Plot a Probability - Ideology Notes on Aristotle’s Poetics

Peter Madsen, Copenhagen

It may often be very useful to read old texts in the light of later ideas. Similarities as well as distinctive features appear to improve the under- standing of the old texts, and to illustrate topical issues and problems. The text on which I shall make a few comments has appealed to an unusual degree to literary critics and theorists of very different times and ages, both because it has been given a prominent position for various reasons, and also because it is a very rich text.

Every school of criticism emphasizes the aspects that suit its purpose best, and the interpretations given are not always in accordance with Aristotle. I shall not claim the following reflexions to be quite consistent with the Aristotelian ones, but for several - and to some extent coherent - reasons they should have a chance of being relevant. First, some of the philosophical ideas of this century have stimulated an interest in Aristotle’s philosophy - a fact which, of course, is founded on an acknowledgement of certain common basic ideas so that the considerations made in these philo- sophical circles may have some relevance; secondly, and this may be my most important inducement, my comments apply to the basic ideas as they are put forward in the most explicit part of the text. My interpretation of the “Poetics” has found support in several respects in Mr Arnfinn Stigen’s account of the Aristotelian “method”.’

The American New Criticism has been able to find affirmation for several of its ideas in the “Poetics”,z but to me the similarity between the “Poetics” and “structuralism” is more striking. My task will be to try to collocate the “Poetics” with “structuralism” with a special view to the concept of mythos. 1 shall do this not so much to place Aristotle among the rank and file of

1. Arnfinn Stigen, The Strrrcture of Aristotle’s Thought. An Introduction to the Study of Aristotle’s Writings (Oslo, 1966). Especially the section “Rhetoric and Poetry”, Chap. VII, pp. 332-427.

2. E. g. William K. Wimsatt, Jr. and Cleanth Brooks, Literary Criticism. A Shori History (1957; 2nd ed. 1967), Chaps. 2 and 3.

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structuralist philosophers, hut rather to point out in what way structuralist ideas can make his theories topical, or more generally speaking: to give an example of how an ancient theory can be integrated into the structuralist organization of theory - in so far as such an organization may be said to exist. By moving on a rather abstract and formal level one may find parti- cularly good opportunities for pointing out the basic similarities with or differences from old theories - and, besides, other contemporary theories. Of course it is no secret that Aristotle is a particularly responsive starting point for such a comprehensive task, but the importance of his “Poetics” ought to be sufficient reason for dealing with it. Aristotle differs in one fundamental respect from modern comparative literary history, which appears already from the otherwise very topical opening sentence of the “Poetics”: W e will talk about Poetry in itself and about its genres, about the specific nature o f each o f these genres, about the composition o f plot i f the poet wants his work to be beautiful, and moreover about the number and nature of (he parts. . .3

The aim is to describe what is beautiful, the felicitous work of art, and from that basis explain how for example a tragedy should be composed. Aristotle is not only descriptive, he connects description with evaluation; thus he rejects for example an episodic plot. The aim of modern literary criticism is if not to exclude evaluation then to distinguish clearly between literary activities. But when this is pointed out, it should be emphasized, on the other hand, that Aristotle’s evaluations are explicit; this is precisely why it is not rhe evaluations that make his text difficult to handle. Moreover, there is a close coherence between the evaluating comments and the whole organization of the “Poetics”, as Aristotle is particularly looking for the internal relations in a work of art that presuppose that it may have the func- tion which he sets up as being characteristic of it.

Since my task is to collocate two “theoretical organizations”, this essay may, of course, seem somewhat removed from literature as such to those wanting actual analyses. I shall therefore emphasize the purely theoretical, or metatheoretical, aim of this essay.

