For the medium being the same, and the
objects the same, the poet may imitate by narration- in which case
he can either take another personality as Homer does, or speak in
his own person, unchanged- or he may present all his characters as
living and moving before us.
These, then, as we said at the beginning, are the three
differences which distinguish artistic imitation- the medium, the
objects, and the manner. So that from one point of view, Sophocles
is an imitator of the same kind as Homer- for both imitate higher
types of character; from another point of view, of the same kind as
Aristophanes- for both imitate persons acting and doing. Hence, some
say, the name of 'drama' is given to such poems, as representing
action. For the same reason the Dorians claim the invention both of
Tragedy and Comedy. The claim to Comedy is put forward by the
Megarians- not only by those of Greece proper, who allege that it
originated under their democracy, but also by the Megarians of Sicily,
for the poet Epicharmus, who is much earlier than Chionides and
Magnes, belonged to that country. Tragedy too is claimed by certain
Dorians of the Peloponnese. In each case they appeal to the evidence
of language. The outlying villages, they say, are by them called
komai, by the Athenians demoi: and they assume that comedians were
so named not from komazein, 'to revel,' but because they wandered from
village to village (kata komas), being excluded contemptuously from
the city.
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