to relate, not
what has happened,1 but the sort of thing that might happen [hoia an genoito]—that is,
what is possible in accordance with likelihood or necessity [kai ta dunata kata to eikos ê to
anankaion]. For the historian and the poet differ not by [the one] speaking in verse [and the
other] not, [1451b] (for Herodotus put in verse would be no less a historian in verse than not
in verse), but they differ in this, namely, that the one relates what has happened [5], but the
other the sort of thing that might happen [tôi ton men ta genomena legein, ton de hoia an
genoito]. For this reason, poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history; for
poetry relates rather the universal [poiêsis mallon ta katholou], whereas history, the par-
ticular [hê d' historia ta kath' hekaston legei]. But ‘universal’, in fact, is the sort of thing a
certain sort of man happens to say or do according to what is likely or necessary [estin de
katholou men, tôi poiôi ta poia atta sumbainei legein ê prattein kata to eikos ê to anan-
kaion], and [10] poetry aims at this sort of thing when it assigns names; but ‘particular’ [to
de kath' hekaston] is what Alcibiades did or suffered.

But in comedy this has already become clear. For, having constructed plots from things
that are likely [dia ton eikoton], they thus suppose any chance names and do not, like the
composers of iambos, make them about a particular [15] man. But in tragedy they hold to
names that have already occurred. The reason is that the possible is believable. Things that
have not happened, in fact, we are not apt to believe possible; but it is obvious that what has
already happened is possible; for if it were impossible it would not have happened.
Now, although in tragedies one [20] or two names are more known [or ‘famous’], the
others are made up; but in certain [works] none of them [are known,] as in the Antheus of
Agathon. For in a like manner in this [work] the things done as well as the names are made
up, and nevertheless they give pleasure. For this reason, one must not seek to adhere entirely
to the traditional stories, which tragedies [25] are about. For it is ridiculous to seek this out
since such known names are known to few, yet they give pleasure to everyone.

So it is clear from these things that a poet [or ‘maker’] ought to be the ‘poet’ [or ‘maker’]
of plots rather than of verses, since he is a poet according to imitation, and what he imitates
are actions. Therefore, although one fashion things that have occurred, [30] he is no less a
poet; for nothing prevents certain things that have happened from being the sort of things
that are likely to happen, and according to this he is their poet.

N.B. I turn now to my explanation of the foregoing reordering of the text.

1
Cf. the example of the statue of Mitys in the first excerpted passage of our reordered text; the anecdote con-
cerning it, as noted above, being an example of something that has happened but which is highly unlikely.
But here in the present passage, Aristotle argues that such occurrences are not the concern of the poet as
such, but rather the sort of thing that might happen in accordance with what is either necessary or likely. On
the other hand, as the Philosopher also points out in Chapter 18 (cf. 1456a 24-25), even unlikely things have
a certain likelihood of happening, so that even seldom-occurring events such as the death of Mitys’ murderer
may come under the rationale of the poetic, for which reason no contradiction arises. Hence we observe the
intimate connection between these passages (both transmitted as parts of Chapter 9, but in the wrong order),
the unity of which is not impaired by the intervening treatment of three additional cases of what produces an
effect of wonder but merely momentarily delayed, for which reason it is at least possible that they were
originally found together. See our final section below.

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 The four rationales producing the wonderful according to Aristotle

1. The principles made apparent by the foregoing texts.

As becomes clear from the passages thus assembled, Aristotle considers that, with
respect to the composition (sunthesis) or construction (sustasis) of the things done (ton
pragmaton)—that is to say, the incidents making up the plot—those combinations which
produce the effect of wonder arise from the following principles:

(1) what is possible but unlikely

(2) what is impossible but likely
(3) what is impossible and unlikely
(4) what is possible but untrue1

Their elements, then, are the following:

• the possible
• the impossible
• the likely
• the unlikely
• the untrue (i.e. what is added to a story to gratify its hearers)

Lastly, the consideration of these cases involves a judgement that such things are either
believable or unbelievable—that is to say, credible or incredible—and so are either
rational or irrational in their construction; seeing as how such things can happen either
according to nature or contrary to nature, as is made clear by the follwing witness.

2. The division of what produces an effect of wonder.

N.B. Inasmuch as every primary division is into two or three, but the number of rationales
at which we have arrived above is four, there must be a more basic division presupposed to
them. In this regard, cf. Aristotle, Mechanical Problems (847a 11-24) (tr. W. S. Hett; rev.
B.A.M.):

Remarkable things [or ‘things to be wondered at’, thaumazetai] happen in accordance with
nature, the cause of which is unknown, and others occur contrary to nature, which are
produced by skill for the benefit of mankind. For in many cases nature produces effects
against [15] our advantage; for nature is always disposed in the same way and simply, but
our advantage changes in many ways.

When, then, we have to produce an effect contrary to nature, we are at a loss, because of
the difficulty, and stand in need of skill. Therefore we call that part of skill which assists
such difficulties, a device. [20] For as the poet Antiphon wrote, this is true:

“We by skill gain mastery over things in which we are conquered by nature.”

1
N.B. It must be noted here that Aristotle appears not to consider the case of what is possible but likely in
this regard—that is, as producing an effect of wonder—presumably because such a concatenation of
incidents is, as such, nothing to be wondered at.

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 Of this kind are those in which the lesser master the greater, and things possessing little
moment move great weights, and all similar devices which we name mechanical problems.

Division of remarkable things (= things to be wondered at):

a. Things which happen according to nature, but whose causes remain hidden
b. Things which happen contrary to nature, but are the result of skill (caused by
man for his own benefit)

3. The four things producing an effect of wonder arranged under the foregoing headings:

(a) Things which happen according to nature, but whose causes remain hidden:

(1) What is possible but unlikely, and hence incredible (rational, but appearing
irrational insofar as one cannot ‘account’ for what happens: such things happening
unexpectedly but on account of each other, the para tes doxan di allela): Ch. 9
(1452a 2-11)

(b) Things which happen contrary to nature, but are the result of skill (caused by man):

(2) What is impossible but likely, and hence credible (irrational insofar as the antece-
dent is impossible, but the consequent follows as if it were true: = the composing of
the impossible): Ch. 24 (1460a 13-18; 1460a 27-1460b 1)
(3) What is both impossible and unlikely, and hence incredible, but given belief
inasmuch as the effect of wonder it produces is pleasing: what the poet adds in
order to gratify his hearers1 (irrational insofar as the antecedent is impossible and
the consequent is granted simply because it makes a good story): Ch. 24 (1460a 11)
(4) What is possible, but untrue (= what is credible, and hence deemed likely)
(irrational insofar as the antecedent is possible, but the consequent does not follow:
the right way for a poet to tell a lie; paralogismos or ‘false reasoning’): Ch. 24
(1460a 19-26)

4. The first case: What is possible but unlikely.

On things happening unexpectedly but on account of each other, cf. Poetics 9 (1452a 2-
11):

[For this text, see page 3 above.]

The foregoing in sum:

Things may be brought about or accomplished (a) through each other (= not by chance and
luck) or (b) by chance and luck (= not through each other).

Things may be brought about (a) having been expected (= not contrary to expectation) or
(b) contrary to expectation (= not having been expected).

1
As with tall tales about witches and centaurs and chimerae and the like. For the justification of my formula-
tion, cf. the excerpt from Donald Lemen Clark below.