In the following sections I shall try first to account for Aristotle’s view

3. 144la 8-12: m p i ~ O I ~ T I K ~ S absqc TE K d ruiv eiSfiv a6TtjC. f v T I V ~ Sdvapiv Eicaurov Exel,

ixai ~ u i ~ 6Ei ooviuzau3al rotj; p690,0;, ~i p i l l ~ l ~ ~ r l u i ; ~ ~ E O V rj R O ~ ~ U I C , ETI 62 i~ rrduwv K a i noiwv iuri pojiwv, . . . , E Y W ~ E V , . . . Quoted from the Bude edition, Collection des trtiiversirCs rle Frutice (Paris, 1965).

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of the issue in question and next to make a comparison with structuralism or an elaboration of structuralist theory.

1. Mythos 1.1 Aristotle himself points out that what is important in tragedy as well as in epic poetry is plot, “the juxtaposition of events”. Mythos is the “basis” and “soul” of t r a g e d ~ . ~ Consequently, plot is the element most elaborately dealt with in the “Poetics”. Mythos is defined as the juxtaposition of event^;^ in English the term “plot” will convey the idea, I think, but for reasons of convenience I shall use the Greek term, mythos. Aristotle wants to find out how events are related and put together in a tragedy; some of the charac- teristic features will be considered in the following sections.

1.2 In the theory of drama as well as in theories of narrative literature the question of plot must play an essential role. At a certain level of analysis the problems become identical in that a common sphere appears which may give rise to a common field of research: “mythology”. As appears for instance from Greimas’s book Simantique structurale, this is a subject with very wide perspectives since the idea of plot, or the composition of events, plays an important role in the conscious mental life of human beings, and not only in literature. L’uffubulution or the juxtaposition of events can be considered one of the fundamental forms of organization in human com- munication, verbal or not verbal, as in the conscious mental life.6

These “myths” may be manifest in many different ways, and an analysis of them will only in some cases satisfactorily account for the whole pheno- menon in which they are manifest. The “purest” of myths seem to be the myths proper and the folk-tales; they preserve their identity in the tradition, and their essential communication and function lie in their plot. Similarly, Aristotle writes that mythos is the best criterion if one wants to examine the question of identity.’

4. 5. 6. 7.

1450a 39-40: ’ A p ~ t j p iv o;v m i olov VVK@ 6 p17Sog rijc rpayqAiac,. . . . 1450a 4-5: t ip yap p8&v soasov rrjv a6v9earv r d v xpaypcirwv, . . . cf. 1450a 32-3 Cf. A. J. Greimas, SCmmtique structurde (Paris, 1966), p. 123. 1450a 7 sq. which is elaborated by a remark that two myths are identical if they have the same “plok?’ (= desis) and Zysis, cf. section 5. Similar points of view on an entirely different basis are found in C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Cri- ticism.

Peter Madsen

In most literary works emphasis is placed on other phenomena as well as on plot, the “mythological” analysis becoming thereby only a part-analysis. In this connexion one may wonder what actually is being analysed. A preli- minary answer might be that what is being analysed constitutes actually a series of summaries of literary works, not the works themselves.8

But what is a summary? It may be practical to imagine summaries as being a succession of main clauses or statements so that the characters ma- nifest themselves as subjects (or objects), their actions (or “passions”) as verbs, and the qualities attributed to them as adjective^.^ The task then, will be to describe the relation between these elements of plot or main clauses (a task the solution of which would no doubt prove fruitful to linguistic analysis in the proper sense).

The aspect of the matter that Aristotle deals with in the sections on mytlzos could then be called syntactical, as, to a great extent, he sticks to general. formal relations that are not necessarily attributed to definite “substances”. As an example he determines peripeteia as “a transition to the opposite of the events”.*O Then he gives some examples: an action will get the opposite effect, the opposite action of the one planned is effec- ted (the executioner is killed). I leave out of account that the two examples imply some degree of expectation and purpose, and therefore my coarse translation may not be quite satisfactory, but what is important in this connexion is that the determination expresses a relation.

