ARISTOTLE
ON THE ART OF POETRY



TRANSLATED BY
INGRAM BYWATER


WITH A PREFACE BY
GILBERT MURRAY



OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
FIRST PUBLISHED 1920
REPRINTED 1925, 1928, 1932, 1938, 1945, 1947
1951, 1954, 1959. 1962 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN




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