Fear and pity sometimes result from the spectacle and are sometimes aroused by the actual arrangement of the incidents, which is preferable and the mark of a better poet.

The plot should be so constructed that even without seeing the play anyone hearing of the incidents happening thrills with fear and pity as a result of what occurs. So would anyone feel who heard the story of Oedipus.

To produce this effect by means of an appeal to the eye is inartistic and needs adventitious aid,

while those who by such means produce an effect which is not fearful but merely monstrous have nothing in common with tragedy.that here were plays which relied for their effect on the scenery and make up is clear from chapter 17:—The Phorcides and Prometheus and Scenes laid in Hades. It was even possible to produce the so badly as to bring it into this category. But Aristotle’s criticism here includes the more important point that the poignancy of a Greek tragedy is due to what happens and not to our seeing it happen. That Medea murders her children is tragic: to display the murder coram populo would add either nothing or something merely monstrous. And although Sophocles shows Oedipus with his eyes out, it is the fact and not the sight which is properly tragic. For one should not seek from tragedy all kinds of pleasure but that which is peculiar to tragedy,

and since the poet must by representation produce the pleasure which comes from feeling pity and fear, obviously this quality must be embodied in the incidents.