Tragedy without Character: Poetics VI.

1450$^{a}$ 24
Author(s): Catherine Lord
Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Autumn, 1969), pp. 55-62
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
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 CATHERINE
Tragedy Without
Poetics VI.
I one point. This point has been felt to be
IT IS COMMONLY BELIEVED that
there are two kinds of readers or spectators.
There are those who read primarily for plot,
story, action, narrative, and who espe-
cially enjoy spectacle-the vulgar. Then
there are those, the connoisseurs of letters,
the cognoscenti-ourselves-who place a
greater premium on character, thought,
and diction. When we find Aristotle ex-
pressly giving the pride of place to plot
among the six parts of Tragedy-Plot,
Character, Thought, Diction, Spectacle,
and Music-we are instantly perplexed, if
not outraged. Even those of us who may
be sympathetic to Aristotle on some fairly
general ground are strongly tempted to
suppose that what Aristotle means by plot,
mythos in some places, logos in others,
cannot possibly be that crude thing,
namely, story and action. He must mean
something more subtle than that. Those of
us who are not prepared to give Aristotle
the benefit of the doubt will insist that he
does, indeed, mean the crude thing and
that he is insensitive to the finer features
of the literary art.
In this essay I shall assume that Aris-
totle does mean that plot, story, action,
the crude thing, is primary and I shall
undertake to defend his thesis in regard to
CATHERINELORD is a member of the philosophy de-
partment of Syracuse University. Her latest article
in this journal is "Unity with Impunity" (Fall
1967).
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LORD
Character:
1450so 24
the most vulnerable of all his assertions
of the primacy of plot. Aristotle is not
content to say merely that plot is the pri-
mary part of tragedy. He goes further.
He says, "Without action there cannot be
a tragedy; there may be without charac-
ter" (1450a 24).1 I shall understand this
statement in its most uncompromising
form; by taking it quite literally I hope
to show what tragedy without character
entails.
More important still, there is a general
principle at work here which lies at the
foundation of aesthetic inquiry. I have
argued that to understand a work of art
is to understand the kind of unity it
possesses.2 Here, then, is a program that
requires us to show in detail how the parts
of a certain type of work, in the present
case a tragedy, function together to pro-
duce a unity. To discover what kind of
unity a tragedy possesses one must try to
separate in thought what may or may not
be separable in reality in an effort to de-
termine whether or not it is indeed actually
separable in reality. If the theory of or-
ganic unity is correct, it may be supposed
that such an effort at separation will prove
a failure. But having questioned the doc-
trine of organic unity, we are prepared to
accept in certain cases quite a different
verdict. It is surprising that the philoso-
pher who is especially associated with the
theory of organic unity should be willing
to allow for a tragedy without character.
 56
Presumably, then, Aristotle does not re-
gard character as being, in the strict sense,
organically entailed by tragedy, even
though he assigns it a role second only to
plot.
If we look at what Aristotle actually does
in the Poetics, we find that his remark in
VI, 1450a 24 is by no means an isolated
apercu. He is engaged in the ambitious
enterprise of understanding tragedy
through what can only be called a total
dismantling or disassembling of tragedy
into its component parts. What is being
dismantled is a system (not an organism)
which, in the process of being reassembled,
is seen to exhibit a fairly complex kind of
unity. The present essay is designed as a
specific application of a more general
method of aesthetic inquiry (call it sys-
tems-analysis, if you will) which can be
employed in the examination of any work
of art.
My discussion remains entirely within
the Aristotelian framework; it does not
depend on a redefinition of Tragedy, "an
imitation of an action that is serious, com-
plete, and of a certain magnitude: in lan-
guage embellished with each kind of
artistic ornament, the several kinds being
found in separate parts of the play;...