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Things brought about by chance and luck may appear to have been accomplished (a) as
though by design (e.g., the statue of Mitys) or (b) not as having happened by design (such
things appearing to have happened at random).

Things evoking fear and pity become such to the greatest extent when, contrary to
expectation, they are accomplished through each other.

Things brought about by chance or luck either seem (a) to have happened at random or (b)
to have been accomplished by design.

[Things happening outside our expectation are surprising. (Proclus)]

Cf. Malcolm Heath, Aristotle’s Poetics: Lecture Notes:

4.2 Astonishment, reversal and recognition

1. Astonishment (Ch. 9, 52a1- 11): astonishment is good but not necessary: move from
minimum to optimum criteria of plot. Note appeal to emotional effect as basis for judging
superiority of one tragic plot over another.

Emotional effect maximised by: (i) astonishment and (ii) connection.

This explains why requirements of wholeness, unity etc apply to poetry: connection is linked
to emotional effect, which is what tragedy aims at. (Is it true that emotional impact of
causally intelligible events is greater than that of chance events?)

2. Example: Mitys’ murderer killed by Mitys’ statue. No connection; but illusion of

connection increases astonishment - so real connection must do so also.

Note:

(a) is this tragic? Pity (perhaps - unless murderer deserved to die: cf. Ch. 13). Fear: dead man
taking vengeance frightening?

(b) illusion of connectedness: is this significant? Ch. 24 (60a26-b2) on ‘irrationalities’

suggests requirement of necessary/probable connection is applied flexibly (cf. also Ch. 15,
54b6-8 on irrationalities ‘outside the play’; Ch. 25, 60b23-6: irrationalities are acceptable if
they (i) enhance effect of play or epic, and (ii) are concealed).

Is Aristotle to be seen as flexible and pragmatic or systematic and doctrinaire?

Cf. John Peradotto, “Interrogating the Canon, Deposing the Tyrannus” (edited), pp. 9-10:1

Readers of the Poetics (1452a) will recognize a close kinship between Evans-Pritchard’s
cursed Azande killed by the collapsing granary and an example of Aristotle’s, the murderer
of one Mitys, killed when, during a festival,15 the statue of his victim toppled over on him.

In the discussion of the best type of tragic plots, this incident is offered as an example of
something which, even though it happens by chance, has the appearance of design

1
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~peradott/INTERROGATING.pdf [accessed 6/8/03]

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 (e)pi/thdej fai/netai gegone/nai), and so will arouse wonder. “Things like that,” Aristotle
concludes, “do not seem (e)/oike) to happen without purpose (ei)kh=|), and plots of this kind
are necessarily better (kalli/ouj).”

Better in what way? Because they arouse a sense of awe (qau=ma) in general, and in
particular the tragic emotions in those irredeemably teleonomic beings who take such things
not for accidents, as presumably a philosopher and scientist would, but for events which
have happened by design, according to necessity or probability.

A key term here is fai/netai: the events merely appear or seem to happen by design, not of
course to a philosopher or scientist like Aristotle, but to the uncritical mass sitting in the
theater of Dionysus. The allure of such tales, the seduction of the prophetic, of poetic justice,
of the curse fulfilled, even for the mind that disbelieves in such things – this Aristotle
understood – derives from our abiding desire for unity, our urge to read-in a unity even
where none exists.

15
Or “while he was looking at it” (qewrou=nti 1452a9)?

Cf. William Hansen, “Poetic justice: the murder of Mitys of Argo”:1

I point out that the story was known in ancient Greece. Aristotle, discussing the qualities of
good and bad plots in his Poetics (Ch. 9, sections 11-13), holds that tragic dramas are about
complete actions and in particular about actions that bring about feelings of fear or pity in
the playgoers. He declares that such feelings are especially aroused when the incidents are
unexpected but not unrelated, “as when the statue of Mitys of Argo caused the death of the
man who had been responsible for Mitys’ death, by falling upon him.” Such events,
according to Aristotle, do not appear to be arbitrary and so are the stuff of superior plots.
The story of Mitys evidently circulated as a legend, for Aristotle appears to treat it as a
familiar story and he is not the only ancient author to recount it. Like the narrative from
Arizona, it is a crisp story of poetic justice in which the slayer is ironically and unexpectedly
slain by his victim. Just as a certain man brought about the death of Mitys of Argo, after
which a statue of Mitys fell upon the killer, causing his death, so also a certain man brought
about the death of a particular saguaro cactus by illegally shooting at it, and the cactus
toppled over, crushing him to death. The parallelism of the two stories is all the more
remarkable because of the resemblance of saguaro cacti to human beings or statues.
Although I cannot shed any light on the historicity of the story of the saguaro-shooter as
such, I can suggest at least that simple stories of poetic justice have been around for a long
time. The story-pattern that underlies the deserved fate of the saguaro-shooter is a traditional
one in general (a misbehaver is punished in an unexpected and ironically appropriate way)
and perhaps also in particular (a killer is unexpectedly felled by the actual or symbolic
corpse of his victim).

In effect, Aristotle holds that those things which happen by design arouse wonder, just
as do those which appear to happen as if by design; the latter being called ‘fated’ or
‘providential’ as the case may be.

5. The second case: What is impossible but likely:1

1
http://www.folklore.ee/FOAFtale/ftn45.htm [6/8/03] Via Foaftale News Newsletter of the Inter-national
Society For Contemporary Legend ResearCh. No. 45 November 1999 ISSN 1026-1001.

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On producing the wonderful by composing what is impossible but likely, cf. Aristotle,
Poetics 24 (1460a 26-1460b 5):

Now on the one hand, those things that are impossible but likely [adunata eikota] are prefer-
able to those that are possible but incredible [dunata apithana]; but on the other hand, the
stories should not be constructed from irrational parts, but to the greatest extent possible they
should have nothing irrational.

Cf. Aristotle, Poetics 25 (1461b 10-11):

For with respect to the making of poetry, a credible impossibility is preferable to one that is
incredible, yet possible.

Cf. Aristotle, Poetics 25 (1460b 22-30):

First, then, impossible things that have been composed according to the art itself are errors,
but those things <have been composed> correctly which attain the end of the art; for we have
[25] stated the end, if in this way <the part> itself or any other part be made more striking
[ekplektikoteron]; for example, the pursuit of Hector [Hektoros dioxis]. If, however, the end
could have been brought about as well or better according to the art concerning these things,
<then one has erred> incorrectly; for, if possible, one must err [30] wholly not at all.

Cf. “Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance: A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Re-
naissance Literary Criticism,” Donald Lemen Clark, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of English
in Columbia University. 1922. Chapter II. Classical Poetic. 1. Aristotle:2

Aristotle goes so far as to say that probability, not actuality, controls the structure of a narra-
tive or dramatic plot in that, “what follows should be the necessary or probable result of the
preceding action,”23 even to the extent that the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to
improbable possibilities, for by a logical fallacy even an irrational premise in an action may
seem probable provided that the conclusion is logical and made to seem real. 24 For instance,
the irrational elements in the Odyssey “are presented to the imagination with such vividness
and coherence that the impossible becomes plausible; the fiction looks like truth.” 25 Such a
result occurs only when the characters and action are made real. We believe that which we
see, even though we know in our hearts that it is not so.

23. Ibid., X, 3. [presumably Chapter IX, not X is meant (B.A.M.)]

24. Ibid., XXIV, 9-10. [That is to say, the antecedent is impossible, but the consequent is
made to appear to follow. (B.A.M.)]
25. Butcher, op. cit. p. 392. [see the next entry (B.A.M.)]

