Note 7 — SUPPLEMENT TO ARISTOTLE’S POETICS[7]

“I have just re-read the Poetics of Aristotle with the greatest pleasure; intelligence in its highest manifestation is a fine thing. It is really remarkable how Aristotle limits himself entirely to experience, and so appears, if perhaps somewhat material, for the most part all the more solid. It was also stimulating to me to see with what liberality he always shields the poet against the fault-finders and the hypercritical, how he always insists on essentials, and in everything else is so lax that in more than one place I was simply amazed. It is this that makes his whole view of poetry, and especially of his favorite forms, so vivifying that I shall soon take up the book again, especially in regard to some important passages which are not quite clear and the meaning of which I wish to investigate further.”—Goethe to Schiller, April 28, 1797.