parallel text on comedy, which, if it was ever written, has not survived) in
a way thatThe Republicis not. Aristotle does have brief comments to
make about epic poetry, but dramatic poetry is his main focus. ThePoetics
has much to say that may be taken in response to Plato’sThe Republic–
and indeed some critics take him to be responding directly to Plato’s
text–but all agree that Aristotle goes far beyond Plato and many of his
concerns are independent ofThe Republic.^32 To state one obvious point:
Aristotle is interested in what makes one play superior to another play.
This is of no interest to Plato, because, as we’ve seen, all plays involve
imitation and as such are to be condemned. So Aristotle can offer us not
only a response to Plato, but also some new thoughts about theatrical
imitation.
Aristotle’s celebrated definition of tragedy has imitation at its heart:
Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete and pos-
sesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated
in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting
through pity and fear the catharsis of such emotions.^33The centrality of imitation (mimesis) to this definition might initially seem
akin to Plato’s claims about theatre. But Aristotle’s claim for poetry (and
he has tragedy foremost in his mind) is that it‘tends to express uni-
versals’, which means that it presents ‘the kind of thing that would
happen’.^34 In claiming that theatre can present universals, Aristotle may
be seen to answer Plato’s objections.^35 For Plato, theatre takes its audi-
ence one step further away from the world of forms than they already are
in the world of everyday objects. Both Plato and Aristotle posit larger or
more general truths beyond our everyday world. If we loosely equate
Plato’s world of forms with Aristotle’s universals (both offering a kind of
fact or truth that cuts across everyday experience and goes beyond the spe-
cifics of time and place), then we can take Aristotle’s claims about theatre
and universals to be a response (of the third kind, above) to Plato: theatre
doesn’t take us further away from universals; it brings us closer to
them.^36 But in turning to universals as the focus for tragedy, Aristotle
rejects Plato’s idea that what matters in theatrical imitation is simple ver-
isimilitude. He does this in two important ways:first, theatrical imitation
can leave things out; second, imitation is permitted to be, in various
ways, untrue.
First, Aristotle is clear that the playwright needs to be selective in what
he presents on the stage. You can’t tell the whole story, so you shouldn’t
try. If you do try to present, say,everythingthat happens to a particular
character, then you will certainly fail and, in the process, end up with
something that’s unnecessarily complicated (and probably very long).^37
Mimesis 33