Naturally, the idea of “summary analysis” involves some problems: a summary may be conceived at many different levels - it may be more or less explicit - an analysis of, say, Aristotle’s bold summary of the Odyssey would hardly satisfy many critics.” It may be a question of the strategy of approach where to stop generalization.

The idea of “summary analysis” also implies a “falsification problem”: how to show whether a part of the summary is actually manifest in the text.

But as in so many other cases in literary criticism it may be most fruitful to leave this problem temporarily to the benefit of the description itself

8. Tzvetan Todorov has expressed this idea in his Grcrmmaire cltr Dhcamhroti (The

9. Cf. Greirnas’s SPmanrique pp. 127 sq., and Claude LCvi-Strauss, Anrhropologie Hague, 1969), (Approaches to Semiotics 3).

sfructurale (Paris, 1958), p. 233. 10. 1452a 22-3: ~ i ; ro kvarriov r 8 v nparroptvwv ,u&raboi.rj.. . 11. 1455b 17-23.

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(in this case, of the myths). First though, I shall refer to the point of view which is the basis of the analyses of myths of M. Ltvi-Strauss: La substance du mythe ne se trouve ni dans le style, ni dans le mode de narration, ni dans la syntaxe, mais dans l’histoire qui y est racontke.I2 This histoire is called rkcit in the following quotation from Claude Bremond: Si le rkcit se visualise en devenant film, s’il se verbalise en devenant roman, s’il se gestua- 1ise en devenant mime, etc., ces transpositions n’affectent pas la structure du rtcit, . . . I 3 A self-contained criticism of “plot” is now being developed - which to a great extent found its starting point in Propp’s studies in Rus- sian folk-tales - but already in Aristotle are found the germs of the first elements of this particular kind of cri t i~ism.1~

2. Mimesis: mythoslpraxis 2.1 To Aristotle tragedy is an imitation of “praxis”,15 the composition of events that constitutes mythos differs from actual practice in various ways. When we analyse a tragedy, or what is characteristic of a tragedy, we do not analyse actual events, but precisely a particular composition or a particular type of composition. The theory of drama is not psychology, sociology, or ethics, even though these subjects may come into the picture at a later stage of analysis. I t is true that Aristotle mentions the “praxis” that is imi- tated, and it may look as if he tries to set up criteria of the “praxis” and not of the mythos, but as the question is which “praxis” should be imitated, it is eventually mythos that directs the analysis. Stigen writes of the question as follows: The external objects imitated, human actions, are (. . .) pushed into the background and distinguished sharply from the imitation of the

12. Anthropologie structurale, p. 232. 13. ctLe message narratifD, Communications 4, 1964, p. 32. Issues Nos. 4 and especially

8 of the periodical Communications are, incidentally, of fundamental signi- ficance for the research into ‘recit’: narratology. Further, I would refer to the survey and the application in my essay ‘The Integrated Breach of Norms. A Nar- ratological Analysis’, which will appear in this periodical.

14. To my knowledge the only works by Propp available in any Western European language are his Morphology of the Folktale (Publication 10 of the Indiana Re- search Center in Anthropology, Folklore and Linguistics, Oct. 1958) (also available in an Italian edition), and his essay “Les transformations des contes fantastiques”, Thkorie de la litte‘rature, Bd. Todorov (1965). Now also in V. Propp: Morphologie du conte, 1970 (Morphologie du conte, Les transformations du conte merveilleux, and E. MBlBtinski: L’e‘tude structurale et typologique du conte).

1450a 3: ” E m 61 7& piv npCi&w~ 6 p 8 9 0 ~ r) pipqai; . . . 15. 1449b 24: “Eariv o h rpaygdia p ipqaq RPC~CCWC . . .

292 Peter Madsen

action, i . e. the plot or story, which is brought into focus. . .I6 Where in acfual life, according to common sense, the character directs the actions, in a tragedy one has to move from the events to the character, which is why mythos, in a sense, is of primary significance.

