Imitation mimēsis does not refer to malicious distortion or vilification, nor does it mean copying life or eating prototypes alive, but a carefully organized artistic activity centered on the performance of characters.

There are three differences in imitation: medium, object, and method.

Art imitates through media

Impersonators represent people in action, and the characters they describe are either better than us, worse than us, or equal to us.

Comedy tends to show people who are worse than people today, tragedy tends to show people who are better than people today

People can use different expressions of the same medium to imitate the same object

The imitator must choose the object of imitation from the following three things: 1. Past or present events 2. Legends or imagined events 3. Things that should be like this or that

There are two reasons for the emergence of poetry. 1. People are born with a unique ability to imitate and obtain their initial knowledge from imitation. 2. Everyone can get pleasure from the results of imitation.

The development of poetry forms two categories according to the different personalities of the authors. Some become heroic poets, and some become satirical poets.

The poet's duty is not to describe what has happened, but to describe what might have happened, that is, what might have happened on the basis of probability or necessity.

Because poetry tends to express universal things, while history tends to record specific events. The so-called "universal things" refer to things that a certain type of person may say or do based on the principle of probability or necessity.

In the parts of the work that are flat and relaxed and do not express character and thoughts, poets should work more on their words, because in the opposite case, too gorgeous words will obscure the expression of character and thoughts.

Errors related to the art of poetry itself can be divided into two categories: one is an error in the art itself, and the other is accidental.

People's criticisms are divided into five categories, that is, the poet describes things that are impossible, irrational, harmful, inconsistent and technically inappropriate.

Later came tragedy and comedy, which were higher and more popular in form than satire and epic.

Tragedy - and comedy too - grew out of improvisation, went through many evolutions, and ceased development when it acquired its natural properties.

Comedy imitates bad people; these people are not evil-doing gangsters - funny is just an expression of ugliness

Tragedy has all the elements of epic, but epic does not have all the elements of tragedy

Tragedy must include the following six elements that determine its nature, namely plot, character, speech, thought, scene and aria

The combination of events is the most important of the ingredients, because tragedy imitates not people but actions and life.

Thought refers to the ability to express opinions appropriately and appropriately

Speech refers to the use of words to express meaning, and its potential is the same in poetry as in prose.

Fear and pity can come from the scene, or they can come from the construction of the plot itself. The latter method is better.

Whether it is a living animal or any whole composed of parts, if it is to appear beautiful, it must meet the following two conditions, that is, not only the arrangement of the various parts of the body must be appropriate, but also it must have a certain volume that is not obtained by accident. , because beauty depends on volume and order

From the perspective that the nature of things determines their limits, as long as the plot is clear and clear, the longer the page, the better, because length can accommodate as much beauty as possible.

If the presence or absence of an object in the whole does not make a significant difference, then it is not part of the whole.