Cf. also S. H. Butcher, Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art (London, 1911; rpt.
Dover, 1951), pp. 172-173:

At the outset the poet must be allowed to make certain primary assumptions and create his
own environment. Starting from these poetic data—the presuppositions of the imagination—
he may go whither he will, and carry us with him, so long as he does not dash us against the

1
The reader will note that the texts excerpted in this section also introduce the third and fourth cases, which
will be discussed below under their own headings.
2
http://library.beau.org/gutenberg/1/0/1/4/10140/10140-h/10140-h.htm [2/21/05]

10
 prosaic ground of fact.1 He [172-173] feigns certain imaginary persons, strange situations,
incredible adventures. By vividness of narrative and minuteness of detail, and, above all, by
the natural sequence of incident and motive, things are made to happen exactly as they
would have happened had the fundamental fiction been fact. The effects are so plausible, so
life-like, that we yield ourselves instinctively to the illusion, and infer the existence of the
supposed cause. For the time being we do not pause to dispute the prw=ton yeu=doj or
original falsehood on which the whole fabric is reared.

Cf. Thomas Twining, Aristotle’s Treatise on Poetry (London, 1815), excerpt from Note
222, pp. 486-488:

The similitude of the logical and poetic sophism appears to me to be this. It is not merely,
that, where there is a mixture of history and fiction, the truth makes the fiction pass; but the
comparison, I think, relates to the connection between the fictions of the Poet, considered as
cause and effect, as antecedent and consequent. The Poet invents certain extraordinary
characters, incidents, and situations. When the actions and the language of those characters,
and, in general, the consequences of those events, or situations, as drawn out into detail by
the Poet, are such as we know, or think, to be true—that is to say, poetically true, or natural;
such, as we are satisfied must necessarily, or would probably, follow, if such characters and
situations actually existed; this probability, nature or truth, of representation, imposes on us,
sufficiently for the purposes of Poetry. It induces us to believe, with hypothetic and
voluntary faith, the existence of those false events, and imaginary personages, those, a)dun-
ata, a)loga, yeudh—those marvellous and incredible fictions, which, otherwise managed,
we should have rejected: that is, their improbability, or impossibility, would have so forced
themselves upon our notice, as to destroy, or disturb, even the slight and willing illusion of
the moment.
Whenever, says the philosopher, supposing such a thing to be, it would certainly be fol-
lowed by such effects; if we see those effects, we are disposed to infer the existence of the
cause. And thus, in Poetry, and all fiction, this is the logic of that temporary imposition on
which depends our pleasure. The reader of a play, or a novel, does not, indeed, syllogize, and
say to himself—“Such beings are here supposed, had they existed, must have acted and
spoken exactly in this manner; therefore I believe they have existed:”—but he feels the truth
of the premises, and he consents to feel the truth of the conclusion; he does not revolt from
the imagination of such beings. Everything follows so naturally, and, even, as it seems, so
necessarily, that the probability and truth of nature, in the consequences, steals, in a manner,
from our view, even the impossibility of the cause, and flings an air of truth over the whole.
With respect to fact, indeed, all is equally yeu=doj; for if the causes exist not, neither can the
effects. But the consequent lies are so told, as to impose on us, for the moment, the belief of
the antecedent, or fundamental lie.d
d
Hobbes, with his usual acuteness, observes, that “probable fiction is similar to reasoning
rightly from a false principle.” p. 13, of his works, Sect. 9.

Cf. Pindar, First Olympian:

Charm and beauty…often make the unbelievable seem true.

1
Cp. C.S. Lewis, “On Science Fiction” (1955), in On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, ed. Walter
Hooper (New York, 1966), p. 65, who, in speaking of instances of fantastic fiction, remarks:

In all these the impossibility is, as I have said, a postulate, something to be granted before the story
gets going. Within that frame we inhabit the known world and are as realistic as anyone else.

11
N.B. I will return to the poetic paralogism below, but will treat the preceding case first.

6. The third case: What is added to a story in order to gratify one’s hearers:

Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric I. 11 (1371a 31-33) (tr. B.A.M.):

And since learning [manthanein] and wondering [thaumazein] are pleasing, such things as
works of imitation must also be pleasing; for instance, the arts of painting and sculpture and
the poetic art, and everything well imitated, even if what is imitated itself is not pleasing; for
it is not such a thing that causes pleasure, but there is a syllogizing [sc. drawing inferences]
that this is that, and thus it happens that one learns something. And reversals [i.e. sudden
turns of fortune] and hair’s-breadth escapes from danger [are pleasing]; for all such things
are to be wondered at [thaumasta].

Cf. Rhetoric III. 2 (1404b 9-10) (tr. B.A.M.):

For the way in which men <feel> in regard to strangers and fellow-citizens, so also do they
feel in regard to language. And so one should make his language strange [or ‘unfamiliar’,
zenon], for men wonder at things remote, but the wonderful [to thaumaston] is pleasing.

Cf. Aristotle, Poetics 24 (1460a 17-18) (tr. B.A.M.):

But the wonderful [to thaumaston] is pleasing. Its sign is that all men recount a deed by
adding to it [prostithentes] it in order to gratify [charizomenoi, sc. their hearers].

Cf. Origen, Contra Celsum, ANF Vol. 4 (Buffalo, 1886) (tr. Frederick Crombie), I. 42 :

Before we begin our reply, we have to remark that the endeavour to show, with regard to
almost any history, however true, that it actually occurred, and to produce an intelligent con-
ception regarding it, is one of the most difficult undertakings that can be attempted, and is in
some instances an impossibility. For suppose that someone were to assert that there never
had been any Trojan war, chiefly on account of the impossible narrative interwoven
therewith, about a certain Achilles being the son of a sea-goddess Thetis and of a man
Peleus, or Sarpedon being the son of Zeus, or Ascalaphus and Ialmenus the sons of Ares, or
Aeneas that of Aphrodite, how should we prove that such was the case, especially under the
weight of the fiction attached, I know not how, to the universally prevalent opinion that there
was really a war in Ilium between Greeks and Trojans? And suppose, also, that someone
disbelieved the story of Oedipus and Jocasta, and of their two sons Eteocles and Polynices,
because the sphinx, a kind of half-virgin, was introduced into the narrative, how should we
demonstrate the reality of such a thing? And in like manner also with the history of the
Epigoni,1 although there is no such marvellous event interwoven with it, or with the return of
the Heracleidae,2 or countless other historical events.

1
That is, a recounting of the expedition of the sons of the seven against Thebes and the sack of Troy.
2
Cf. Mosaics of Grecian History by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson (New York, 1883), p.
127:

About twenty years after the Thessalian conquest, the Dorians, who had frequently changed their
homes, and had finally settled in a mountainous region on the south of Thessaly, commenced a migra-
tion to the Peloponnesus, accompanied by portions of other tribes, and led, as was asserted, by de-
scendants of Hercules, who had been deprived of their dominions in the latter country, and who had
hitherto made several unsuccessful attempts to recover them. This important event in Grecian history
is therefore called the “Return of the Heraclidæ.”

