poetry is addressed to a cultivated audience, who do not need gesture;
Tragedy, to an inferior public. Being then unrefined, it is evidently the
lower of the two.

Now, in the first place, this censure attaches not to the poetic but to
the histrionic art; for gesticulation may be equally overdone in epic
recitation, as by Sosi-stratus, or in lyrical competition, as by
Mnasitheus the Opuntian. Next, all action is not to be condemned any more
than all dancing--but only that of bad performers. Such was the fault
found in Callippides, as also in others of our own day, who are censured
for representing degraded women. Again, Tragedy like Epic poetry produces
its effect even without action; it reveals its power by mere reading. If,
then, in all other respects it is superior, this fault, we say, is not
inherent in it.

And superior it is, because it has all the epic elements--it may even use
the epic metre--with the music and spectacular effects as important
accessories; and these produce the most vivid of pleasures. Further, it
has vividness of impression in reading as well as in representation.
Moreover, the art attains its end within narrower limits; for the
concentrated effect is more pleasurable than one which is spread over a
long time and so diluted. What, for example, would be the effect of the
Oedipus of Sophocles, if it were cast into a form as long as the Iliad?
Once more, the Epic imitation has less unity; as is shown by this, that
any Epic poem will furnish subjects for several tragedies. Thus if the
story adopted by the poet has a strict unity, it must either be concisely
told and appear truncated; or, if it conform to the Epic canon of length,
it must seem weak and watery.
if, I mean, the poem is constructed out of several actions, like the
Iliad and the Odyssey, which have many such parts, each with a certain