To speak more plainly, Music is
inferior to Poetry because, of any two melodies in its counterpoint,
both may be (and in practice are) emotional and vague: while of any two
melodies in the counterpoint of Poetry one must convey thought and
therefore be intelligible. And, to speak summarily, Poetry surpasses
Music because it carries its explanation, whereas the meaning of a
_concerto_ has to be interpreted into dull words on a programme.
We have arrived at this, then; that Poetry's chief function is to
reconcile the inner harmony of Man (his Soul, as we call it) with the
outer harmony of the Universe. With this conception of "peerless Poesie"
in our minds, we turn to Aristotle's _Poetics_, and it gives us a
sensible shock to read on the first page, that "Epic Poetry and Tragedy,
Comedy also and dithyrambic Poetry, and the greater part of the music of
the flute and of the lyre are all, generally speaking, modes of
imitation" ([Greek: _pasai tynchhanoysin ohysai mimheseis to hynolon_]).
"What?" we say--"Nothing better than _that_?"--for "imitation" has a bad
name among men and is apt to suggest the ape. But, first bearing in mind
that there are imitations and imitations (the _Imitatio Christi_ among
them), let us go on to see what it is that in Aristotle's opinion Poetry
imitates or copies.
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