Epic Poetry: The Principles of Its Construction

Critic: Aristotle

Source: Aristotle on the Art of Poetry, edited and translated by Lane Cooper, Ginn and Company, 1913, pp. 77-84. Reprinted in Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Vol. 1

Criticism about: Homer (c. 750 B.C.- A.D.)

Nationality:  Greek

[Considered the most versatile of the ancient Greek philosophers, Aristotle, who lived in the fourth century B.C., was also a renowned scientist and teacher. He studied at Plato's Academy in Athens and subsequently spent five years researching marine biology on the island of Lesbos. In 342, he received a commission to work as tutor to the young Prince Alexander of Macedon, whom he instructed in political theory and the works of Homer. Aristotle's writings, many of which are lost, exist for the most part in the form of lecture notes that were composed while he taught at the Lyceum, a school modeled on Plato's Academy that Aristotle established in 335. The variety of subjects found in such works as the Physics, Ethics, Metaphysics, Politics, and Rhetoric attests to the diversity of Aristotle's interests. His two best-known treatises, however, remain the Organon, in which he is credited with having created the science of logic, and the Poetics, considered perhaps the most influential work of literary criticism ever written. Although he was not widely read in Europe until the medieval period, Aristotle's writings have had an enormous impact on all branches of Western learning, leading Dante Alighieri to deem him the Master of those who know. In the following excerpt from his Poetics, Aristotle discusses the principles of epic composition, praising Homer for his handling of action, characterization, meter, narration, and the improbabilities. Since the date of composition of the Poetics is unknown, Aristotle's approximate death date has been used to date this excerpt.]

In the Epic, as in Tragedy, the story should be constructed on dramatic principles: everything should turn about a single action, one that is a whole, and is organically perfecthaving a beginning, and a middle, and an end. In this way, just as a living animal, individual and perfect, has its own beauty, so the poem will arouse in us its own characteristic form of pleasure. So much is obvious from what has gone before. Putting the thing negatively, we may say that the plot of an Epic must be unlike what we commonly find in histories, which of necessity represent, not a single action, but some one period, with all that happened therein to one or more persons, however unrelated the several occurrences may have been. For example: the Battle of Salamis took place at the same time as the defeat of the Carthaginians in Sicily; but the two events did not converge to the same end. And similarly, one event may immediately follow another in point of time, and yet there may be no sequence leading to one issue. Nevertheless, one may venture to say, most of the epic poets commit this very fault of making their plots like chronicles.

In precisely this respect, therefore, Homer ... manifestly transcends the other epic poets. Far from taking all the legend of Ilium for his theme, he did not attempt to deal even with the War in its entirety, although this had a definite beginning and end. Very likely he thought that the story would be too long to be easily grasped as a wholeor, if it were not too long, that it would be too complicated from the variety of the incidents. As it is, he has selected a single phase of the war for his main action, and employs a number of the other incidents by way of episode; for example, he diversifies his narrative with the Catalogue of the Ships, and so forth. Of the other epic poets, some take for their subject all the deeds of one hero; others all the events in one period; and others a single action, but one with a multiplicity of parts. This last is what was done by the author of the Cypria, and by the author of the Little Iliad. The consequence is that the Iliad and the Odyssey each furnish materials for but a single tragedy, or at most for two; while the Cypria supplies subjects for a number; and the Little Iliad for eight or more: an Award of the Arms, a Philoctetes, a Neoptolemus, a Eurypylus, a Mendicant Odysseus, a Spartan Women, a Sack of Ilium, a Sailing of the Fleetone might add a Sinon and a Trojan Women.

Furthermore, there must be the same varieties of Epic Poetry as of Tragedy. That is, an Epic plot must be either (1) Uninvolved or (2) Involved, or the story must be one (3) of Suffering or (4) of Character.... The Constituent Parts, also, of the Epic must be the same as in Tragedysave that the poet does not use the elements of Melody and Spectacle; for there necessarily are Reversals and Discoveries and Sufferings in this form of poetry as in that. And the Intellectual Processes and the Diction must be artistically worked out. These elements were all first used by Homer, who laid the proper emphasis on them severally; for each of his poems is a model of constructionthe Iliad of an uninvolved plot and a story of tragic suffering; the Odyssey of an involved plot (since there are Discoveries throughout) and a story of character. And in addition to these excellences, each of the poems surpasses all others in point of Diction and Thought. (pp. 77-9)

But Epic poetry differs from Tragedy (1) in the length of the composition, and (2) in the metre. As for the length ...: it must be possible for us to embrace the beginning and end of the story in one view. Now this condition would be met if the poem were shorter than the old epicsif it were about as long as one of the groups of three tragedies presented for a single hearing.... But through its capacity for extension, Epic Poetry has a great and peculiar advantage; for in a tragedy it is not possible to represent a number of incidents in the action as carried on simultaneouslythe poet is limited to the one thing done on the stage by the actors who are there. But in the Epic, because of the narrative form, he may represent a number of incidents as simultaneous occurrences; and these, if they are relevant to the action, materially add to the poem. The increase in bulk tends to the advantage of the Epic in grandeur, and in variety of interest for the hearer through diversity of incident in the episodes. Uniformity of incident quickly satiates the audience, and makes tragedies fail on the stage.

