Aristotle, 384 BC-322 BC / 2008-07-08 00:00:00

EBOOK, THE POETICS ***


This eBook was produced by Eric Eldred.

ARISTOTLE
ON THE ART OF POETRY

TRANSLATED BY
INGRAM BYWATER

WITH A PREFACE BY
GILBERT MURRAY

OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
FIRST PUBLISHED 1920
REPRINTED 1925, 1928, 1932, 1938, 1945, 1947
1951, 1954, 1959. 1962 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN


PREFACE

In the tenth book of the _Republic_, when Plato has completed his final
burning denunciation of Poetry, the false Siren, the imitator of
things which themselves are shadows, the ally of all that is low and
weak in the soul against that which is high and strong, who makes us
feed the things we ought to starve and serve the things we ought to
rule, he ends with a touch of compunction: 'We will give her
champions, not poets themselves but poet-lovers, an opportunity to
make her defence in plain prose and show that she is not only
sweet--as we well know--but also helpful to society and the life of
man, and we will listen in a kindly spirit. For we shall be gainers, I
take it, if this can be proved.' Aristotle certainly knew the passage,
and it looks as if his treatise on poetry was an answer to Plato's
challenge.
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