on a redefinition of Character, "that in
virtue of which we ascribe certain qualities
to agents4... that which reveals moral
purpose, showing what kind of things a
man chooses or avoids," 5 nor on a redefini-
tion of Plot, "the arrangement" or "com-
bination of the incidents" (Aristotle uses
the word synthesis).6
Those commentators who seem to re-
spect Aristotle's emphasis on the primacy
of plot usually undermine this emphasis by
their modifications of it. Drawing upon
Aristotle's work in ethics, they argue that
since character is formed by action, tragedy
is to be viewed as character-in-action. This
is essentially the position of S. H. Butcher
and Humphry House. House goes even
further to insist that Aristotle's emphasis
on the primacy of plot "is best under-
stood as an attempt to guarantee the in-
dividuality of character." Such modifica-
tions of Aristotle's thesis tend to make
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CATHERINE LORD
plot and character correlative. The fact of
the matter is that Aristotle explicitly
states: ". . Tragedy is an imitation, not of
men, but of an action...." 8 More fully,
Dramatic action... is not with a view to the
representation of character; character comes in
as subsidiary to actions. Hence the incidents and
the plot are the end of a tragedy; and the end is
the chief thing of all.9
For House, plot becomes subservient to
character because it supplies the material
conditions which individuate character.10
To make plot and character correlative
is to ignore the individual nature of these
two parts of tragedy and to misconstrue
their actual relationship to each other.
There is no justification for the view that
all six parts of a tragedy, taken together,
should exhibit organic unity: Aristotle de-
fines organic unity in specific connection
with his discussion of plot. He tells us
that the plot should exhibit a unity such
that if any one of the parts of the plot is
"displaced or removed the whole will be
disjointed and disturbed." 11 We must not
identify the parts of the plot with the six
parts of tragedy: the plot is one of those
six parts.
Three considerations argue for the in-
"3 dependence and the separability of at least
some of the parts of a tragedy. First,
Aristotle grades them in importance. Char-
acter is given second place.'2 Spectacle is
said to be least important because a work
can achieve the proper effect just in the
hearing.'3 This means that the parts have
"grades of relevance," as I have called it.14
In particular, then, there is at least one
part, spectacle, which is both separable in
thought and separable in reality.
The second consideration derives from
the fact that most of the parts are said to
possess each its own intrinsic power.
Thought can arouse "pity, fear, anger and
the like." 15 Spectacle can also arouse pity
and fear16 and it has an emotional attrac-
tion of its own.l7 Music, though termed
an embellishment,l8 gives especially in-
tense pleasure (as does spectacle) and we
know from the Politicsl9 that music has the
power to induce catharsis. Notice that we
now have two parts, spectacle and music,
Tragedy Without Character: Poetics VI. 1450a 24
which, even though they contribute to the
tragic effect, cannot be taken as essential
or indispensable.
Finally, Aristotle expressly maintains
that there can be tragedy without char-
acter. No longer need we regard this
statement as some oddity or stumbling
block which must be excused in some way
or dismissed as an extravagance. His state-
ment is all of a piece with his general
approach. Aristotle even entertains (for
him) the more radical possibility of a
plotless tragedy, or quasi-tragedy, when he
says,
.. if you string together a set of speeches expres-
sive of character, and well finished in point of
diction and thought, you will not produce the
essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a
play which, however deficient in these respects,
yet has a plot....20
To sum up these results: we see that
Aristotle, in his very investigation of trag-
edy, overhauls and dismantles it part by
part. Accordingly, we find that we can have
tragedy without spectacle. We can have
tragedy without music. We can have trag-
edy without character. We may perhaps
have tragedy without thought, for the
incidents should speak for themselves.21
And we can even have tragedy without
plot. Let us not, however, commit the
fallacy of composition and conclude that
we can have tragedy without all of these
parts taken collectively!
Aristotle sees tragedy as a goal-directed
system. The goal is catharsis. He disassem-
bles tragedy in order to see how each part
functions to promote that goal. Precisely
because each part does individually con-
tribute to the whole, no one part is ab-
solutely necessary. The system is over-
determined and redundant. In this respect
tragedy is indeed like a living organism. It
is what W. R. Ashby calls ultrastable.
Damage to a part of a living organism
often receives compensation from another
part. For instance, one part of the brain
will take over for an injured part. Leonard
Meyer has pointed out that this kind of
analysis in particular brings to clear sight
overdetermination and redundancy, fea-
tures of a living organism. Furthermore,
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57
we can now see the advantages of the
functional approach which an organic
theory invites. I only inveigh against what
might be termed the indispensability-inter-
dependence view of organic unity.
II
Interestingly enough, it is Humphry
House, with all his concern for the im-
portance of character, who gives the key
to tragedy without character. House main-
tains that the famous "flaw," the hamartia,
has nothing to do with a moral state at all.
He argues that the hamartia should not be
viewed as a flaw or a moral frailty. Rather,
it should be taken to mean a mistake due
to ignorance of circumstance.22 Nearly all
scholars now accept the interpretation of
the hamartia as simple mistake. Gerald F.
