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Aristotle and the Best Kind of Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Arthur W. H. Adkins
Affiliation:
Exeter College, Oxford

Extract

The literary criticism of the Greeks and Romans furnishes some of the most baffling documents which have come down to us from antiquity. Nor could it be otherwise. Few elements of language can be at once so ephemeral and so elusive as the overtones of words used in aesthetic contexts; even in our own language it is only with a conscious effort that the appropriate overtones of words used by quite recent critics can be recalled. Such recall must be much more difficult where the reader is concerned with a dead language; in the case of some terms it may well be virtually impossible; but where the ancient critic is discussing ethical criteria for literature, as Aristotle does in Poetics 13, the modern interpreter is in a somewhat better position, for ethical terms are used in wider contexts, contexts which involve action, and there is more opportunity for studying their usage and endeavouring to recapture their elusive overtones

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1966

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References

page 78 note 1 Some passages in Quintilian 10 seem to me to furnish good examples of this.

page 79 note 1 I except the analyses of the terms in the ethical works, where words are sometimes endowed with a precision which they do not possess even elsewhere in the same work; e.g. E.N. 1137a31 ff. is such a passage, but in E.N. 1121b21ff. the usage is ‘ordinary Greek’.

page 80 note 1 Cf. Isocrates, , Antidosis 67.Google Scholar

page 81 note 1 Note that here too are interchangeable.

page 81 note 2 For which cf. Solon 14. 7, Bergk. In the circumstances, the linguistic usage need not be Aristotle's own; but, as will appear later, it is entirely characteristic of his own position.

page 82 note 1 The idea of ‘missing the mark’ is fundamental to Aristotle's usage, as it is to that of the fifth century (for which see p. 87 below). In his philosophical analysis, Aristotle can distinguish between different kinds of ‘missing the mark’; but the word still has its fifth-century range of usage, and for essentially the same reasons.

page 83 note 1 That Aristotle and his circle accepted without proof that the co-operative excellences were is sufficient for my present purpose. In fact, other extant fourth-century writers so used : see Merit and Responsibility chap, xvi, pp. 336 ff.Google Scholar

page 83 note 2 It occurs already in Homer, , e.g. Iliad 23. 246,Google Scholar meaning roughly ‘suitable’; and as early as Herodotus (3. 53) may be contrasted with in the manner of E.N. 1137a31 ff. (and cf. also Soph. Frag. 703 and Eur. Frag. 645 Nauck2). In fifth-century writers it may commend the reasonable or decry the specious, as in Hdt. 2.22. It is used as an in the Aristotelian manner at Thuc. 4. 19, , an ‘advanced’ passage for its date. In its characteristic fifth-century use it is certainly not an , e.g. it is not an in the passages from Herodotus and the tragedians cited above.

page 84 note 1 For the usage of, see my ‘“Friendship” and “Self-sufficiency” in Homer and Aristotle’, C.Q. N.S. xiii (1963), 30 ff.Google Scholar

page 84 note 2 Discussed at greater length in Merit and Responsibility, p. 157.3 Nor is this simply tragic diction: cf. Hdt. 1. 128, 6. 45; Thuc. 5. 99; and for another tragic passage, Eur. Orest. 775 ff.

page 84 note 4 For the normal framework of values, see Merit and Responsibility, chaps, viii, x, xi.

page 84 note 5 S. Elec. 558 ff., Eur. Elec. 1051, Orest. 194. The passages are discussed in Merit and Responsibility, p. 185.

page 85 note 1 This is the traditional -standard as exemplified by the power-politicians of later fifth-century Athens. For a demonstration that it is the traditional standard, see Merit and Responsibility, chap. x.

page 85 note 2 By implication, since the performance of should diminish one's ; but the point might have been difficult to make explicitly, simply because the characteristics of the were so generally agreed: see Merit and Responsibility, pp. 179–181.

page 85 note 3 The point is not relevant to the topic I am discussing here.

page 86 note 1 Orestes speaks the lines, but he seems to speak for Euripides himself. See Merit and Responsibility, pp. 177 and 195 ff.

page 86 note 2 The only extant recorded instance of such a choice made by anyone who held traditional Greek values, whether on the stage or in real life, seems to be that of Prometheus in the P.V., discussed below, p. 88. Socrates' standard of was not the traditional one; but he also believed that the result of his actions was for him, Apol. 41 d.

page 87 note 1 See Merit and Responsibility, chap, xiii ad init.

page 87 note 2 , Crito 46 a 3. , 45 c 7 (and cf. 46 a I) and , 45 d 6, must be in terms of traditional Greek values. , 45 d 6, is to preserve oneself and one's family. Crito is afraid that it will appear for Socrates' friends too that they have not saved him: 45 c 1—46 a 4, cf. Gorg. 484 d ff., 485 e ff.

page 87 note 3 The reasons for this linguistic usage lie beyond the scope of the present paper; but see Merit and Responsibility, pp. 56 f., etc.

