Now history relates what has actually happened :sx things happened just so , but why they happened just so we can never be sure , for we can never account for all the antecedents of an actual event , nor reckon up all its consequences .sx We can surmise the law of the event , but we can never know it .sx But poetry relates what may happen according to the law of probability or necessity .sx We know what happens and we know how it happens .sx In contrast with history , in which nothing begins and nothing ends , and in which the mere sequence of events must satisfy as best it may our desire to know the secret connexion of events , in poetry we see an event complete in itself , definitely beginning and definitely ending and proceeding with perfect coherence from antecedents we understand to consequences we accept as inevitable .sx While we live in the event , we live in the world we most profoundly desire ; our consciousness of things takes the form of a world in which all things are connected together .sx Now tragedy exhibits the misfortune of life .sx But by reason of the unity of tragic drama , even the misfortune of life becomes an instance of the world we most profoundly desire .sx This accounts for the peculiar pleasure we take in tragedy .sx Things which in real life would be merely distressing become in tragedy nobly exhilarating .sx They do not cease to be distressing ; but something is added to this ; whereby their evil becomes our good .sx Even in evil , we gain the world we need .sx And in this sense , tragedy may be said to effect a Katharsis of the emotions it rouses .sx It is not the Katharsis Aristotle meant ; but it is entirely in accordance with what Aristotle says .sx It is also in accordance with the facts .sx All the rest of the Poetics is governed by Aristotle's idea of Katharsis as the function of tragedy .sx Wherever the idea is valid , our interpretation of it will be found workable which is not surprising , since it is an interpretation Aristotle himself might well have given .sx But his insistence on pity and fear leads him sometimes to emphasize sensationalism in tragedy , and sometimes serves to excuse the prejudices of his philosophical system .sx A celebrated exampleof the latter is his account of the hero or heroine proper to tragedy .sx A tragic character is one that passes from prosperity to adversity .sx This must not be , says Aristotle , because he is a villain :sx that would arouse neither pity nor fear .sx But it must not be the unmerited misfortune of a perfectly virtuous character :sx that would be merely shocking .sx The tragic character must be something in between these two extremes :sx a person who is good , but not eminently good , and who brings on himself misfortune by his own error .sx This is simply Aristotle's doctrine of the .sx " golden mean " intruding where it has no business .sx " The practice of the stage , " he says , " bears us out .sx " It did no such thing in his day , and has never done any such thing since .sx The character Aristotle describes may certainly be a tragic character ; but equally tragic may be an utter villain , like Macbeth , who deserves all his misfortune , or a perfectly innocent person , like Desdemona , who deserves none of it .sx Yet so great is Aristotle's prestige , that critics in all succeeding ages have attempted to reduce the practice of the dramatists to his theory of tragic character .sx Thus , it is pointed out that in the tragedy .sx of Prometheus Bound , Aeschylus has drawn a noble hero who nevertheless has grave faults .sx This is quite true ; but the whole point of the tragedy the thing that makes it perhaps the greatest of all tragedies is that Prometheus does not suffer for his faults , but for his virtues :sx it is because of the good he has done that the Power which rules the world condemns him .sx Of course , any act that goes wrong may be called an error ; but this is not what Aristotle means .sx For him , the tragic error ( which he at one point says must be a great error ) is quite plainly a moral lapse , not a mere failure to calculate all possible consequences .sx The truth is , that he ignored , in the interests of his theory , the unmistakably tragic effect of innocence suffering undeservedly , of Right punished by Wrong and punished for being Right .sx If his theory of tragic function had taken into account its rousing of love and admiration as well as of pity and fear , he would scarcely have failed , to perceive the tragic possibilities in the suffering of innocence .sx Perhaps also he would have done justice to the other case which he denies to be tragedy the opposite case of the downfall of the heroic villain .sx For , as Macbeth shows us , it is possible to admire a villain ; possible even to feel for him a sympathy which is not , in the end , very far from love .sx But much more interesting than attempts to apply Aristotle's rule to cases which obviously contradict it , is the modification of it which Hegel suggested as the true doctrine of the tragic person :sx though here again aesthetic theory doubtless recommended itself to its author for its convenient accordance with his general philosophy .sx Certainly , says Hegel ; the nature of tragedy allows a character to suffer for being in the right ; and yet the suffering may be just .sx For the right may not be an absolute right .sx It may be valid in ordinary circumstances ; but there may also be circumstances in which it is irreconcilably opposed by another equally valid right .sx Both are right ; but each is right only from its own point of view .sx The stock instance is Sophocles's tragedy of Antigone .sx Antigone's brother has cornmitted the worst possible crime against his country , and has been killed in the act .sx Kreon , the ruler of Thebes , has refused him the rites of burial ; thus answering one atrocious wrong by another equally atrocious .sx Antigone contrives to .sx pay the rites demanded by religion to her brother's corpse ; and is punished , as she knew she would be , by death .sx She appeals to the " unwritten laws " which man's conscience must obey against all earthly laws ; but