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Poetics I, xvi-xviii

4.3.3 The poet should construct his plots in outline first

“As for his stories, both those [already] made up and those he composes himself, he should set them out as universals, and only then introduce episodes, i.e. extend them. I mean that he might investigate what is universal in them in the following way, e.g. [the story] of Iphigeneia: "a girl has been sacrificed and disappears in a way unclear to the people who sacrificed her. She is set down in another country, where there is a law that foreigners must be sacrificed to the goddess; this is the priesthood she is given. Some time later it turns out that the priestess' brother arrives…”

The fact that the oracle commanded him to go there, for some reason that is not a universal, and his purpose [in going], are outside the plot. "After he arrives, he is captured. When he is about to be sacrificed [by his sister], he makes himself known [to her]", either as Euripides or as Polyidus arranged it, "by saying as would be probable that it was not only his sister's fate to be sacrificed, but his own too. This leads to the rescue." After this [the poet] should now supply the names and introduce episodes. Take care that the episodes are particular [to the story], e.g. in Orestes' case his madness through which he is captured, and his rescue by means of the purification.

In dramas the episodes are brief, but epic is lengthened out with them. The story of the Odyssey is not long: "someone has been away from home for many years, with Poseidon on the watch for him, and he is alone. Moreover affairs at home are such that his wealth is being consumed by [his wife's] suitors, and his son is being plotted against [by them]. He arrives after much distress, makes himself known to some people, and at-tacks. He is rescued, his enemies annihilated." This is what is proper [to the Odyssey]; its other [parts] are episodes.”

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