Poetry now diverged in two directions, according to the individual
character of the writers. The graver spirits imitated noble actions,
and the actions of good men. The more trivial sort imitated the
actions of meaner persons, at first composing satires, as the former
did hymns to the gods and the praises of famous men. A poem of the
satirical kind cannot indeed be put down to any author earlier than
Homer; though many such writers probably there were. But from Homer
onward, instances can be cited- his own Margites, for example, and
other similar compositions. The appropriate meter was also here
introduced; hence the measure is still called the iambic or lampooning
measure, being that in which people lampooned one another. Thus the
older poets were distinguished as writers of heroic or of lampooning
verse.
As, in the serious style, Homer is pre-eminent among poets, for he
alone combined dramatic form with excellence of imitation so he too
first laid down the main lines of comedy, by dramatizing the ludicrous
instead of writing personal satire. His Margites bears the same
relation to comedy that the Iliad and Odyssey do to tragedy. But
when Tragedy and Comedy came to light, the two classes of poets
still followed their natural bent: the lampooners became writers of
Comedy, and the Epic poets were succeeded by Tragedians, since the
drama was a larger and higher form of art.
Whether Tragedy has as yet perfected its proper types or not; and
whether it is to be judged in itself, or in relation also to the
audience- this raises another question.
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