2.2 So Aristotle’s primary interest is not so much the view of “life” offered in a tragedy, but is rather concentrated on the “specifically literary” forms of organization. This places him in a state of agreement with some recent literary criticism, both with some aspects of American New Criticism and with Russian Formalism, which, to some extent, is the original inspiration for literary structuralism. In Tzvetan Todorov, for instance, is found a view very close to Aristotle’s. Particularly relevant in this connexion is his essay on the Decameron where Todorov writes that, on one hand, he deals only with one aspect of a literary text (discours), namely “la narra- tion’’ (approx. = mythos), the story, but that, on the other hand, he does not work with a theory of plots, his subject-matter being actions as they are organized in a certain type of literature, narrative literature: . . . les actions ’en elles-dmes, ne peuvent pas constituer notre objet; il serait vain de chercher leur structure au deli de celle que leur donne I’articulation discur- sive. Notre objet est constitub par les actions telles que les organise un cer- tain discours, appelt le rtcit (p, 10).

3. Completeness 3.1 In chapter 7 of the “Poetics” Aristotle discusses what a composition of events should be, i. e. the organization of myrhos. He says that the practice imitated should be complete and whole.l7 The determination of entity is worth noting: WIwt is whole has a beginning, a middle, and an end.18 The beginning is what does not necessarily follow after something else, but after which something else naturally is or comes (becomes). Simi- larly, he determines the middle as something that naturally follows after (or from) something else, and after which something naturally follows. The end is something which “necessarily or mostly” follows after something else, but after which nothing follows.19 Two things should be noted about

16. Op. cit. pp. 405-6. 17. 1450b 24-26. 18. 1450b 27-8: 6lov 6’8uri 70 5 x 0 ~ &pxtjv Kai &ov K a i releorrjv 19. 1450b 28-32.

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this. First: Aristotle thinks in relations; secondly: in his opinion mythos should not only be coherent, it should also be self-contained in so far as it should not presuppose anything before or after itself.

But to this he adds another determination: mythos should have “a (cer- tain) magnitude”. This magnitude he determines in two ways: externally and internally. It must be constructed so as to be comprehensible in its entirety; but it is more important to note that this magnitude (megethos) of mythos should be of such a nature that it allows for a reversal (the verb metaballein is used) from misfortune to fortune or from fortune to misfortune,m and this change should take place in accordance with the rules of probability and necessity.

This means that mythos should contain a sort of internal dynamics, a reversal should take place; and, to judge from this passage, a transition to the opposite of what was the case at the opening of the play. I shall revert to this question, but merely point out that the “requirement” of a reversal or a “transformation” forms part of this central passage of Aristotle’s comment on the definition of tragedy.

With respect to completeness and coherence, Aristotle further points out that the practice imitated, and thus mythos, should be composed so that if one element of it is changed or removed, the entire work will be changed or shaken. For that whose presence or absence is not visible is not part of the entity.21

In connexion with these very general remarks there appear in Aristotle the pair of concepts “probability or necessity” in an important place; indeed these quantities are integrated in the determination of completeness and coherence. They are an extremely significant pair of concepts which open up a very central and fundamental perspective, which I shall deal with in my last section.

3.2 The concept of completeness introduced by Aristotle is not far re- moved from the present-day concept of structure: an element that can be freely changed or removed does not belong to the complete work. The requirement that mythos should be coherent and self-contained can, I think,

20. 1451a 12 sq. 21. 1451a 34-5: 6 yap npoubv Q ptj R P O U ~ V pq68v norei Bni6qLov, 0668~ pdpiov to8 6Aov

iuziv

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be regarded as a requirement for mythos to be an “autonomous structure” (in a certain sense, cf. the last section), i. e. another view that is close to modern ideas - especially to American New Criticism. But most fascinating is the idea that there should be a transition or a change, as Aristotle is here very close to an element in the reflexions of modern structural se- mantics on the communication in narrative literature. The introduction of the concept of transformation, that I shall revert to in a subsequent para- graph, becomes relevant at this point.

