role in its larger work or to an event whose impossibility would not be read-
ily apparent. But the pursuit of Hector is a far more radical choice for several
reasons. It is, as Aristotle has just noted in chapter 24, an event that in itself is
ludicrous, and, thus, easily recognizable as impossible by Homer’s audience.
Yet it is not just a major part of book 22 but also a major part of the climax of
the whole epic. Furthermore, Homer highlights its importance by elaborating
on the role of the gods in the chase, by giving each character major speeches,
and by showing the effects of Achilles’ killing of Hector on Priam, Hecuba,
and Achilles’ fellow Greeks. In other words, Aristotle’s example is impossible,
major, and not at all concerned about its audience being able to detect the
impossibility.
This discussion leads me to two other conclusions: (1) Aristotle provides a
model of the a posteriori method underlying rhetorical poetics, as he reasons
back from effects to their causes in the construction of the work. If Aristotle
were using an a priori method, he would apply the dictum that the poet must
follow the law of probability and necessity and conclude that Homer’s “error”
could not be justified. However, because book 22 of the Iliad is so affectively
powerful and because its power is so appropriate to the story of the wrath of
Achilles, Aristotle decides that the “error” is justified. (2) For Aristotle, the
text-internal system of probability itself has two dimensions: a logic of the
unfolding action and a logic of the audience’s unfolding affective responses
to that action. “The error may be justified,” he writes, “if the end of the art be
thereby attained . . . if, that is, the effect of this or any other part of the poem
is thus rendered more striking” (25.5). For Aristotle, effects are primarily affec-
tive ones, as his focus on pity, fear, and catharsis and his discussion of the
desirable effects of the marvelous in chapter 24 all indicate.
The pursuit of Hector, then, is justified because by book 22 author and
audience both need the one-on-one confrontation between the two princi-
pal figures on each side of the Trojan War. Homer needs it as a climax in his
shaping of the story of Achilles’ wrath, and the audience needs it as a climax
in the overall trajectory of emotional responses generated by Homer’s shaping
of Achilles’ story. Indeed, by this logic, the pursuit of Hector is not an “error”
at all but a brilliant contribution to both parts of the text-internal system of
probability. This logic, as I trust is now evident, is that of rhetorical poetics.
SHELDON SACKS ON READERLY INFERENCES ABOUT GENRE
Although Sheldon Sacks is primarily known today as the founding editor of
Critical Inquiry, he wrote both Fiction and the Shape of Belief (1964), an impor-
36 • CHAPTER 2