Aristotle is clearly interested in describing a skill that Plato doesn’t
acknowledge: playwrights have to select which parts of a story to imitate
on the stage, because they can’t try to imitate everything. Hence, for
example, we may not need to know all that much about Hamlet’s
relationship with his father or exactly where it is that Hippolyte and
Phèdre are talking. In both these cases, one could argue that leaving out
this information makes the plays better. The audience might suffocate
under the weight of too much information. We all have, as Aristotle
notes, a limited memory for details.^38 So a part of the playwright’s skill
lies precisely inomittingdetails. This may be connected with the goal of
presenting what is universal: unnecessary detail would simply be clutter,
obscuring the significance of‘the kind of thing that would happen’–
which, after all, is what’s most significant about the drama.
Second, theatre for Aristotle can imitate falsely in a way that Plato
obviously doesn’t allow. This has two different features. First, the subject
of the play–what is to be imitated–can be something that is not and
never was the case:
The poet is engaged in imitation, just like a painter or anyone else who
produces visual images, and the object of his imitation must in every case be
one of three things: either the kind of thing that was or is the case; or the
kind of thing that is said or thought to be the case; or the kind of thing
that ought to be the case.^39Of these three options, Plato only seems to rule out all but thefirst. He is
critical of poets for getting their facts wrong (e.g. about the gods);
although he is then critical even of factually accurate imitations, on the
grounds that they are still imitations.^40 However, for Aristotle, plays can
imitate not only what is (as in Plato) but also what is not. Like Plato, he
draws a comparison between the poet’s and the painter’s imitating–but
they are no longer merely imitating how the world appears to be. Instead, they
mayimitate things peoplesayare the case and they may imitate things
thatought tobe the case. Now, of course, much of what people say is false;
and, sadly, much of what ought to be the case is not. Again, we may
understand this with reference to the poet’s aim of expressing the uni-
versal: Aristotle clearly holds that a story that never took place may well
be a better expression of the universal than a true story.^41
The second way that theatre can imitate falsely is not spelled out
clearly in thePoetics. But what Aristotle does say is that imitations are
relative to a purpose. So, to borrow his example, if the purpose of an
imitation is zoological, then one has to depict the correct (anatomical)
features of an animal in order to train students of zoology; but if the
purpose is theatrical or artistic (perhaps to have a greater emotional effect
34 From the World to the Stage