4. The Composition of Events 4.1 In chapter 10 Aristotle draws the reader’s attention to the difference between the fact that something follows after something else and that it follows from something else (Butcher translates “whether any given event is a case of propter hoc or post hoc”).22 Aristotle’s rejection of “episodic mythos”, i. e. mythos where there is no necessary or natural relation be- tween the parts of mythos, cannot be surprising. If there are no relations of that kind, it can make no substantial difference whether one element is changed with another or is removed altogether. And then, in Aristotle’s opinion, there is no completeness. So we are left with the coherent mythos, and here he distinguishes between two types of myth. It will be remem- bered that mythos could only have the right magnitude if it were possible to establish a change (from fortune to misfortune, or the opposite); the cri- terion of the distinction between the simple and the complex myths is, then, precisely the manner in which the reversal is brought about. A mythos is “complex” (peplegmenos) if the reversal (metabusis) happens by peripeteia or by unagnorisis, otherwise it is simple - in both cases always provided that it complies with the general conditions: coherence, etc. Both the two renowned phenomena are called metabole, e. g. transition, and his defini- tions are quite simple and at least apparently far more generally formulated than they are often interpreted. Peripeteia is defined as “the transition to the opposite of the events (actions)”, and anugnorisis is defined as “the transition from ignorance to knowledge”.23 To take the last concept first, the traditional translation “recognition” seems to be misleading; a better one? I think, would be cognition (of the truth), which at least corresponds

22. 1450a 20-1. S . H. Butcher, Aristotle’s Theory of Poetry and Fine Art. With a

23. 1452a 29sq. (ch. 11): ‘Avayvhpioii 6’ Eoriv . . . it dyvoias ~ i ; yvcSoiv ,mra/Iohj, . . . critical text and translation of the Poetics (4th ed. 1951), p. 41.

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with the first part of the definition; in the second part is added that this cognition should lead “to friendship or enmity” for the persons involved in the game of fortune. This may be interpreted as follows: By anagnorisis a protagonist gets such a knowledge as will lead his relationship to somebody else into its opposite; in other words we are faced with a change in the constellation of the characters. All this fits in with the Oedipus example, but is more generally viewed than is the case in most usual readings of the “Poetics”,

To judge from the examples given, peripeteia stands not only for the general fact that events are turned into their opposites - which is implied in the definition of appropriate mythos - but there are also some common traits on a rather general level, since Aristotle talks of purpose or expec- tation. But it is not clear what he is particularly aiming at.

It is emphasized once more that these transitions must be in agreement with probability or necessity.

4.2 It goes without saying that it is unacceptable to reject episodic mythos, even if it is understandable that Aristotle does so. But once again we see that Aristotle’s clear-cut concepts leave a possibility of availing oneself of his text even when one does not agree with his evaluations. Episodic mythos is not coherent in the Aristotelian sense, but it does not follow that a work cannot be coherent on other levels of approach; a number of incoherent events may, for instance, manifest a common theme.

Within the framework of peripeteia and anagnorisis Aristotle deals with what he calls pathos, i. e. suffering. By collocating this type of scene with the two others, an important, fundamental, functional detail will stand out. In Aristotle’s definition suffering has no syntactical function for it has no natural or necessary relation to the development of mythos. At least not in the same way as peripeteia and angnorisis, which introduce the very events that can function as transition. Another thing is that these events may also serve a function similar to that of suffering: it may, for instance, arouse pity, etc., to see a man disappointed in his expectations or to see him confront some horrible facts so far unknown to him. If this latter function is called semantic and the former syntactic, it can be suggested, by a vague reference to linguistics, that the same event may very well form part of different literary structures as, for instance, a thematic (semantic) one and a narrative (syntactic) one. As mentioned before, Aristotle deals

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mostly with the syntactic structures, especially, of course, in the sections I have mentioned.