Else summarizes the scholarship and elab-
orates on the implications of this inter-
pretation.23 His conclusions (commended
by Richmond Lattimore)24 accord with
House's thesis. Accordingly, I shall main-
tain without argument that hamartia
means simple mistake. This mistake should
not be construed as an error of judgment
as Bywater does in his translation. An
error of judgment implies a failure of
practical wisdom and this, for Aristotle
certainly, is a flaw in character. But any-
one, anyone at all, can make a simple mis-
take. When Oedipus married Jocasta he
made a mistake; there was no error in
judgment. It may be difficult for us to
accept the possibility that the tragic rever-
sal can be brought about by an elementary
error. Perhaps this is due to our traditional
preoccupation with hubris as well as to a
general fascination with flaws, preferably
tragic, in ourselves and others.
Despite his interpretation of the hamar-
tia as a simple mistake, House insists that
Aristotle "assumes as a matter of course
that the hamartia is accompanied by moral
imperfections...." 25 Does Aristotle make
any such assumption? Here House is as-
suming, as a matter of course, the second
part, Character, which seems likely to be
flawed because the hero must not be
"eminently" good. But to discover what
 58
tragedy without character is like we must
respect Aristotle's dissociation of the
hamartia from moral imperfection, be it
vice, in the full-blown sense, or faulty
judgment, a failure of practical wisdom.
Once we take the hamartia as a simple
mistake without modification, explicit or
implied, then we see that it is a function of
the plot. House argues along these lines
and Else urges further that the hamartia is
complemented by the discovery.26 The
mistake is made in ignorance; the dis-
covery involves the recognition of the
mistake and is followed by or coincides
with the reversal. When we see that the
hamartia is a part of the plot together with
the discovery and the reversal, then we
realize that tragedy need not involve char-
acter at all.
Let us look at what Aristotle regards as
the best kind of plot.
The last case is the best, as when in the
Cresphontes Merope is about to slay her son, but,
recognising who he is, spares his life. So in the
Iphigenia, the sister recognises the brother just
in time. Again in the Helle, the son recognises
the mother when on the point of giving her up.27
These plots turn on a simple mistake in-
volving ignorance of identity. Of course
the mistake is serious, but there is no vice,
sin, moral frailty, or error of judgment in
them. Again, as a function of the plot, the
hamartia takes its place among those ele-
ments which Aristotle deems the most
powerful in tragedy, the discovery and the
reversal.28 The hamartia, then, is the mis-
take which leads to the reversal. The dis-
covery is the discovery of the mistake.
We are told that the best discovery in-
volves persons closely related29 and entails
the shift from hate to love or love to hate.30
Do these specifications of a good discovery
introduce character, it could well be
asked? To reply we must draw an impor-
tant distinction. We must observe the dif-
ference between character and agent.
Aristotle himself makes the distinction
when he says,
Character in a play is that which reveals moral
purpose of the agents, i.e. the sort of thing they
seek or avoid, where that is not obvious.8l
But surely the actions of the agents imply
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CATHERINE LORD
character? After all Aristotle tells us that
... the action involves agents, who must of neces-
sity have distinctive qualities both of character
and thought, since it is by these that we ascribe
certain qualities to their actions.. .8a
All agents, in so far as they are capable of
deliberation and choice, possess character,
the disposition to choose or avoid certain
things. However, an action need not reveal
the character of the agent. We should note
that Aristotle says, "character in a play...
reveals moral purpose... where this is not
obvious." All actions require agents, but an
action need not reveal the character of the
agent, for instance, Oedipus's action in
marrying Iocasta.
At this point protest may be raised that
Aristotle is concerned with serious action
and serious action is bound to reveal
character. Here let me make another dis-
tinction, the distinction between the seri-
ous and the moral. The moral is not always
introduced through deliberation and
choice. A choice may bring about tragic
consequences through a simple mistake.
