The poetics of Aristotle

152 Pages·2011·8.18 MB·English

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PS
THE POETICS OF AEISTOTLE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEWYORK BOSTON CHICAGO
DALLAS SANFRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
THE
POETICS OF ARISTOTLE
EDITED
WITH CEITICAL NOTES AND A TRANSLATION
BY
a H. BUTCHER,
HON. D.LITT. OXFORD; HON. LITT.D. DUBLIN, MANCHESTER
HON. LL.D. ST. ANDREWS, GLASGOW, EDINBURGH
FOURTH EDITION
MACMILLAN AND LIMITED
CO.,
ST. MARTINS STREET, LONDON
1922
AUG ! 1 1949
COPYRIGHT
FirstEdition1895. SecondEdition1898
ThirdEdition1902. FourthEdition1907
Reprinted1911, 1917,1920, 1922
PrintedinGreatBritainbyR.&R.CLARK.LIMITED.Edinburgh.
PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
THE Text and Translation of the Poetics
following
form part of the volume entitled Aristotle's Tlieory
ofPoetry and Fine Art, second edition (Macmillan
and Co., 1898). In this edition the Critical Notes
are enlarged, and the Translation has been care
fullyrevised. The improvements in the Translation
are largely due to the invaluable aid I have received
from my friend and colleague, Professor W. K.
Hardie. To him I would express my warmest
thanks, and also to another friend, Professor
Tyrrell, who has most kindly read through the
proof-sheets, and talked over and elucidated
various questions of interpretation and criticism.
In making use of the mass of critical material
which has appeared in recent years, especially in
Germany, I have found it necessary to observe a
strict principle of selection, my aim still being
to keep the notes within limited compass. They
are not intended to form a complete Apparatus
Criticus, still less to do duty for a commentary.
I trust, however, that no variant or conjectural
vi THE POETICS OF ARISTOTLE
emendation of much importance has been over
looked.
In the first edition I admitted into the text
conjectural emendations of my own in the following
passages: iii. 3: xix. 3: xxiii. 1: xxiv. 10:
xxv. 4 : xxv. 14 : xxv. 16. Of these, one or two
appear to have carried general conviction (in
particular, xxiii. l) : two are now withdrawn,
iii. 3 and xxv. 14, the latter in favour of <olovovv>
(Tucker).
In the first edition, moreover, I bracketed, in
a certain number of passages, words which I
regarded as glosses that had crept into the text,
viz. : iii. 1 : vi. 18 : xvii. 1 : xvii. 5. In vi. 18
I now give Gomperz's correction r&v Xeyo^a>z/, for
the bracketed words r&v fiev \6yuv of the MSS.,
and in xvii. 5 Bywater's conjecture on, avro? for
There remains a conjecture which I previously
relegated to the notes, but which I now
take into the text with some confidence. It
has had the good fortune to win the approval of
many scholars, including the distinguished names
of Professor Susemihl and Professor Tyrrell. I
refer to ov (OVTG) MSS.) ra rv^ovra ovo^aTa in
ix. 5. 1451 b 13, where the Arabic has 'names
not given at random/ For the copyist's error
A
cf. ix. 2. 1451 a 36, where c has OVTW, though
ov TO rightly appears in the * apographa' : and for