If, however,
such incidents are unavoidable, they should be outside the piece, like
the hero's ignorance in _Oedipus_ of the circumstances of Lams' death;
not within it, like the report of the Pythian games in _Electra_, or
the man's having come to Mysia from Tegea without uttering a word on
the way, in _The Mysians_. So that it is ridiculous to say that one's
Plot would have been spoilt without them, since it is fundamentally
wrong to make up such Plots. If the poet has taken such a Plot,
however, and one sees that he might have put it in a more probable
form, he is guilty of absurdity as well as a fault of art. Even in the
_Odyssey_ the improbabilities in the setting-ashore of Ulysses would
be clearly intolerable in the hands of an inferior poet. As it is, the
poet conceals them, his other excellences veiling their absurdity.
Elaborate Diction, however, is required only in places where there is
no action, and no Character or Thought to be revealed. Where there is
Character or Thought, on the other hand, an over-ornate Diction tends
to obscure them.
25
As regards Problems and their Solutions, one may see the number and
nature of the assumptions on which they proceed by viewing the matter
in the following way.
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