He first defines his scheme as dealing with poetry itself and its various kinds, with their essential parts, with the [Sidenote: _Abstract of the_ Poetics.] structure of the plot, the number and nature of the parts, and the rest of poetic method. Then he lays it down that Epic, Tragedy, Comedy, Dithyrambic, as well as _auletice_ and _kitharistice_ generally, are _mimesis_—"imitation," as it is generally translated—but that they differ in the medium, the objects, and the manner of that imitation. And after glancing at music and dancing as non-literary mimetic arts, he turns to the art which imitates by language alone. Here he meets a difficulty: there is, he thinks, no common name which will suit the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus, the “Socratic dialogues,” and iambic or elegiac _mimesis_. He objects strongly to the idea that metre makes the poet, and produces instances, among which the most striking is his refusal of the name poet to Empedocles. Having disposed of the _medium_—rhythm, metre, &c.—he turns to the objects. Here he has no doubt: the _objects_ of mimesis are men in action, and we must represent them as “better than life” (heroic or idealising representation), as they are (realistic), or worse (caricature or satire). The _manner_ does not seem to suggest to him much greater diversity than that of epic (or direct narrative), and dramatic, as to the latter of which he has a slight historical excursus. Then he philosophises. Poetry, he says, has two causes: one the instinct of imitation, with the pleasure attached to it; the other, the instinct for harmony. And then he again becomes historical, and reviews briefly Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles, and the progress of poetry under them.