12
 But he who deals candidly with histories, and would wish to keep himself also from being
imposed upon by them, will exercise his judgment as to what statements he will give his
assent to, and what he will accept figuratively, seeking to discover the meaning of the
authors of such inventions, and from what statements he will withhold his belief, as having
been written for the gratification of certain individuals.1 And we have said this by way of
anticipation respecting the whole history related in the Gospels concerning Jesus, not as
inviting men of acuteness to a simple and unreasoning faith, but wishing to show that there is
need of candour in those who are to read, and of much investigation, and, so to speak, of
insight into the meaning of the writers, that the object with which each event has been
recorded may be discovered.

For an additional rendering, cf. Robert Lamberton, Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist
Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition (Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1986), p. 81:

He who approaches the stories generously and wishes to avoid being misled in reading them
will decide which parts he will believe, and which he will interpret allegorically, searching
out the intentions of the authors of such fictions [to boulemeuna ereunon ton ana-
plasamenon], and which he will refuse to believe, and will consider simply as things written
to please someone [pros tinas charin anangeg belrammenois]. And having said this, we have
been speaking in anticipation, about the whole story of Jesus in the Gospels. We do not urge
the intelligent in the direction of simple and irrational faith, but wish to advise them that
those who are going to read this story need to be generous in their approach and will require
a great deal of insight and, if I may call it that, power of penetration into the meaning of the
Scriptures in order that the intention with which each passage was written may be dis-
covered.

Note the division Origen makes:

• what is to be believed: i.e. history

• what is to be interpreted allegorically or figuratively: i.e. ‘enigmatic’ myth
• what is not to be believed, but has been written in order to gratify someone: i.e. to
muthodes (the fabulous or mythical), comprising an impossible narrative, as
with epic poems recounting the divine parentage of heroes like Achilles and
Aeneas, and the Sphinx in the tale of Oedipus (= what is impossible, as well as
unbelievable to some, but nevertheless taken on faith by the many)

As noted above, such things come under the rationale of what is impossible as well as in-
credible, but admitted by the hearer inasmuch as it makes a good story (as if one were to
say, “thus runs the tale’, etc.; sc. “things men say, such as about the gods”, Poet. 25, 1460b
35-61a 1). In my view, ‘myth’ properly so called embraces the last two members of this
division: the first member being history; the second member, what I have called ‘enig-
matic’ myth; that is, the symbolic representation of the wonders of nature (= “an untrue

1
Cp. David Hume, Of Tragedy (1757):

We find that common liars always magnify, in their narrations, all kinds of danger, pain, distress,
sickness, deaths, murders, and cruelties; as well as joy, beauty, mirth, and magnificence. It is an ab-
surd secret, which they have for pleasing their company, fixing their attention, and attaching them to
such marvellous relations, by the passions and emotions, which they excite.

13
story illustrating a truth”; the third member being to muthodes, comprising the fanciful
embellishment characteristic of popular myth, fable, and legend.

7. On the practice of Homer as representative of the poet’s desire to gratify his hearers, cf.
Strabo, Geography, 1.2.9 (tr. Horace Leonard Jones), pp. 71-72:

9. Now inasmuch as Homer referred his myths to the province of education, he was wont
to pay considerable attention to the truth. “And he mingled therein” [Il. 8. 14 ] a false ele-
ment also, giving his sanction to the truth, but using the false to win the favour of the popu-
lace and to out-general the masses. [71-72] “And as when some skilful man overlays gold
upon silver,” [Od. 6. 232] just so was Homer wont to add a mythical element [prosetithai
muthon] to actual occurrences [alethesi peripiteias, = ‘really occurring reversals’ or
‘dramatic turns of events which have happened’], thus giving flavour and adornment to his
style [hedonon kai kosmon ten phasin, lit. ‘giving pleasure and ornamentation to what is
said’]; but he has the same end in view as the historian or the person who narrates facts. So,
for instance, he took the Trojan war, an historical fact [gegonota], and decked it out with his
myths [ekosmese tais muthopoiias, = ‘adorned it with story-telling’, or ‘myth-making’]; and
he did the same in the case of the wanderings of Odysseus; but to hang an empty story of
marvels [kenon teratologian] on something wholly untrue is not Homer’s way of doing
things. For it occurs to us at once, doubtless, that a man will lie [pseudoito] more plausibly
[pithanoteron] if he will mix in some actual truth [alethinon], just as Polybius says, when he
is discussing the wanderings of Odysseus. This is what Homer himself means when he says
of Odysseus: “So he told many lies in the likeness of truth;” for Homer does not say “all” but
“many” lies; since otherwise they would not have been “in the likeness of truth.” Accord-
ingly, he took the foundations of his stories from history.

For an additional rendering, cf. Strabo, Geography, 1.2.9 (In: Roos Meijering, Literary and
Rhetorical Theories in Greek Scholia [Groningen, 1987]. p. 60):

It was because Homer regarded his fables as educative that he thought so much of the truth,
while also ‘placing therein’ some falsehoods. The truth he himself accepted; the false he
used to manage and command the multitude. ‘Like a man that covers silver with gold’,
Homer added fable to real events, embellishing and adorning his style, but looking to the
same end as the historian or the dealer in facts. Thus he added fabulous elements to the real
event of the Trojan war, and so also with Odysseus’ wanderings.

Cf. Strabo, Geography, 1.2.15, (apud Polybius, The Histories. LCL, Harvard, 1917):

Having thus prepared his way, he does not allow us to treat Aeolus and the whole of the
wanderings of Ulysses as mythical, but he says, that while some mythical elements have
been added, as in the case of the Trojan war, the main statements about Sicily correspond to
those of the other writers who treat of the local history of Italy and Sicily. Neither does he
applaud the dictum of Eratosthenes that we may find out where Ulysses travelled when we
find the cobbler who sewed the bag of the winds.

On the Odyssey in this regard:

Cf. Homer: The Odyssey. Translated by S. H. Butcher and A. Lang. With Introduction and
Notes. New York, Collier, [1909] The Harvard classics v. 22:

Introduction: Composition and Plot of the Odyssey

14
 The Odyssey is generally supposed to be somewhat the later in date of the two most
ancient Greek poems which are concerned with the events and consequences of the Trojan
war. As to the actual history of that war, it may be said that nothing is known. We may
conjecture that some contest between peoples of more or less kindred stocks, who occupied
the isles and the eastern and western shores of the Aegean, left a strong impression on the
popular fancy. Round the memories of this contest would gather many older legends, myths,
and stories, not peculiarly Greek or even ‘Aryan,’ which previously floated unattached, or
were connected with heroes whose fame was swallowed up by that of a newer generation. It
would be the work of minstrels, priests, and poets, as the national spirit grew conscious of
itself, to shape all these materials into a definite body of tradition. This is the rule of
development—first scattered stories, then the union of these into a NATIONAL legend. The
growth of later national legends, which we are able to trace, historically, has generally come
about in this fashion. To take the best known example, we are able to compare the real
history of Charlemagne with the old epic poems on his life and exploits. In these poems we
find that facts are strangely exaggerated, and distorted; that purely fanciful additions 1 are
made to the true records, that the more striking events of earlier history are crowded into the
legend of Charles, that mere fairy tales, current among African as well as European peoples,
are transmuted into false history, and that the anonymous characters of fairy tales are
converted into historical personages. We can also watch the process by which feigned
genealogies were constructed, which connected the princely houses of France with the
imaginary heroes of the epics.2 The conclusion is that the poetical history of Charlemagne
has only the faintest relations to the true history. And we are justified in supposing that, quite
as little of the real history of events can be extracted from the tale of Troy, as from the
Chansons de Geste.

