Nonactable

In classifying epics, in effect, as nonactable forms of tragedy, Aristotle was following in the footsteps of Plato in the Theaetetus, where Socrates remarks that the chief poets in the two kinds of poetry are Epicharmus in comedy and Homer in tragedy.

This distinction between nonactable and actable actions echoes our earlier distinction between showing and telling.

It is time to stop paying attention to nonactable suggestions and begin to define the character.