Then it is morally neutral. Furthermore,
tragedies may evolve from sheer suffering;
it is obvious that Aristotle's conception of
an action includes suffering as well as
doing. However, the action of most
tragedies is a moral matter because it in-
volves killing, incest, adultery, as well as
conflicts within and between the domestic,
religious, and political domains. And,
Aristotle is in fact primarily concerned
with moral action. Must not moral action
surely reveal character? In Oedipus the
action is such that one might say, "If I had
known so and so (of which I was ignorant
at the time) I would have acted differ-
ently." Had Oedipus known that he was
marrying his mother he would have acted
differently. The remorse, which coincides
with his discovery of the identity of
Iocasta, testifies to this. Is not Oedipus's
character thereby defined? No. I think we
can say without any hesitation that if Al
Capone were to discover that he had
married his mother, he would be in a state
of the greatest remorse, if remorse is not
too weak a word. But knowing this about
him is to know nothing. We have reached
Tragedy Without Character: Poetics VI. 1450a 24 59

such a fundamental level that we can take discovery is the discovery of the mistake,
certain responses for granted. This is also and this is followed by or coincides with
true of the shift from hate to love or love the reversal of the entire action. The ac-
to hate which attends discovery, as when tions or events, which the plot orders into
Merope recognizes her son, Iphigenia her a total action, require agents or doers, but
brother, and the son in Helle recognizes the character of the agents is not revealed.
his mother. I am not suggesting that Aristotle demonstrates this when he gives
Oedipus Rex is a play without character; I the plot of Iphigenia:
am exploring what tragedy without char- A young girl is sacrificed; she disappears mysteri-
acter is like and what it means to say that ously from the eyes of those who sacrificed her;
plot is primary. she is transported to another country, where the
It must be stressed that tragic actions in- custom is to offer up all strangers to the goddess.
To this ministry she is appointed. Some time
volving members of the same family are so later her own brother chances to arrive. The fact
serious in themselves that they do not call that the oracle for some reason ordered him to go
for considerations of character. The fact of there, is outside the general plan of the play.
being an agent in a given relationship does However, he comes, he is seized, and when on
the point of being sacrificed, reveals who he is
not, in itself, reveal character. To be a .. he exclaims very naturally: "So it was not my
mother, son, brother, or a sister does not sister only, but I too, who was doomed to be
commit the agent to a definite character. sacrificed," and by that remark he is saved.34
Nor does the discovery of the identity of the
agent, in itself, entail character. When the Merely to read this account, knowing
nothing else about the play, does indeed
discovery involves members of the same make us thrill with horror and melt with
family it is sure to give rise to extreme
pity at what takes place. There is no defini-
emotions and these do not in themselves
tion of character here. There are agents
reveal character. We expect certain emo-
certainly. There are actions. And there is
tions to be aroused in members of the
same family in certain situations. We have suffering narrowly averted, but there is no
character. In fact such an intimate ex-
a minimal expectation, that, as a matter of
change between brother and sister would
course, a son will not be pleased to dis-
cover that he has married his mother. We seem to make the addition of character
superfluous.
assume Oedipus's remorse. Finally, the
events are so terrible and the suffering so Again let us look at Aristotle's summary
great in tragedy that it is meaningless to of the Odyssey.
ask what the agents involved are like. A certain man is absent from home for many
Both in literature and in life tragedy is years; he is jealously watched by Poseidon, and
a great leveler of character. When we hear left desolate. Meanwhile his home is in a
wretched plight-suitors are wasting his sub-
of a widow who has lost her only two sons stance and plotting against his son. At length,
in a war, we do not ask (outside the semi- tempest-tossed, he himself arrives; he makes cer-
nar room, that is) whether she is a good tain persons acquainted with him; he attacks the
woman or what her sons were like. Thus suitors with his own hand, and is himself pre-
since tragedy, by its very nature, does not served while he destroys them.86
call for considerations of character, we can "This is the essence of the plot," Aristotle
readily understand why, on simply hearing concludes, "the rest is episode." The likely
the plot, we "thrill with horror and melt to exclamation, "The rest is episode, indeed!"
pity at what takes place." 33 invokes the distinction between story and
In the foregoing, I have tried to show plot. Such summaries, it may be countered,
how the hamartia, the discovery, and the correspond to the general form or outline
reversal function together as parts of the which Aristotle advises the poet to work
plot in a way that enables the plot to do its out first. The "tempest tossed" corresponds
work without the presence of character. to the episodes with which the poet fills
The entire action of the play turns on out the general plan. But Aristotle, him-
these three parts. A mistake is made, the self, makes no distinction between plot and

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 60 CATHERINE LORD

story. He uses the terms, mythos and logos, play arousing pity and fear and achieving
interchangeably. For the Iphigenia he uses catharsis.