By the time the Odyssey was composed, it is certain that a poet had before him a well-
arranged mass of legends and traditions from which he might select his materials. The author
of the Iliad has an extremely full and curiously consistent knowledge of the local traditions
of Greece, the memories which were cherished by Thebans, Pylians, people of Mycenae, of
Argos, and so on. The Iliad and the Odyssey assume this knowledge in the hearers of the
poems, and take for granted some acquaintance with other legends, as with the story of the
Argonautic Expedition. Now that story itself is a tissue of popular tales,—still current in
many distant lands,—but all woven by the Greek genius into the history of Iason.

The history of the return of Odysseus as told in the Odyssey, is in the same way, a tissue of
old märchen.3 These must have existed for an unknown length of time before they gravitated

1
“Purely fanciful additions” being equivalent to my understanding of to muthodes as what is added to an
account in order to gratify its hearers.
2
Note that it is this practice which Greek historians like Herodotus, Ephoros, and Thucydides had foremost
in their minds, a concern coincident with Aristotle’s and Origen’s examples of the divine descent of heroes: it
being just such components of supposedly “fact-based” accounts (as with the Trojan War in the Iliad) that
raised red flags among sophisticated readers.
3
Cf. Andrew Lang, Introduction to Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-five Variants, by Marian Roalfe
Cox (London, 1893), p. xvi: “Our Odyssey is notoriously a tissue of märchen.” But it must be recognized that
the series of episodes properly so called—namely, the “Great Wanderings”—does not constitute the essence
of the poem, but only a part (as Lang’s preceding comment accurately reflects). Cf. also Stith Thompson, The
Folktale, p. 3: “Odysseus entertains the court of Alcinous with the marvels of his adventures”. One must
consider here Aristotle’s statement of the poem’s plot in universal form (Poet. Ch. 17, 1455b 16-23):

For the story of the Odyssey is not long: a certain man having wandered for many years, and per-
secuted by a god, and alone; but in the possessions of his household [standing] thus, that his goods are
consumed by suitors and his son made to suffer plots; but he arrives storm-tossed, and making himself
known to some and attacking others [i.e. the suitors], is himself saved, but destroys his enemies.

15
 into the cycle of the tale of Troy. The extraordinary artistic skill with which legends and
myths, originally unconnected with each other, are woven into the plot of the Odyssey, so
that the marvels of savage and barbaric fancy become indispensable parts of an artistic
whole, is one of the chief proofs of the unity of authorship of that poem.

8. Other authors on the “mythical” (to muthikon) or “fabulous” (to muthodes) as some-
thing added to an account:

On ‘enigmatic’ myth, cf. Strabo, Geography, 10.3.23 (= The Geography of Strabo, tr.
Horace Leonard Jones, LCL, 1924):

[23] I have been led on to discuss these people rather at length, although I am not in the
least fond of myths [hekista philomuthontes], because the facts in their case border on the
province of theology [theologikou]. And theology as a whole must examine early opinions
and myths [doxas kai muthous], since the ancients expressed enigmatically [ainittomenon]
the physical notions [ennoias phusikas] which they entertained concerning the facts and
always added the mythical element to their accounts [kai prostithenton aei tois logois ton
muthon].

N.B. Notice that what is added to an account here is the mythical component of enigmatic
myth, rather than the fabulous or mythical added by the storyteller solely for the sake of
the pleasure it affords. For the case of history in regard to the mythical or fabulous, cf. Jack
Goody and Ian Watt, “The Consequences of Literacy”, in Jack Goody, ed., Literacy in
Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1968), p. 45:

Hecataeus, for example, proclaimed at about the turn of the century, ‘What I write is the
account I believe to be true. For the stories the Greeks tell are many and in my opinion
ridiculous’ (Jacoby [F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker, I, Genealogie
und Mythographie, Berlin, 1923]), and offered his own rationalizations of the data on family
traditions and lineages which he had collected.

Cf. Lawrence Kim, “Hecataeus of Miletus and Palaephatus on the Past: Complicating the
Ancient ‘Rationalization’ of Myth”:

Hecataeus’ opening words, “I write the things that seem true to me; for the stories of the
Greeks, as they appear to me, are numerous and ridiculous” (FGrH 1 F 1), are customarily
taken to represent one of the earliest instances of the Greek skeptical attitude toward their
tradition (e.g., Derow in Hornblower (ed.) Greek Historiography (Oxford, 1994)). The frag-
ment is thus seen as a programmatic statement for Hecataeus’ historical method, to recover
the truth by eliminating the fantastic elements from myths.
This method has come to be known as ‘rationalization’ (see De Sanctis, RFC 11 (1933);
Nenci, Rend. Lincei 8.6 (1951); Fertonani, PP 22 (1952); and the survey by Nicolai, QUCC
84 (1997)), and is illustrated, for instance, in a passage where Hecataeus moves Geryon from
Iberia (which seemed too far away for Heracles to drive cattle to Eurystheus in Mycenae) to
“somewhere in the region of Ambracia and Amphilochia” (F 26).

Cf. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, I, 22. 4 (tr. Charles Foster Smith):

In this outline the words, ‘a certain man having wandered for many years…’, contain merely potentially the
“tissue of märchen” comprising the folktale elements.

16
 And it may well be that the absence of the fabulous [to me muthodes] from my narrative will
seem less pleasing to the ear; but whoever shall wish to have a clear view both of the events
which have happened and of those which will some day, given human nature, happen again
in the same or a similar way—for these to adjudge my history profitable will be enough for
me. And, indeed, it has been composed, not as a prize-essay to be heard for the moment, but
as a possession for all time.

N.B. Whereas the Philosopher states that those recounting a deed “add something in order
to gratify”—that is, “please”—their hearers, Thucydides remarks that his omission of to
muthodes, ‘the fabulous’ or ‘mythical element’, will displease his hearers, implying that its
presence would please them.

Additionally, cf. Plutarch, Lives, “Life of Theseus,” 1. 4-5 (In: Tim Duff, Plutarch’s Lives:
Exploring Virtue and Vice [Oxford, 1999], p. 18):

May it therefore be possible for me to cleanse the mythic [to muthodes] and make it obey
reason and take on the appearance of history [historias opsin].

9. On Homeric dramatic composition1 as entering into poetic license (and hence considered
in relation to ‘history’ and ‘myth’)

Cf. Strabo, Geography 1.2.17, (tr. Horace Leonard Jones), pp. 91-92:

Furthermore, the facts about Meninx,1 agree with what Homer says about the Lotus-Eaters.
But if there be some discrepancy we must ascribe it to the changes wrought by time, or to
ignorance, or to poetic license – which is compounded of history, rhetorical composition,
and myth [sunesteken ex historias kai diatheseus kai muthon]. But the aim of history is truth,
as when in the Catalogue of Ships the poet mentions the topographical peculiarities of each
place, saying of one city that it is “rocky,” of another that it is “on the uttermost border,” of
another that it is the “haunt of doves,” and of still another that it is “by the sea”; the aim of
rhetorical composition is vividness, as when Homer introduces men fighting; the aim of
myth is to please and [91-92] to excite amazement [hedonen kai ekplexin]. But to invent a
story outright [to de panta plattein, lit. ‘to feign everything’] is neither plausible [ou pitha-
non] nor like Homer;2 for everybody agrees that the poetry of Homer is a philosophic pro-
duction—contrary to the opinion or Eratosthenes, who bids us not judge the poems with
reference to their thought, nor yet to seek history in them. And Polybius says it is more
plausible to interpret the poet’s words, “thence for nine whole days was I borne by baneful
winds,” as applying to a restricted area (for baneful winds do not maintain a straight course),
than to place the incident out on Oceanus, as though the phrase had been “fair winds con-
tinually blowing.”
1
The island of Jerba, off the northern coast of Africa.

