2
If the better is the less vulgar and the less vulgar is always that which appeals to the better audience, then obviously the art which makes its appeal to everybody is eminently vulgar.Aristotle first states the popular condemnation of tragedy on the ground that it can be and often is spoilt by the stupid vulgarity of actors. So might spectators of certain productions of Shakespeare in their haste condemn the poet. The refutation of this view begins at 6.
3
And indeed actors think the audience do not understand unless they put in something of their own, and so they strike all sorts of attitudes, as you see bad flute-players whirling about if they have to do the Discus, or mauling the leader of the chorus when they are playing the Scylla.Cf. Aristot. Poet. 15.8
4
So tragedy is something like what the older school of actors thought of their successors, for Mynniscus used to call Callippides the monkey, because he overacted, and the same was said of Pindarus.Mynniscus acted for Aeschylus: Callippides belonged to the next generation, end of fifth century. Pindarus is unknown.
5
The whole tragic art, then, is to epic poetry what these later actors were compared to their predecessors, since according to this view epic appeals to a cultivated audience which has no need of actor’s poses, while tragedy appeals to a lower class. If then it is vulgar, it must obviously be inferior.
