Such an experiment would doubtless be a little absurd, but it would
give an English reader some help in understanding both Aristotle's
style and his meaning.
For example, there i.e.lightenment in the literal phrase, 'how the
myths ought to be put together.' The higher Greek poetry did not make
up fictitious plots; its business was to express the heroic saga, the
myths. Again, the literal translation of _poetes_, poet, as 'maker',
helps to explain a term that otherwise seems a puzzle in the
_Poetics_. If we wonder why Aristotle, and Plato before him, should
lay such stress on the theory that art is imitation, it is a help to
realize that common language called it 'making', and it was clearly
not 'making' in the ordinary sense. The poet who was 'maker' of a
Fall of Troy clearly did not make the real Fall of Troy. He made an
imitation Fall of Troy. An artist who 'painted Pericles' really 'made
an imitation Pericles by means of shapes and colours'. Hence we get
started upon a theory of art which, whether finally satisfactory or
not, is of immense importance, and are saved from the error of
complaining that Aristotle did not understand the 'creative power' of
art.
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