As for the metre, Epic Poetry has appropriated the heroic (hexameter verse) as a result of experience. And the fitness of this measure might be critically tested; for if any one were to produce a narrative poem in another metre, or in several others, the incongruity would be obvious. Of all metres, in fact, the heroic is the stateliest and most impressive. On this account, it most readily admits the use of strange words and metaphors; for in its tolerance of forms that are out of the ordinary, narrative poetry goes beyond the other kinds. The iambic and trochaic measures, on the other hand, are the concomitants of motion, the trochaic being appropriate to dancing, and the iambic expressive of life and action.... Still more unfitting would it be to compose an epic in a hotchpotch of metres after the fashion of Chaeremon's rhapsody. Hence no one ever has written a long story in any other metre than the heroic. Rather, nature herself, as we have said, teaches us to select the proper kind of verse for such a story.

Homer, so worthy of praise in other respects, is especially admirable in that he alone among epic poets is not unaware of the part to be taken by the author himself in his work. The poet should, in fact, say as little as may be in his own person, since in his personal utterances he is not an imitative artist. Now the rest of the epic poets continually appear in their own works, and their snatches of artistic imitation are few and far between. But Homer, after a brief preliminary, straightway brings in a man, or a woman, or some other typeno one of them vague, but each sharply differentiated. (pp. 79-81)

Some element of the marvellous unquestionably has a place in Tragedy; but the irrational (or illogical), which is the chief factor in the marvellous, and which must so far as possible be excluded from Tragedy, is more freely admitted in the Epic, since the persons of the story are not actually before our eyes. Take the account of the pursuit of Hector in the Iliad. On the stage, the scene would be ridiculous: Achilles running after Hector all alone, beneath the walls of Troy; the Grecian warriors halting instead of following, and Achilles shaking his head to warn them not to throw darts at their foe. In the narrative, however, since we do not combine the circumstances into one picture, the absurdity of the situation is not perceived.

That the marvellous is a source of pleasure may be seen by the way in which people add to a story; for they always embellish the facts with striking details, in the belief that it will gratify the listeners. Yet it is Homer above all who has shown the rest of us how a lie ought to be told. The essence of the method is the use of a fallacy in reasoning, as follows. Suppose that whenever A exists or comes to pass, B must exist or occur; men think, if the consequent B exists, the antecedent A must alsobut the inference is illegitimate. For the poet, accordingly, the right method is this: if the antecedent A is untrue, and if there is something else, B, which would necessarily exist or occur if A were true, one must add on the B; for, knowing the added detail to be true, we ourselves mentally proceed to the fallacious inference that the antecedent A is likewise true. (pp. 81-2)

A sequence of events which, though actually impossible, looks reasonable should be preferred by the poet to what, though really possible, seems incredible. The story ... should not be made up of incidents which are severally improbable; one should rather aim to include no irrational element whatsoever. At any rate, if an irrational element is unavoidable, it should lie outside of the story properas the hero's ignorance in Oedipus the King of the way in which Laius met his death. It should not lie within the storylike the anachronism in Sophocles' Electra, where a legendary hero is described as being killed at the modern Pythian games; or like the silence of ... Telephus in The Mysians of ... Aeschylus, where the man comes all the way from Tegea to Mysia without speaking. Accordingly, it is ridiculous for a poet to say that his story would be ruined if such incidents were left out; he has no business to construct such a plot to begin with. But if he does set out to represent an irrational incident, and if he obviously could have treated it in a way less offensive to our notions of probability, his fault is worse than ridiculous, lying not in his choice of an object to imitate, but in his art as an imitator. In the hands of an inferior poet, how manifest and intolerable would the improbabilities become which we find even in the Odyssey, at the point where the hero is set ashore.... As it is, Homer conceals the absurdity, and renders the incident charming, by means of his other excellences.... (pp. 83-4)

Elaborate Diction, however, is to be used only when the action pauses, and no purposes and arguments of the agents are to be displayed. Conversely, where the purposes and reasonings of the agents need to be revealed, a too ornate Diction will obscure them. (p. 84)

Source:  BC4 Aristotle, Epic Poetry: The Principles of Its Construction, in Aristotle on the Art of Poetry, edited and translated by Lane Cooper, Ginn and Company, 1913, pp. 77-84. Reprinted in Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Vol. 1.

Source Database: Literature Resource Center