5 . Desk; Lysis 5.1 All that has been said so far should lead to a fundamental classifica- tion of mythos. If there always is - or should be - a transition or a change, then there must be something to go from and something to go to which is different from the point of departure. So in chapter 18 Aristotle introduces another pair of concepts: d a i s and lysis (complication and unravelling). In- stead of focusing my attention on the terms themselves - like many critics - I find it more fruitful to concentrate on the determination of the relation between them: the unravelling is that which extends from the beginning of the change (reversal) to the end. All that is before is desk, the rest is lysis. In a very tangible sense this means that mythos consists of desk where a situation is set up with constellations of characters, etc., followed by lysis where a series of changes happens so that the final situation is the opposite of that at the beginning (for instance. from fortune to misfortune). The example which Aristotle points out in connexion with the “double” myrhos - the Odyssey - is excellent as an illustration; in desis we are given the si- tuation: Odysseus wanders about unhappy, while the suitors are happy to gorge: through a series of events Odysseus returns home happily, while the suitors come to a sad end. So everything is in perfect accordance with the basic scheme suggested:

desis Iysis hero Misfortune Fortune vi I I ai n Fortune Misfortune

5.2 Now what is fascinating is that this form of myth-analysis is in many respects similar to the work going on in France at present. M. Greimas’s attempts to set up “transformation models” are particularly relevant. He shows, for instance. how, in one of the myths analysed by M. Lkvi-Strauss, a transition or a transformation happens so that - schematically - the situation described at the beginning of the myth is turned “upside down” at the end. The naughty son whom the father ought to and will punish ends up by punishing his father. Many other factors pertain to this context, and I mention it here merely to suggest one particularly obvious similarity.24

24. “EICrnents pour une thCorie de I’interpretation du recit rnythique”, Comtnutlica- r iot is 8 (1966). An excellent essay.

Plot - Probability * Ideology 297 ~

6. Probability and Necessity 6.1 In dealing with the proper extent of mythos Aristotle mentions that the hero’s transition from fortune to misfortune, or the opposite, should happen according to “probability and necessity”.25 Thus this pair of con- cepts is introduced at many crucial points in the “Poetics”. For the ap- proach to an understanding of these concepts, other passages where they appear could be taken into consideration. In the famous passage on the relation between history and poetry it is said that it is not for the poet to describe events that actually happen, but, on the contrary, to tell what is possible according to probability and necessity.

Dealing with the relation between the two concepts Aristotle writes that what is probable, but not necessary, is preferable to that which is necessary, but improbableF6 and he suggests that what is impossible or unnecessary may be justified by expectation, which means, I think, the ordinary expecta- tion or the common view of what is probable.27 Judging from these passages the more significant concept of the two seems to be probability, and I shall therefore concentrate on this concept, which, indeed, has played a signifi- cant role in literary criticism after Aristotle.28 “To eikos” is most often translated by “vraisemblance” or “probability”. But the Greek word points in two directions which to some extent can be interrelated: probability and propriety, in the same way as the French verb “devoir”.29 If we try to interpret Aristotle’s use of the word in both these senses it corresponds closely with his reference to the common view: the expectations for an event are determined both by ideas of what is possible and by some notions of what is appropriate.

If we maintain that “probability” is attached to the “common view”, the criterion - which is part of many of the definitions - becomes a relative one. This would be particularly clear in the determination of the relation between episodic and coherent r n y t h ~ s : ~ ~ What is an improbable plot within one framework of norms may be probable enough within another.

25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30.

1451b 6-7. 1460a 27. 1461b 9sq.: n p b ~ rrjv Gd&iv. . . Cf. Todorov’s introduction to Cofnmunications, 11, (1968): “Recherches sirniolo- giques, La Vraisemblance”, and Genette’s essay in the same issue: “Vraisemblance et motivation”. Cf. Genette, op. cit., p. 5. 1451b 35.

