For sameness of incident
soon produces satiety, and makes tragedies fail on the stage.
As for the meter, the heroic measure has proved its fitness by
hexameter test of experience. If a narrative poem in any other meter
or in many meters were now composed, it would be found incongruous.
For of all measures the heroic is the stateliest and the most massive;
and hence it most readily admits rare words and metaphors, which is
another point in which the narrative form of imitation stands alone.
On the other hand, the iambic and the trochaic tetrameter are stirring
measures, the latter being akin to dancing, the former expressive of
action. Still more absurd would it be to mix together different
meters, as was done by Chaeremon. Hence no one has ever composed a
poem on a great scale in any other than heroic verse. Nature herself,
as we have said, teaches the choice of the proper measure.
Homer, admirable in all respects, has the special merit of being the
only poet who rightly appreciates the part he should take himself. The
poet should speak as little as possible in his own person, for it is
not this that makes him an imitator. Other poets appear themselves
upon the scene throughout, and imitate but little and rarely. Homer,
after a few prefatory words, at once brings in a man, or woman, or
other personage; none of them wanting in characteristic qualities, but
each with a character of his own.
The element of the wonderful is required in Tragedy.
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