Discourse or Letter on the Composition of Comedies and Tragedies

To Mr. Giulio Ponzio Ponzoni

Beautiful and praiseworthy, Mr. Giulio, is the desire you had to compose tragedies, given that of all the compositions we undertake, and that were first made by the ancients, both Greeks and Latins, there is none that approaches tragedy in gravity. As this wish of yours has pleased me enormously, so I am equally happy that you did not wish to proceed (as I see many doing today) without knowing the art of such composition. You have asked me to set down in writing what on other occasions I told you regarding the composition of comedies and tragedies. Although no one has discussed this subject in our language, nor has undertaken to explain Aristotle's Poetics—which is as incredibly difficult as it is extremely useful—the great affection that I have for you has made me take up the pen to satisfy you as much as I can. In addition, it will give me the pleasure of seeing some fruit from the seeds that I have implanted in your gentle mind. Not that you should expect to have here all that Aristotle says and recommends about dramatic matters, but only as much as seems to me suitable for a familiar letter, and a brief introduction. About the rest we will speak of more fully when I explain Sophocles' Oedipus tyrannus and compare it (as you have asked me to do) to Seneca's, all the artifice of which we'll be able to discover, with Aristotle's Poetics in hand. At the beginning of this study I'll do the same concerning comedies, when I will explain Terence's Andria to you and other students of mine, as I promised. In the meantime, before proceeding further, it would be best to mention what tragedy and comedy have in common. Then, that done, beginning with the basic principles of each, I will go over, in the course of the letter, everything that seems necessary for you to know now.

The imitation of an action is one feature that comedy and tragedy have in common; but they are different, in that tragedy imitates an illustrious and royal action and comedy an ordinary and private one, which is why Aristotle claimed that comedy imitated worse actions. He didn't mean by this that it should imitate vile and vicious actions but less illustrious ones, which, in terms of nobility, are worse if they are compared with royal ones. Both actions should be complete, and given proper size as they are brought to an end (I said proper size because if the actions are smaller than they should be they cannot be beautiful) since there is no beauty in things that are of lesser size than what is appropriate for their kind; and if they are too extended (beside being disproportionate, and thus not beautiful) they bore the auditors. The appropriate size of each then will be, for tragedy, when the action will have progressed from a state of unhappiness to one of happiness, or else from happiness to wretchedness without interposing any unrelated matters in between; and for comedy when, thanks to the poet's wit, the action will have progressed by proper means from disorders and troubles to peace and tranquillity. And if you wish to know the ascribed time for the entire representation, I say that we don't have it the way the ancients did, for whom the duration was determined at the public games by a water clock, which was called a "clepsidra." But I deem it a good thing for the poet to measure time with his judgment, in such a way that he ends the play without annoying the spectators. I believe that the representation of a comedy calls for no less than three hours, and tragedy no less than four. I saw, from the plays I composed, that such duration was appropriate for one and the other genre because the attention of the auditors indicated to me that the representation onstage for those stretches of time did not seem...