The irrational,
on which the wonderful depends for its chief effects, has wider
scope in Epic poetry, because there the person acting is not seen.
Thus, the pursuit of Hector would be ludicrous if placed upon the
stage- the Greeks standing still and not joining in the pursuit, and
Achilles waving them back. But in the Epic poem the absurdity passes
unnoticed. Now the wonderful is pleasing, as may be inferred from
the fact that every one tells a story with some addition of his
knowing that his hearers like it. It is Homer who has chiefly taught
other poets the art of telling lies skilfully. The secret of it lies
in a fallacy For, assuming that if one thing is or becomes, a second
is or becomes, men imagine that, if the second is, the first
likewise is or becomes. But this is a false inference. Hence, where
the first thing is untrue, it is quite unnecessary, provided the
second be true, to add that the first is or has become. For the
mind, knowing the second to be true, falsely infers the truth of the
first. There is an example of this in the Bath Scene of the Odyssey.
Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to
improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be composed of
irrational parts. Everything irrational should, if possible, be
excluded; or, at all events, it should lie outside the action of the
play (as, in the Oedipus, the hero's ignorance as to the manner of
Laius' death); not within the drama- as in the Electra, the
messenger's account of the Pythian games; or, as in the Mysians, the
man who has come from Tegea to Mysia and is still speechless.
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