The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in
separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of
narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of
these emotions. By ‘language embellished,’ I mean language into
which rhythm, ‘harmony’ and song enter. By ‘the several kinds in
separate parts,’ I mean, that some parts are rendered through the
medium of verse alone, others again with the aid of song.
    Now as tragic imitation implies persons acting, it necessarily
follows in the first place, that Spectacular equipment will be a
part of Tragedy. Next, Song and Diction, for these are the media of
imitation. By ‘Diction’ I mean the mere metrical arrangement of the
words: as for ‘Song,’ it is a term whose sense every one
understands.
    Again, Tragedy is the imitation of an action; and an action
implies personal agents, who necessarily possess certain
distinctive qualities both of character and thought; for it is by
these that we qualify actions themselves, and these—thought and
character—are the two natural causes from which actions spring, and
on actions again all success or failure depends. Hence, the Plot is
the imitation of the action—for by plot I here mean the arrangement
of the incidents. By Character I mean that in virtue of which we
ascribe certain qualities to the agents. Thought is required
wherever a statement is proved, or, it may be, a general truth
enunciated. Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which
parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Character, Diction,
Thought, Spectacle, Song. Two of the parts constitute the medium of
imitation, one the manner, and three the objects of imitation. And
these complete the fist. These elements have been employed, we may
say, by the poets to a man; in fact, every play contains
Spectacular elements as well as Character, Plot, Diction, Song, and
Thought.
    But most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For
Tragedy is an imitation, not of men, but of an action and of life,
and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a
quality. Now character determines men’s qualities, but it is by
their actions that they are happy or the reverse. Dramatic action,
therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character:
character comes in as subsidiary to the actions. Hence the
incidents and the plot are the end of a tragedy; and the end is the
chief thing of all. Again, without action there cannot be a
tragedy; there may be without character. The tragedies of most of
our modern poets fail in the rendering of character; and of poets
in general this is often true. It is the same in painting; and here
lies the difference between Zeuxis and Polygnotus. Polygnotus
delineates character well; the style of Zeuxis is devoid of ethical
quality. Again, if you string together a set of speeches expressive
of character, and well finished in point of diction and thought,
you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as
with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a
plot and artistically constructed incidents. Besides which, the
most powerful elements of emotional interest in Tragedy—Peripeteia
or Reversal of the Situation, and Recognition scenes—are parts of
the plot. A further proof is, that novices in the art attain to
finish of diction and precision of portraiture before they can
construct the plot. It is the same with almost all the early
poets.
    The plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the
soul of a tragedy; Character holds the second place. A similar fact
is seen in painting. The most beautiful colors, laid on confusedly,
will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait.
Thus Tragedy is the imitation of an action, and of the agents
mainly with a view to the action.
    Third in order is Thought—that is, the faculty of saying what is
possible and pertinent in given circumstances. In the case of
oratory, this is the function of the political art and of the art
of rhetoric: and so indeed the older poets make their characters
speak the language of civic life; the poets of our time, the
language of the rhetoricians. Character is that which reveals moral
purpose, showing what kind of things a man chooses or avoids.
Speeches, therefore, which do not make this manifest, or in which
the speaker does not choose or avoid anything whatever, are not
expressive of character. Thought, on the other hand, is found