For a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible
difference, is not an organic part of the whole.
POETICS|9
IX
It is, moreover, evident from what has been said, that it is not the
function of the poet to relate what has happened, but what may happen-
what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity. The
poet and the historian differ not by writing in verse or in prose. The
work of Herodotus might be put into verse, and it would still be a
species of history, with meter no less than without it. The true
difference is that one relates what has happened, the other what may
happen. Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher
thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history
the particular. By the universal I mean how a person of a certain type
on occasion speak or act, according to the law of probability or
necessity; and it is this universality at which poetry aims in the
names she attaches to the personages. The particular is- for
example- what Alcibiades did or suffered. In Comedy this is already
apparent: for here the poet first constructs the plot on the lines
of probability, and then inserts characteristic names- unlike the
lampooners who write about particular individuals. But tragedians
still keep to real names, the reason being that what is possible is
credible: what has not happened we do not at once feel sure to be
possible; but what has happened is manifestly possible: otherwise it
would not have happened.
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