Note that Strabo says that the aim of diathesis is enargeia—that is, the end of ‘disposition’
is ‘vividness’, which is a kind of ‘activity’, or ‘being in act’. Compare the following:

1
In the following excerpt this principle is named “rhetorical composition”; elsewhere, it is translated “dispo-
sition”; the underlying Greek, as indicated, being diathesis.
2
Notice the points of agreement both the passage from Origen as well as the passage from Strabo excerpted
above, namely, the first and the third members of this enumeration.

17
Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric II. 8 (1386a 24-1386b1) (tr. W. Rhys Roberts):

Also we pity those who are like us in age, character, disposition, social standing, or birth; for
in all these cases it appears more likely that the same misfortune may befall us also. Here too
we have to remember the general principle that what we fear for ourselves excites our pity
when it happens to others.
Further, since it is when the sufferings of others are close to us that they excite our pity
(we cannot remember what disasters happened a hundred years ago, nor look forward to
what will happen a hundred centuries hereafter, and therefore feel little pity, if any, for such
things): it follows that those who heighten the effect of their words with suitable gestures,
tones, dress, and dramatic action generally, are especially successful in exciting pity: thus
they put disasters before our eyes, and make them seem close to us, just coming or just past.
Anything that has just happened, [1386b] or is going to happen soon, is particularly piteous:
so too therefore are the tokens and the actions of sufferers—the garments and the like of
those actually suffering—of those, for instance, who are on the point of death. Most piteous
of all is it when, in such times of trial, the victims [5] are persons of noble character: when-
ever they are so, our pity is especially excited, because their innocence, as well as the setting
of their misfortunes before our eyes, makes their misfortunes close to ourselves.

10. On the fourth case: The poetic paralogism or fallacy of the consequent:

Cf. Aristotle, Poetics 24 (1460a 19-26) supra.

On the technique as proper to the art of rhetoric, cf. Aristotle, Rhet. III, 16 (1417a 36-
1417b 6) (tr. W. Rhys Roberts):

Again, you must make use of the emotions. Relate the familiar manifestations of them, and
those that distinguish yourself and your opponent; for instance, “he went away scowling at
me.” So Aeschines described Cratylus as “hissing [1417b] with fury and shaking his fists.”
These details carry conviction: the audience take the truth of what they know as so much
evidence for the truth of what they do not. Plenty of such details may be found in Homer:

[5] Thus did she say: but the old woman buried her face in her hands:1

a true touch – people beginning to cry do put their hands over their eyes.
1
Odyssey, xix. 361

Cf. D. S. Margoliouth, The Poetics of Aristotle. Translated from the Greek into English
and from Arabic into Latin, with a revised text, introduction, commentary, glossary and
onomasticon (London, New York, Toronto, 1911), pp. 24-25:

In §24 Homer is said to have taught other poets how to romance: “the process is illusion.
When the existence or occurrence of one thing is regularly accompanied by the existence or
occurrence of another, people, if they find the second, suppose also the first to be real or
actual: which is a fallacy. If, therefore, the first be a fiction, but were it real, it would by law
of nature be attended by the existence or occurrence of something else, add that other thing;
for the mind, knowing the law to be true, falsely supposes that the first is real. Example:
That1 in the Bath-scene….” The Bath-scene occupies more than 150 lines of Odyssey xix;
how are we to know which line furnishes the example? The formula of the quotation implies
that the example is known, and the teacher will know it, because the rest of the passage

18
 occurs in the Rhetoric, bk. iii [1417b 5. The correct interpretation is given by Victorius]. The
same precept is given to the romancing orator, and Homer quoted. The precept is to give
plenty of detail, because what people know is a sign to them of the truth of what they do not
know: “numerous examples are to be got from Homer”, and the example of the Bath-scene
adduced—“Thus spake she, and the old dame held her face with her hands, and shed hot
tears” “for those who are about to weep take hold of their eyes.” [Od. xix. 361]
This example takes us to a passage of the Sophistici Elenchi [172a 23], where the process
is still further explained. It is there shown that the amateur can detect the charlatan by “the
consequences”, which are such that a person may know them without knowing the science,
yet cannot know the science without knowing them. He can detect the charlatan; but he
cannot make sure of the expert. Similarly here what we know is neither that Euryclea shed
tears, nor that she put her fingers to her eyes; what we do know is the law of nature whereby
those who are going to do the first do the second. Homer, by introducing the detail, satisfies
the amateur’s test; he has let something known to be true accompany his statement, whence
the mind falsely concludes the truth of the statement.
1
The reading of B toutou to is evidently right.

For a more general application of this method, cf. Rhys Carpenter, Folk Tale, Fiction, and
Saga in the Homeric Epics (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1958), pp. 31-32:

It is this direct borrowing from the poet’s own experience and from his own surrounding
material world that I am terming Fiction. It is this which makes his re-creation of the heroic
past seem so immediately present and so vivid. Indeed, since it is fiction which imparts
verisimilitude to his scenes, we may say without fear of paradox that the more real they seem
[31-32] the more fictional they are. We may even make of this a theorem to assert that the
more an oral poet seems to know about a distant event the less he really knows about it and
the more certainly he is inventing. The Greek historian Ephoros understood and formulated
this principal very satisfactorily when he declared,

In the case of contemporary happenings we think those witnesses the most reliable who
give the greatest detail, whereas in the case of events long ago we hold that those who
thus go into detail are the least to be believed, since we consider it highly improbable that
the actions and words of men should be remembered at such length.

Herein lies a most vital distinction between saga and fiction. The one derives from the
past, while the other is mainly dependent on the present. The one is received from afar by
relay from generation to generation and grows progressively vaguer, more confused, less
accurate; the other is created directly out of immediate experience and visible environment,
and if is altered, may thereby become yet the more up-to-date and real.
To an Ionian poet living in the ninth or eighth century B.C. the appearance and behavior of
the Mycenaean culture was hearsay, oral tradition three or four or five hundred years old—
what I am calling Saga. We may well be skeptical of the extent or accuracy of anything such
Saga had to tell, particularly when we have once observed the use that oral literature gener-
ally makes of its saga material. Certain great events, certain picturesque or important per-
sons, the leading drift and trend of the times, with here and there some poignant detail still
adhering—these might properly have been the sum and substance of its information. When a
poet used such tradition for plot or setting of his verses, he would have to make its shadowy
remoteness present and vivid by filling in its details and décor and illuminating its dark un-
substantiality with the sharply clear world of his own experience and time.

19
N.B. As is obvious from the examples given, this fourth rationale need not, as such,
produce an effect of wonder in the same sense as the other three, as the reader is not
(necessarily) amazed that Euryclea would place her hands to her eyes when she is about to
cry; such an antecedent, consisting in what is possible to human nature, being the very
thing which lends verisimilitude to the representation.
On the other hand, such a rationale may also pertain to a non-human agent, as with
Chrysophylax Dives, the dragon in J.R.R. Tolkien’s short story Farmer Giles of Ham, who
is said to have shed “hot tears” in an effort to avoid losing his treasure to the titular hero;
an action quite appropriate to his character as portrayed. In such cases, the very believa-
bility of the portrait contributes to an effect of wonder, inasmuch as it leads the reader to
that “willing suspension of disbelief…, which constitutes poetic faith”, as is explained by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge in a text given just below.

