Περὶ ποιητικῆς

Sections

1 – 1 2 – 3 4 – 7 8 – 11 12 – 14 1 – 4 5 – 3 4 – 5 6 – 6 7 – 9 10 – 13 14 – 16 17 – 20 21 – 3 4 – 11 1 – 6 7 – 11 12 – 16 17 – 23 24 – 27 28 – 8 9 – 12 1 – 3 4 – 3 4 – 6 7 – 9 10 – 11b 11c – 3 4 – 1 2 – 5 6 – 8 9 – 9 10 – 4 5 – 6 7 – 11 12 – 3 4 – 8 9 – 15 16 – 19 20 – 5 6 – 10 10b – 10c 10d – 11 12 – 3 4 – 6 7 – 8 9 – 9 10 – 12 1 – 2 3 – 5 6 – 8 9 – 3 4 – 8 9 – 19 20 – 5 6 – 9 1 – 4 5 – 9 10 – 2 3 – 9 10 – 13 14 – 19 20 – 4 5 – 8 9 – 12 13 – 15 16 – 2 3 – 5 6 – 2 3 – 6 7 – 12 13 – 15 16 – 17 18 – 19 20 – 22 23 – 3 4 – 9 10 – 14 15 – 15 16 – 16 17 – 17 18 – 19 20 – 21 22 – 24 25 – 30 31 – 1 2 – 5 6 – 12 13 – 16

ARA İngilizce Latince Latince

4 As then in the other arts of representation a single representation means a representation of a single object, so too the plot being a representation of a piece of action must represent a single piece of action and the whole of it; and the component incidents must be so arranged that if one of them be transposed or removed, the unity of the whole is dislocated and destroyed. For if the presence or absence of a thing makes no visible difference, then it is not an integral part of the whole.

1 What we have said already makes it further clear that a poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could and would happen either probably or inevitably.

2 The difference between a historian and a poet is not that one writes in prose and the other in verse— indeed the writings of Herodotus could be put into verse and yet would still be a kind of history, whether written in metre or not. The real difference is this, that one tells what happened and the other what might happen.

3 For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.