Poetics (Penguin Classics) by Aristotle

Author:Aristotle
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780141906263
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1996-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

14. Reference conventions

Like many translators of the Poetics I have divided the text into sections and sub-sections to help the reader follow the structure of Aristotle’s exposition. These divisions, and the accompanying section-headings, are not part of the transmitted text and have no authoritative status. Nor do they correspond to any traditional or commonly accepted way of dividing the text, so they are of no use in giving references. For this purpose the reader should note the two series of numbers in the margin of this translation, relating to the two conventional ways of giving references in Aristotle.

One series (in roman type) runs from 1 to 26: these are the chapters. The chapter divisions do not go back to Aristotle and are not always very sensible, but they do provide one convenient and commonly accepted set of ‘broad-brush’ references.

The other series (in italics) runs from 47a to 62b: these refer to pages and columns in the nineteenth-century edition of Aristotle by Immanuel Bekker. Bekker’s pages were wide enough to have two columns; so each page is divided into columns a and b. Strictly speaking, the Bekker pages for the Poetics run from 1447a to 1462b, but the abbreviated form is often used when it is clear from the context that the reference is to the Poetics rather than to one of Aristotle’s other works. It is possible to give references with great precision by adding line-numbers to the Bekker pages and columns (for example, Aristophanes is named in chapter 3 at 48a27); for this reason modern editions conventionally give Bekker page and column numbers in the margins. There are usually about 38 lines in a Bekker column, although the number does vary.

References to Aristotle’s other works are likewise given either by book and chapter, or by page, column and line in Bekker.

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