11. On adhering to the truth of nature while making the uncommon believable:

Cf. Thomas Hardy, Notebook entry (July 1881), from The Early Life of Thomas Hardy,
1840-1891, Chapter xi:

…[T]he real, if unavowed, purpose of fiction is to give pleasure by gratifying the love of the
uncommon in human experience.…1
The writer’s problem is, how to strike the balance between the uncommon and the ordinary
so as on the one hand to give interest, on the other hand to give reality.
In working out the problem, human nature must never be made abnormal, which is
introducing incredibility. The uncommonness must be in the events, not in the characters; 2
and the writer’s art lies in shaping the uncommonness while disguising its unlikelihood, if it
be unlikely.3

Cf. Thomas Hardy, Notebook entry (23 February 1893), from The Later Years of Thomas
Hardy, 1892-1928 (1930), Chapter ii:

The whole secret of fiction and the drama—in the constructional part—lies in the adjustment
of things unusual to things eternal and universal. The novelist who knows exactly how
exceptional, and how non-exceptional, his events should be made, possesses the key to the
art.

N.B. Hardy explains why in the skillful composition of imaginative fiction what is impos-
sible seems almost inevitable; this end being attained by the solution to “the writer’s prob-
lem”, namely, “how to strike the balance between the uncommon and the ordinary so as on
the one hand to give interest, on the other hand to give reality”; a procedure involving a
faithful representation of human nature combined with an inventive use of the extra-
ordinary in the makeup of the incidents. A strikingly similar, but more detailed, account
anticipating Hardy’s ‘solution’ will be found in the following:

1
Which is why “all men recount a deed by adding to it in order to gratify [their hearers]”, as Aristotle
pointedly says.
2
Cp. Aristotle, Poet. Ch. 15, on the resolution of plots needing to arise from their construction rather than
from the character. Cf. our paper on Plot Construction. Of course, the “characters” may themselves be
impossible, as we have instanced above with Tolkien’s dragon Chrysophylax.
3
But, as we have seen, this “uncommonness” lies in making the impossible believable in the several ways
outlined above.

20
Cf. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, Preface to Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus
(1817):

Preface

The event on which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin and some of
the physiological writers of Germany, as not of impossible occurrence.1 I shall not be sup-
posed as according the remotest degree of serious faith to such an imagination; yet, in
assuming it as the basis of a work of fancy, I have not considered myself as merely weaving
a series of supernatural terrors. The event on which the interest of the story depends is ex-
empt from the disadvantages of a mere tale of spectres or enchantment. It was recommended
by the novelty of the situations which it develops, and however impossible as a physical fact,
affords a point of view to the imagination for the delineating of human passions more com-
prehensive and commanding than any which the ordinary relations of existing events can
yield.
I have thus endeavoured to preserve the truth of the elementary principles of human nature,
while I have not scrupled to innovate upon their combinations. The Iliad, the tragic poetry of
Greece– Shakespeare in the Tempest and Midsummer Night’s Dream– and most especially
Milton in Paradise Lost conform to this rule; and the most humble novelist, who seeks to
confer or receive amusement from his labours, may, without presumption, apply to prose
fiction a license, or rather a rule, from the adoption of which so many exquisite combinations
of human feeling have resulted in the highest specimens of poetry. The circumstance on
which my story rests was suggested in casual conversation. It was commenced partly as a
source of amusement, and partly as an expedient for exercising any untried resources of
mind. Other motives were mingled with these as the work proceeded. I am by no means
indifferent to the manner in which whatever moral tendencies exist in the sentiments or
characters it contains shall affect the reader; yet my chief concern in this respect has been
limited to the avoiding the enervating effects of the novels of the present day, and to the
exhibition of the amiableness of domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtue.
The opinions which naturally spring from the character and situation of the hero are by no
means to be conceived as existing always in my own conviction; nor is any inference justly
to be drawn from the following pages as prejudicing any philosophical doctrine of whatever
kind.
It is a subject also of additional interest to the author that this story was begun in the
majestic region where the scene is principally laid and in society which cannot cease to be
regretted. I passed the summer of 1816 in the environs of Geneva. The season was cold and
rainy, and in the evenings we crowded around a bluing wood fire and occasionally amused
ourselves with some German stories of ghosts which happened to fall into our hands. These
tales excited in us a playful desire of imitation. Two other friends (a tale from the pen of one
of whom would be far more acceptable to the public than anything I can ever hope to
produce) and myself agreed to write each a story founded on some supernatural occurrence.
The weather, however, suddenly became serene; and my two friends left me on a journey
among the Alps and lost, in the magnificent scenes which they present, all memory of their
ghostly visions. The following tale is the only one which has been completed.

Marlow, September 1817

1
That is, according to her Introduction of 1831: “Perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had
given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought to-
gether, and endured with vital warmth.” On the assumption of the first idea, one wonders where the need lies
for the second; the reanimation of an already complete body promising to be the far easier task.

21
For a comparable account in regard to the composition of lyric poetry, cf. Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Biographia Literaria XIV (London, 1817):

Occasion of the Lyrical Ballads, and the objects originally proposed—Preface to the second
edition—The ensuing controversy, its causes and acrimony—Philosophic definitions of a
poem and poetry with scholia.

During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbours, our conversations turned
frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the
reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of
novelty by the modifying colours of imagination. The sudden charm, which accidents of
light and shade, which moon-light or sun-set diffused over a known and familiar landscape,
appeared to represent the practicability of combining both. These are the poetry of nature.
The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might
be composed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least,
supernatural; and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections
by the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally accompany such situations,
supposing them real.1 And real in this sense they have been to every human being who, from
whatever source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency.
For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters and
incidents were to be such, as will be found in every village and its vicinity, where there is a
meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them, when they present
themselves.
In this idea originated the plan of the ‘Lyrical Ballads’; in which it was agreed, that my
endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic,
yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth
sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for
the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Wordsworth on the other hand was to
propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to
excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening the mind’s attention from the
lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us;
an inexhaustible treasure, but for which in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish
solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor under-
stand.
With this view I wrote the ‘Ancient Mariner,’ and was preparing among other poems, the
‘Dark Ladie,’ and the ‘Christabel,’ in which I should have more nearly realized my ideal,
than I had done in my first attempt. But Mr. Wordsworth’s industry had proved so much
more successful, and the number of his poems so much greater, that my compositions,
instead of forming a balance, appeared rather an interpolation of heterogeneous matter. Mr.
Wordsworth added two or three poems written in his own character, in the impassioned,
lofty, and sustained diction, which is characteristic of his genius. In this form the ‘Lyrical
Ballads’ were published; and were presented by him as an *experiment*, whether subjects,
which from their nature rejected the usual ornaments and extra-colloquial style of poems in
general, might not be so managed in the language of ordinary life as to produce the
pleasurable interest, which it is the peculiar business of poetry to impart.

N.B. On this point, see also Wordsworth’s Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, as well as his
poem, “The World Is Too Much With Us”.

1
This is to make things impossible to nature believable, and therefore comes under the third rationale of what
produces an effect of wonder, as discussed above.

