e.ror in that case is not in the essentials of the
poetic art. These, therefore, must be the premisses of the Solutions
in answer to the criticisms involved in the Problems.
I. As to the criticisms relating to the poet's art itself. Any
impossibilities there may be in his descriptions of things are faults.
But from another point of view they are justifiable, if they serve the
end of poetry itself--if (to assume what we have said of that end)
they make the effect of some portion of the work more astounding. The
Pursuit of Hector is an instance in point. If, however, the poetic end
might have been as well or better attained without sacrifice of
technical correctness in such matters, the impossibility is not to be
justified, since the description should be, if it can, entirely free
from error. One may ask, too, whether the error is in a matter
directly or only accidentally connected with the poetic art; since it
is a lesser error in an artist not to know, for instance, that the
hind has no horns, than to produce an unrecognizable picture of one.
II. If the poet's description be criticized as not true to fact, one
may urge perhaps that the object ought to be as described--an answer
like that of Sophocles, who said that he drew men as they ought to be,
and Euripides as they were.
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