INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. n^HERE can be no doubt that this celebrated treatise on poetry, -■- which, as I have elsewhere remarked^, was accepted as a sort of critical gospel at the very time when Aristotle's philosophical reputation was at its lowest point, is both incomplete and inter- polated in the existing text^. AYith regard to its incompleteness, this might be inferred from the description of the work given by the author himself, at the very beginning ; for he leads us to expect (1) a discussion of poetry in general, which we find in the first five chapters of the existing text ; (2) a complete theory of Tragedy, which we find in chapters 6 — 22 ; (3) the doctrine of epic poetry, which occupies the conclusion of the fragment which has come down to us ; and we ought then to have a discussion of comic and lyric poetry, which are both missing. If it is supposed that Aris- totle never fulfilled his intentions, but left the work unfinished, it is sufficient to answer that the treatise on poetry is not one of the latest of Aristotle's works, for he refers to it in the third book of his PJietoric (ill. 18, § 7), and that too with respect to the natm-e of the ludicrous {irepl tcov yeXolcov), which must have been discussed in the last part of the work where he treated of Comedy. In the lists of Aristotle's works given by Diogenes (v. 21 — 27), and the anonymous writer quoted by Menage (pp. 65 — 67, Buhle), there is a distinct reference to two books of the Poetic, and it would not be unreasonable to conclude that only the first has been preserved. That the book, as we have it, is not only a fragment, but is also corrupted by interpolations or scholia which have crept into the text, 1 Hist, of Greek Literature, Vol. ii. p. 293. 2 See Spengel, Munich Transactions, 1837, II. pp. 209 sqq. ; and F. Hitter's edition of the tract, Colonice, 1839.
