ON THE ART OF POETRY
By Aristotle
PREFACE
In the tenth book of the _Republic_, when Plato has completed his final
burning denunciation of Poetry, the false Siren, the imitator of things
which themselves are shadows, the ally of all that is low and weak in
the soul against that which is high and strong, who makes us feed the
things we ought to starve and serve the things we ought to rule, he
ends with a touch of compunction: 'We will give her champions, not poets
themselves but poet-lovers, an opportunity to make her defence in plain
prose and show that she is not only sweet--as we well know--but also
helpful to society and the life of man, and we will listen in a kindly
spirit. For we shall be gainers, I take it, if this can be proved.'
Aristotle certainly knew the passage, and it looks as if his treatise on
poetry was an answer to Plato's challenge.
