Editing Deus ex machina (section)

===Ancient criticism===
[[Antiphanes (comic poet)|Antiphanes]] was one of the device's earliest critics. He believed that the use of the ''deus ex machina'' was a sign that the playwright was unable to properly manage the complications of his plot.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite journal |last1=Handley |first1=Miriam |title=Shaw's response to the deus ex machina: From the Quintessence of Ibsenism to ''Heartbreak House'' |journal=Theatre: Ancient & Modern, January 1999 Conference | date=January 1999 |isbn=9780749285777 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rfUCAgAACAAJ}}</ref>
{{blockquote|when they don't know what to say

and have completely given up on the play

just like a finger they lift the machine

and the spectators are satisfied. | Antiphanes}}

Another critical reference to the device can be found in [[Plato]]'s dialogue ''[[Cratylus (dialogue)|Cratylus]]'', 425d, though it is made in the context of an argument unrelated to drama.

[[Aristotle]] criticized the device in his ''[[Poetics (Aristotle)|Poetics]]'', where he argued that the resolution of a plot must arise internally, following from previous action of the play:<ref>Janko (1987, 20)</ref>
{{blockquote|In the characters, too, exactly as in the structure of the incidents, [the poet] ought always to seek what is either necessary or probable, so that it is either necessary or probable that a person of such-and-such a sort say or do things of the same sort, and it is either necessary or probable that this [incident] happen after that one. It is obvious that the solutions of plots, too, should come about as a result of the plot itself, and not from a contrivance, as in the ''Medea'' and in the passage about sailing home in the ''[[Iliad]]''. A contrivance must be used for matters outside the drama — either previous events, which are beyond human knowledge, or later ones that need to be foretold or announced. For we grant that the gods can see everything. There should be nothing improbable in the incidents; otherwise, it should be outside the tragedy, e.g., that in [[Sophocles]]' ''[[Oedipus Rex|Oedipus]]''. |''[[Poetics (Aristotle)|Poetics]]'' |(1454a33–1454b9) }}

Aristotle praised Euripides, however, for generally ending his plays with bad fortune, which he viewed as correct in tragedy, and somewhat excused the intervention of a deity by suggesting that "astonishment" should be sought in tragic drama:<ref>''Poetics'' 11.5, Penguin (1996, 45).</ref>
{{blockquote|Irrationalities should be referred to what people say: That is one solution, and also sometimes that it is not irrational, since it is probable that improbable things will happen.}}

Such a device was referred to by [[Horace]] in his ''[[Ars Poetica (Horace)|Ars Poetica]]'' (lines 191–2), where he instructs poets that they should never resort to a "god from the machine" to resolve their plots "unless a difficulty worthy of a god's unraveling should happen" [''nec deus intersit, nisi dignus uindice nodus inciderit; nec quarta loqui persona laboret''].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/essay/237830?page=3 |title=Ars Poetica by Horace |date=21 September 2017 |website=Poetry Foundation}}</ref>