22
For a similar argument made with respect to fairytales and romance, cf. Andrew Lang,
“Modern Fairy Tales,” Illustrated London News, December 3, 1892:

The fashion in fairy tales changes, not for the better. Every Christmas sees a flock of new
fairy books, which all follow two paths to the uninteresting. Their peculiarity is that they
have no touch of human interest. In the old stories, despite the impossibility of the incidents,
the interest is always real and human. The princes and princesses fall in love and marry—
nothing can be more human than that. Their lives and loves are crossed by human sorrows.
In many the lover and his lady are separated by a magical oblivion: someone has kissed the
prince, and he instantly forgot his old love, and can only be recovered by her devotion. This
is nearly the central situation of the “Volsunga Saga”, though there it ends tragically,
whereas all ends well in a fairy tale. The hero and heroine are persecuted and separated by
cruel step-mothers or enchanters; they have wanderings and sorrows to suffer; they have
adventures to achieve and difficulties to overcome. They must display courage, loyalty, and
address, courtesy, gentleness, and gratitude. Thus they are living in a real human world,
though it wears a mythical face, though there are giants and lions in the way. The old fairy
tales, which a silly sort of people disparage as too wicked and ferocious for the modern
nursery, are really “full of matter”, and unobtrusively teach the true lessons of our wayfaring
in a world of perplexities and obstructions.

Cf. Andrew Lang, Essays in Little (London, 1891), The Sagas:

These legends deal little with love. But in the “Volsunga Saga” the permanent interest is the
true and deathless love of Sigurd and Brynhild: their separation by magic arts, the revival of
their passion too late, the man’s resigned and heroic acquiescence, the fiercer passion of the
woman, who will neither bear her fate nor accept her bliss at the price of honour and her
plighted word.
The situation, the nodus, is neither ancient merely nor modern merely, but of all time.
Sigurd, having at last discovered the net in which he was trapped, was content to make the
best of marriage and of friendship. Brynhild was not. “The hearts of women are the hearts of
wolves,” says the ancient Sanskrit commentary on the Rig Veda. But the she-wolf’s heart
broke, like a woman’s, when she had caused Sigurd’s slaying. Both man and woman face
life, as they conceive it, with eyes perfectly clear. The magic and the supernatural wiles are
accidental, the human heart is essential and eternal.

10. An elaboration of the foregoing technique as being proper to the poetic art as such:

A careful consideration of Aristotle’s remarks in Chapter 24 to the effect that “Homer

taught others how to lie”, in which he lays out the form of the poetic paralogism, contains
in principle his account of the rationale of the poetic as such: When the poet wishes to get
the audience to accept something not true as though it were so, he provides “the conse-
quences”—that is, he provides the sequelae, or circumstances that follow upon, some fact;
the hearer, knowing the relation in question, falsely reasons to the truth or existence of the
antecedent: So Homer (Od., xix. 361) describes the nurse Euryclea as breaking out in tears
when she is directed by Penelope to wash the feet of the stranger. We know, says Aristotle
(Rhet., III. 16, 1471b 5-6), that persons about to cry put their hands over their eyes. Hence,
“the audience take the truth of what they know as so much evidence for the truth of what
they do not” (ibid. 1417b 4). The same process occurs in the composition of poetry itself:
When the poet wishes the hearer to believe that such and such a person, would, do, say, or
suffer such and such a thing, in such and such a way, etc. he shows the antecedents and
consequences of these sorts of thing. Hence the hearer reasons to the “existence” of such

23
persons and deeds; the antecedent sometimes being impossible, whether to human nature,
as with the second rationale we have determined about, or impossible to nature as such, as
with the third; or possible to human nature, but given to non-human, and thus ‘impossible’,
agents, such as a talking dragon, as with our example from Tolkien, with the fourth
rationale. But so doing is to create an effect that is vivid or striking, thereby being the sort
of thing arousing wonder, as Strabo, Geogr. 1.2.17, on poetic license, explained above.

N.B. Having adequately explained the four rationales in question, I turn now to the whole
which results from the integration of these passages into the text at this point.

12. The order of the text in sum:

In my preceding paper, I offered the following outline of the course of the argument:

I. What pertains to order (sections 1 through 5):

1. Being ‘perfect and whole, having a certain size’, manifesting the way in
which the plot is ‘one’: Section 1
2. Being ‘one’: the way in which the plot is not ‘one’ manifesting when it is
so, and thus ‘continuous’:
3. (a) Being ‘continuous and one’, which is to have its parts so constructed
that, “the one thing being done, it is [e]ither necessary or likely that the
other come about” (this being the plot’s defining characteristic) Section 2;
the plot then being divided:
(i) with respect to quantity into what has ‘a beginning, a middle, and an
end’ (a division of its composing parts into species) and so pos-
sessing the first ‘form of the beautiful’, namely, order: Section 3
(ii) with respect to quality into what is ‘either simple or complex’ (a
division of the plot itself into species): Section 4
4. (b) Being neither ‘continuous’ nor ‘one’, the ‘connection of the episodes’
being ‘distorted’, from which it follows that, ‘simply speaking, of plots and
actions, the episodic are the worst’: Section 5

II. What pertains to symmetry: Having ‘not just any chance size’ but a determinate
one, being neither too small to be seen nor too big to be grasped as a whole, and
thus composed of parts possessing symmetry, which attribute is the second of
the ‘three greatest forms of the beautiful’: the first part of Section 6

III. What pertains to the limited or definiteness, which has to do with the plot’s
being ‘perfect’ in magnitude (the last part of Section 6, as well as Section 7):

1. With respect to its dimensive quantity: when the plot has attained the limit
of its size: the last part of Section 6
2. With respect to its quantity of virtue or ‘excellence’: when the plot has at-
tained the limit of its power; both attributes coming under the third of ‘the
three greatest forms of the beautiful’, the limited or definiteness: Section 7

Now this final member (III.2), being understood to concern the makeup of the incidents
producing the plot’s characteristic effect in the most powerful way possible (itself

24
answering to Aristotle’s programmatic statement in Ch. 1, how plots should be constructed
if the making in which poetry consists is to be well disposed [1447a 9-10), has been shown
to be the first member of what is actually a fourfold consideration of this subject, thereby
suggesting that the treatment of the other three rationales found in our Chapter 24 belongs
immediately after it.

On the other hand, inasmuch as the first member of this division, having to do with what
happens for the least part, naturally connects with the text of our Sec. 4, concerning what
might happen, in accordance with the necessity or likelihood, which are things happening
always and of necessity, or for the most part,1 such a discussion would naturally come
next.

© 2013; 2019; 2024 Bart A. Mazzetti. All Rights Reserved.

See also my relevant papers:

‘Perfect and Whole’: Aristotle’s Poetics on the Structure of the Plot

On Plot Construction and the Portrayal of Character: Poetics Chapter 15 and Associated
Texts

Excursus On Myth: A Series of Notes

1
These being the three ways in which things happen: Cf. Metaph., 11. 8, 1064b 36—1065a 2 (tr. W. D.
Ross): “We say that everything either is always and of necessity (necessity not in the sense of violence, but
that which we appeal to in demonstrations), or is for the most part, or is neither for the most part, nor always
and of necessity, but merely as it chances [hos etuchen]; e.g. there might be cold in the dogdays, but this
occurs neither always and of necessity, nor for the most part, though it might happen sometimes. The
accidental, then, is what occurs, but not always nor of necessity, nor for the most part”.

25