Kreon appeals to the laws which the State has a right to make in vindication of its existence .sx Now , says Hegel , Antigone is in the right ; but only from her point of view ; she represents the rights of individual conscience .sx But Kreon is equally right from his point of view ; he represents the rights of the State .sx The conflict is irreconcilable .sx Both must suffer ; that is the tragedy .sx This , like Aristotle's theory , is one of the possible cases of tragedy :sx but it no more provides a universal rule than Aristotle does .sx The Antigone itself does not bear it out ; though Hegel's theory certainly reminds us that , in order to understand Sophocles's tragedy , we must sympathize with Kreon as well as with Antigone .sx But the tragedy is , nevertheless , that Antigone is right and .sx Kreon is wrong :sx and that the wrong has power to condemn the right .sx However plausible , and indeed profound , Hegel's theory may be , perhaps there is no tragedy that exactly accords with it .sx But the whole age-long discussion is a good instance of how criticism may be misled by a theory which , however philosophical elsewhere , is not truly philosophical in art :sx a theory , that is to say , which , professing to interpret the facts , only does so by presenting facts which it can interpret .sx With the rest of Aristotle's treatise we need not further concern ourselves ; though it is all eminently worth the care-fullest study .sx But we now have the main features of his theory of tragedy :sx which , once more , is to be understood as a type of the theory of literary art in general .sx He illustrates it by working it out in detail in many interesting and important directions ; and he shows how it can be transposed from the dramatic to the narrative manner from tragedy to epic .sx It is enough for our purpose to have explained the general nature of his poetic theory .sx For , whatever may be said against it here and there , Aristotle's theory of tragedy is the foundation on which all subsequent discussion of literary aesthetic has most securely based itself .sx IV .sx AFTER ARISTOTLE .sx NO ATTEMPT will be made in this section to sketch , however cursorily , anything like a connected history of literary criticism since Aristotle .sx Even if we confined ourselves to English literature , it would not be possible here to describe the criticism of all those authors who have achieved marked eminence in this kind of writing .sx Nor , indeed , would it serve our purpose .sx The criticism of literature is often as entirely individual as the creation of literature ; and as much the work of in-definable genius .sx Its success may be due to talents which do not require , and certainly do not seek which perhaps would indignantly repel the support of philosophical principles .sx Insight , sympathy , imaginative response , common sense , or mere power to express discriminating gusto of these abilities , and other such , may excellent criticism be made , without anything being formulated .sx We may call this intuitive criticism .sx Our concern , however , will be with the criticism which is .sx notable not merely for its quality , but for its addition to , or confirmation of , the intelligible methods of criticism .sx We shall attempt no more than a summary account of several tendencies in the history of criticism , briefly noticing some important contributions to its rational tradition .sx This means that we shall be concerned with critics who have been at least aware that there is such a thing as literary theory , even though they may not have been inclined to formulate it ; similarly , we shall only mention theorists whose doctrines have proved , in one way or another , of value to criticism .sx Horace is typical of the critic who has a method , which he is prepared to set out .sx in a more or less systematic body of rules , independent of actual cases of the critical estimation of literature .sx Such a method evidently supposes a theory underlying it ; but Horace is also typical of the critic who does not trouble to expound his theory ; he is quite content if the rules themselves provide reasonable guidance .sx The theory underlying the Ars Poetica is substantially Aristotle's ; but Horace's interest in it is not in the least philosophical , but purely practical ; he accepts it for what he , as a critic , can make of it .sx Thus the poem is in no sense an argument ; it is a collection of precepts and pieces of advice , somewhat abruptly put together , and always with a connexion that is more poetical than logical .sx For it must be remembered that the Ars Poetica is not primarily a work of criticism ; first and foremost it is a poem a poem on the subject of criticism .sx And the chief value of its subject is in the poetry it urges Horace to write .sx There is more to be learnt from its workmanship than from its precepts .sx Perhaps no poem of comparable length has provided so many phrases that have become the common property of international culture .sx Here is the " purple patch " ; here " Homer nods " ; here the critic exclaims " incredulus odi " ; and here the old man is " laudator temmoris acti .sx " The context of that last phrase is a good instance of the way Horace treats his subject .sx A character , he says , must accord with what we know of life ; it must , for instance , be suited to the supposed age of the person represented .sx And at once he .sx proceeds to a brilliant summary of the changes in human nature with the process of time ; finally arriving at his pregnant , pathetic , and cruel picture of old age .sx He has forgotten all about literary criticism .sx It is the poet who knows the world , and who can distil his knowledge into a quintessence of language , that is writing now .sx But these memorable phrases are not always , in relation to his discussion of criticism , merely ornamental .sx Their real point is sometimes lost when they are removed , not so much from their logical , as from their poetical context .sx When an author seizes on an opportunity for fine writing , we talk of a " purple patch .sx " But that is not quite what Horace meant .sx