A combination of rhythm and harmony alone is the means in
flute-playing and lyre-playing, and any other arts there may be of the
same description, e.g. imitative piping. Rhythm alone, without
harmony, is the means in the dancer's imitations; for even he, by the
rhythms of his attitudes, may represent men's characters, as well as
what they do and suffer. There is further an art which imitates by
language alone, without harmony, in prose or in verse, and if in
verse, either in some one or in a plurality of metres. This form of
imitation is to this day without a name. We have no common name for a
mime of Sophron or Xenarchus and a Socratic Conversation; and we
should still be without one even if the imitation in the two instances
were in trimeters or elegiacs or some other kind of verse--though it
is the way with people to tack on 'poet' to the name of a metre, and
talk of elegiac-poets and epic-poets, thinking that they call them
poets not by reason of the imitative nature of their work, but
indiscriminately by reason of the metre they write in. Even if a
theory of medicine or physical philosophy be put forth in a metrical
form, it is usual to describe the writer in this way; Homer and
Empedocles, however, have really nothing in common apart from their
metre; so that, if the one is to be called a poet, the other should be
termed a physicist rather than a poet.
Pages:
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31