page 89 note 1 The distinction between and is useful to Aristotle in his philosophical ethics, but it would be pointless to try to determine which of the bad characters in extant tragedy is and which .

page 90 note 1 is not mentioned in 1452b34, but there must be some cause. The run of the paragraph shows that is more in Aristotle's mind here, but my argument is not affected by the inclusion of accident as another possible cause. The resulting tragedy would be equally .

page 90 note 2 The conclusion that ‘means’ ‘mistake’ in Poetics 13 seems now accepted by most Aristotelians. I find comparison of parallel passages inconclusive by itself, though E.N. 1142a2 (above, p. 82) and Rhet. 1374b5 ff. reinforce the argument offered here.

page 91 note 1 Nor does in the Choephori passage. The usage approximates to Homer's, cf. ‘“Honour” and “Punishment” in the Homeric Poems’, B.I.C.S. vii (1960), 23ff.Google Scholar

page 91 note 2 And cf. Polyxena's , Hecuba 374.

page 92 note 1 The possession of co-operative excellences is not a sufficient, though it is a necessary, condition of a woman's possessing in fifth-century and earlier Greek; see Merit and Responsibility, p. 36 f., 83 (28), 161 f.

page 93 note 1 And see also 3. 53. 4, 3. 54. 3.

page 93 note 2 Herodotus always uses with reference to traditional ; see 1. 73. 5, 1. 114. 4, 7. 9. 1, 7. 10. ∈.

page 93 note 3 Cf. also. e.g., Eur. Phoen. 627 f.

page 94 note 1 The phrase, with the substitution of , is also used by Achilles to refer to the treatment of Iphigenia, Eur. LA. 943.

page 94 note 2 Menelaus claims admittance and help also on the ground that he is a shipwrecked , 449; but this does not affect the argument of the lines quoted here; nor does the fact that Menelaus is in Egypt render the terms in which the argument is conducted less Greek. Cf. also Aesch. P.V. 239 ff.

page 94 note 3 The Thebans attack this claim by saying, 3. 63, that the Plataeans are now grouped with the Athenians against the rest of the Greeks, and that their is irrelevant. They emphasize the present . of the Plataeans to the five Lacedaemonian before whom the speeches are made; and can naturally use with reference to different criteria, 3. 63. 1, .

page 94 note 4 There are occasional exceptions, corresponding to the exceptions in the use of , etc., discussed above. At Soph. Phil. 681 ff.—an ‘advanced’ play, as we have seen already—Philoctetes is suffering ; and the criterion is his not having wronged anyone; and cf. also 438 ff. and 1007 ff.

page 95 note 1 The claim of against heaven is much stronger in Homer. See Merit and Responsibility, p. 38.

page 96 note 1 See above, pp. 83 ff., and Merit and Responsibility, passim.

page 96 note 2 For the rewards expected by the when his involves him in danger and expense, see Merit and Responsibility, chap. x.

page 97 note 1 The position of Polus, that is , but that is , which entails that (disadvantageous) for its possessor, is not a view which, in the context of traditional Greek , can be sustained for a moment; and it is naturally treated with contempt by Plato, Gorgias 474 c 5 ff. (and see Merit and Responsibility, pp. 266 ff.).

page 97 note 2 Above, pp. 79 f.

page 98 note 1 See Merit and Responsibility, chap. xvi.

page 98 note 2 Merit and Responsibility, pp. 342 ff.

page 99 note 1 The difference produced by the new status of is that, even though a man possesses competitive , a breach of the requirements of can now be taken into account, and he becomes , for he has shown himself deficient in an .

page 100 note 1 The is Aristotle's . Such a man has his house set on a rock, E.N. 1101a9ff. In the same passage Aristotle acknowledges that a conjunction of great catastrophes might bring down the ; but he may yet find the portrayal of such an event on the stage , as he does, for the reasons given in the text.

page 100 note 2 Aristotle's equation of with mistake must derive in great part from a feeling that a man of moderate passing from as the result of a moral error would not arouse pity, since his fall would be deserved: he would not be . Any such feeling would certainly have been reinforced by his admiration for the plots associated with Oedipus and Thyestes: Aristotle was well acquainted with fifth-century tragedy, and must have realized that the dramas he admired most had plots which contained important mistakes of fact.

page 102 note 1 This applies also to some specific questions I have been unable to discuss here. For example, I have tried to show that a fifth-century Greek would judge a to be in virtue of his , even if he had committed breaches of co-operative excellences, but ( being relevant only within the group) an in virtue of similar breaches of cooperative excellences. In order to estimate the manner in which the audience would have judged whether or no a character was in the fifth century, it is accordingly necessary to study the manner in which the Greek tragedian induced the audience to identify themselves with particular characters in the drama. Here no generalization is possible; it is necessary to examine the methods used in each individual play, as I have tried to do in the case of the Hecuba and Heracles in a forthcoming article. But the question is irrelevant to this paper; what is relevant here is that no character, generally speaking, is held to be in virtue of his possession of the qualities emphasized by Aristotle in Poetics 13.