298 Peter Madsen

6.2 But Aristotle draws no major conclusions from these observations. In an essay called “Vraisemblance et motivation” which takes its departure from the seventeenth-century discussions on Le Cid and La Princesse de Clkves, Gerard Genette discusses some of the conclusions that could be drawn from Aristotle’s “Poetics”. I shall not repeat the essay but merely mention and elaborate a few characteristic features of the problems. If it is accepted that the determination of the coherence of a mythos depends on the system of norms to which it is related. the analysis of mythos must be considered as having two aspects: the analyst is in search of a framework or frame- works of norms underlying the mythos and on this basics looks for the co- herence of events put forward in i t

Brooks and Wimsatt give an example: Oedipus commits patricide and incest. (He who commits patricide and incest is a criminal, brings a curse on his country, and is doomed to punishment). Therefore: Oedipus is a criminal. brings a curse on his country, and is doomed to p~nishment.3~. They go on: The point of empltasis here is the implicitly reasonable or consistent pattern, the inductive and imaginative concern of the dramatic parts, beginning, middle, and end, and in turn the smaller parts of these. It appears clearly from this example that it is by combining the events happening in a work of literature with a pattern of norms that the work stands out as coherent and consistent.

It may occur that elements of this pattern of norms are actually formu- lated in the work itself - as for instance in Antigone; in these cases the task becomes less difficult. but on the other hand the pattern of norms may be so strange to the analyst that i t is difficult to accept, and, therefore, difficult to distinguish.

So, we may talk of two axes in relation to which any given work of literature may be placed: first the pattern of norms may be more or less strange. that is to say that there may be more or less correspondence be- tween the pattern of norms set up in the work and that of the analyst, se-

A I work 1 degree of explicitation

degree of correspondence between the patterns of norm5 in the work and in the reader

4“

31. O p c i f . p. 32.

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condly the pattern may be more or less explicit. Any given work of litera- ture can be classified by these two criteria.

This can be shown graphically in a system of coordinates (see diagram). The reader is free to deduce a typology from this diagram, but I should

like to make two comments. First the quite trivial one that most works will place themselves in the space between the coordinates. lo is a special case which this diagram would add to M. Genette’s less formal formulation: exempla used before an approving audience.

Moreover, the diagram points out the diachronic aspect: a certain work of literature will move vertically in the course of time; thus a work, which was considered quite strange when it was first published and was possibly considered incoherent may become trivial as the norms change in the read- ing public.

7 . Conclusion In this survey of some of the Aristotelian concepts I have tried to get to the point suggested by the title of this essay: the two basic concepts of the coherence and probability of the plot are attached to the concept of a common or general view, so that the imitative aspect points inwards to- wards the conscious mental life rather than outwards towards reality. This implies also a criticism of some modern critical theory which has interpreted Aristotle as a rigid “autonomist”; and my characterization above (2.2) of Aristotle as being in search of the “specifically literary aspects” should be qualified in so far as a deeper analysis shows that he is after something specifically ideological rather than something specifically literary. Many an ideological struggle has been fought under the cover of questions of taste (cf. for instance M. Genette’s account in the essay cited): the question of the acceptability of a work of literature is an ideological one - even if, at first glance, it may appear as an “aesthetic” one. In using the concept discussed above, this view may be expressed in terms of an aphorism: the coherence of a work depends, among other things, on the context in which it is seen or placed.32

32. This essay is a slightly modified edition of an article entitled ‘Notes on Aristotle’s Poetics’ which appeared in the periodical Poetik, I, 4 (November 1968). Some modifications were particularly required by the criticism of Mr. Torben Kragh Grodal whose elaborate comment appeared in Poetik, 11, 2 (1969) under the title “Coherence . Probability . Evaluation”. Poetik contains a number of con- tributions and discussions in Danish of narratological problems.