mythos, for the Odyssey, logos. Else accepts In the Rhetoric Aristotle defines pity as
the identification of the two.36 These sum-
a feeling of pain caused by the sight of some evil,
maries give the main events and give them destructive or painful, which befalls one who
in their proper order. Character has does not deserve it, and which we might expect
dropped out entirely; the wily Odysseus to befall ourselves or some friend of ours...88
is simply "a certain man." He concludes later,
Here another point may be pressed:
These summaries set forth the action so Most piteous of all is it when, in such times of
that the character of the agent is bound to trial, the victims are persons of noble character;
whenever they are so our pity is especially ex-
drop out. To put this criticism in another cited, because their innocence, as well as the
way, it could be urged that one can define setting of their misfortune before our eyes makes
an action so generically as to render the their misfortunes seem close to ourselves.89
delineation of character unnecessary. This The Poetics tells us
simply that "... pity is
is a very serious criticism. It correlates aroused
by unmerited misfortune, fear
with the view that when the episodes are
by the misfortune of a man like our-
filled in, character emerges. Thus the de- selves." 40
tails of Odysseus's journey will show him Learning that a sister has acci-
dentally killed her brother inspires us with
to be wily. This is House's thesis when he
pity over her undeserved misfortune. Now
argues that the plot guarantees the indi- it is indeed possible that if the sister were
viduality of character. known to be Lucretia Borgia we might
How shall we answer this objection? We well feel that her misfortune was a case of
can only say, "Look!" Look at the plots
"poetic justice." This is a negative con-
without prejudging the issue one way or sideration that must be
the other. Above all let us look at the plots acknowledged.
some one then press that this ac-
which Aristotle especially recommends. Might
knowledgment concedes the case for charac-
Take the Iphigenia. Without doubt, as in ter?
almost any extensive narration, the very Aristotle gives two very different specifi-
scope of the terrain to be covered will cations of the character of the hero,
make it very difficult to avoid some mini-
namely, that he should be good or noble
mal sketching in of character if only to fill and that he should be like
ourselves.
out the play. But it is by no means true These two
approaches are reflected in the
that all plots require character to the same Poetics itself where we find that
Aristotle
extent and the plots which Aristotle favors sometimes
requires that the hero be good
scarcely seem to require it at all. The and at other times requires that he be like
tragic effect of the Iphigenia cannot occur ourselves. What is it to be like ourselves?
unless we know something very important It is not to be
good. We are told in the
about the agents, namely, that they are Rhetoric that
brother and sister. To know this is to
know nothing of their character and any- most men tend to be bad, slaves to greed, and
cowards in danger... [and] as a rule men do
thing we might actually say as to their
wrong to others whenever they have the power
character could only contribute to the to do it.<
arousal and purging of pity and fear in
some auxiliary way. Else argues that although to be like
To these considerations it might be ourselves and to be good are irreconcilable,
countered that although we can describe he maintains that the homoios should not
a play in which character has no part, a be taken as a separate category intro-
play that turns on plot, there cannot be ducing another object of imitation.42 His
tragedy in the fullest sense where there is argument, interesting as it is, does not
no delineation of character. This is respect Aristotle's observation that the poet
Butcher's contention.37 We can have must of necessity represent men as better,
drama, but not a tragedy, presumably a worse, or as they are.43The examples given

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Tragedy Without Character: Poetics VI. 1450" 24
are Homer who makes man better,
Cleophon who makes them as they are, and
Nicochares who makes men worse than
they are.44 Furthermore, Sophocles is
quoted as saying that he drew men as they
ought to be; Euripides as they are.45 And
we might note here that Aristotle points
to Euripides as the one who is felt to be
"the most tragic of the poets." 46 When
Aristotle says that the hero must be good
he explains summarily that the charac-
ter of the hero is good if his intention is
good.47 But to arouse pity the disaster does
not have to occur to a good man. It must
only be undeserved. This necessary inno-
cence is established by the fact that a mis-
take was made in ignorance as well as on
the basis of the most general assumption as
to the character of the hero. Only a mon-
ster, a Nero, deserves to kill his father and
marry his mother unwittingly. In this re-
gard, it is striking that Aristotle allows a
quasi-pity for a bad man who is punished.
He tells us that, although this would in-
spire neither pity nor fear (hence a plot
concerning the downfall of an utter villain
is inappropriate for tragedy), the fall of a
bad man does arouse philanthropia,48
"human feeling," or, more precisely, sym-
61
a good play. "Do not stake your all on
character," Aristotle seems to be saying.
This is especially useful instruction for a
working poet, for, according to Aristotle,
"Beginners succeed earlier with the Dic-
tion and Characters than with the con-
struction of the story (Plot)." 50 Thus he
advises the poet not to stake his all on
character because there may be tragedy
without character; there cannot be tragedy
without plot.
1 Aristotle Poetics VI. 1450a, trans. S. H. Butcher.
Bywater reads: "Besides this, a tragedy is impossible
without action, but there may be one without Char-
acter." I draw on both translations throughout.
2 Catherine Lord, "Organic Unity Reconsidered,"
JAAC (Spring 1964) and "Unity with Impunity,"
JAAC (Fall, 1967).
sPoetics VI. 1449b 24-26.
4Poetics VI. 1450' 12.
5Poetics VI. 1450b 8.
6Poetics VI. 1450a 5.
7Humphry House, Aristotle's Poetics (London.
1961), Ch. V, p. 80.
8VPoetics V. 1450' 15.
9 Poetics VI. 1450' 19.
10House, Ch. V, p. 79.
uPoetics Ch. VIII, 1451' 33-34.
1 Poetics VI. 1450' 39.

pathy. Because the tragedies with which "Poetics XIV. 1453b 5.

Aristotle is concerned occur within the "Unity with Impunity (especially).
context of the family, because, concom- sPoetics XIX, 1456b 1.
1"Poetics XIV. 1452a 39.
mitantly, the reversal is so terrible, charac- 17Poetics VI. 1450b 18.
ter is not indispensable. The tragic effect 18Poetics VI. 1449b 29.
will occur without it. 19Aristotle, Politics, trans. B. Jowett (Oxford), Bk.
VIII, Ch. 6.
Obviously a tragedy with character is 20Poetics VI. 1450' 29-31.
better than one without character. Nobody 21Poetics XIX. 1456b 5.
would contest this. The best tragedy has 22House, VI, 5, p. 94.
all six parts. And character is, after all, 23Gerald F. Else, The Argument of Aristotle's
second in importance among the parts. Poetics (Harvard Univ. Press, 1963), Ch. 13, pp.
376-399.
But, as I have pointed out before, to judge "Richmond Lattimore, Story Patterns in Greek
that something makes a thing better is not Tragedy (Univ. of London, 1964), Ch. I, p. 10: "Pro-
to hold that it is necessary.49This point is fessor Else has demonstrated with I think complete
crucial and it is connected with the sepa- and sensational success that the famous Aristotelian
hamartia can mean neither fault, or flaw, in charac-
rability of the parts of tragedy. Plot does ter, nor yet an error in judgment, but simply a
not, ipso facto, involve character. Further- mistake about the identity of a person."
more, character is not rendered necessary 25House, Lecture VI, 5, p. 95.
because it makes tragedy better. This is 26Else, Ch. 13, p. 379.
27Poetics XIV. 1454' 5.
fundamentally Aristotle's view. The good 28Poetics VI. 1450' 13.
and the necessary should not be confused.
29poetics XIV.1453b 15-20.
The fact that character makes a work 30Poetics XI. 1452a 31.
better, but is not necessary, becomes a "Poetics VI. 1450b 10-11.
normative principle for the construction of "2Poetics VI. 1450" 1.

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 62 CATHERINE LORD
8SPoetics XIV. 1453b 5-6. 41Rhetoric, Bk. II, Ch. 5, 1382b 10.
3 Poetics XVII. 1455b 3-12. 4aElse, Ch. 15, pp. 475-483.
36 Poetics XVII. 1455b 16-24. 4 Poetics II. 1448a 1-2 and XXV, 1460b 9-10.
8 Else, Ch. 6, pp. 243-244. 4 Poetics II. 1448a 11-13.
87S. H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and 4 Poetics XXV. 1460" 35-36.
Fine Arts, Ch. 9, p. 344. 46 Poetics XIII. 1453a 29-30.
38Aristotle Rhetoric, trans. W. Rhys Roberts (Ox- 7 Poetics XV. 1454a 19.
ford), Bk. II, 8, 1385b 13-15. 4S Poetics XIII. 1453a 2.
39 Rhetoric, Bk. II, 8, 1386b 5-10. 49 Unity with Impunity, pp. 105-106.
40 Poetics XII. 1453a 5-6.
60 Poetics VI. 1450" 35-38.

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