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Plato and Aristotle on the denial of tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

Stephen Halliwell
Stephen Halliwell
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
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When Plato's and Aristotle's views on poetry are juxtaposed, it is usually for the purpose of contrast. Nowhere does the contrast seem to be so sharp as in the case of tragedy, by which both philosophers, agreeing in this at least, rightly meant Homer's Iliad as well as the plays of the Attic genre specifically given the name. While Plato made tragedy the target of his most fervent attacks on poetry, Aristotle devoted the major part of the Poetics to a reconsideration of the genre, in a sympathetic attempt, it is normally agreed, to defend it against Plato's strictures, and to restore to it some degree of valuable independence. The apparently fundamental opposition between the philosophers’ responses to tragedy can be regarded as expressive of divergent presuppositions about the status of poetry as a whole in relation to other components of culture: on the one side, the presupposition of Platonic moralism, by which poetry is subjected to judgement in terms of values, both cognitive and moral, which lie outside itself; and, on the other, of Aristotelian formalism, according to which autonomy can be established for poetry by turning the criteria of poetic excellence into standards internal and intrinsic to poetry's own forms. As Aristotle himself puts the point, in one of the Poetics’ more suggestive pronouncements, ‘correctness in poetry is not the same as correctness in politics or in any other art.’ Here, as often, an implicit response to Plato can be detected.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 30 , 1984 , pp. 49 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1984

References

NOTES

I am grateful to all those who commented on this paper when it was delivered to the Society, and particularly to Myles Burnyeat for some subsequent criticisms.

1. Plato Rep. 595c, 602b, 605d, 607a, Theaet. 152e, Ar. Poet. 1448b 38-9 (where the Odyssey too is included: cf. n. 45 below), 1459b 2-4, 7-16. The idea influenced later scholars, as the Homeric scholia show: Richardson, N. J., CQ 30 (1980) 270CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Ch. 25, 1460b 13-15.

3. Cf. p. 57 and n. 31 below on the same word at Phaedo 115a.

4. For a summary of the known plays see Else, G. F., Aristotle's Poetics: the argument (1957) 395–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Sophocles’ plays cf. Pearson, A. C., The fragments of Sophocles I (1917) 91–3, 185–7Google Scholar.

5. 1453a 11 and 21; cf. 1454b 23.

6. Laws 838c 3-7 (for similar language used of tragedy cf. Gorg. 502b). Plato similarly moralises certain tragic myths at Laws 931 b-c.

7. Rep. 380a-b, where Aeschylean ἄτη is rejected.

8. Rep. 605c-d, 606b, 619c, and cf. 387-8.

9. For an analysis of the tension see Annas, J., ‘Plato's myths of judgement’, Phronesis 27 (1982) 131–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. The comparison with Heraclitus' ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων (fr. 119 DK) has often been remarked, but there is a difference between the pointed paradox and Plato's elaborate eschatology. For an interplay of the soul's choice and destiny cf. Laws 903b-5d, esp. 904c 6-9.

11. At Phaedo 107d, 108b, 113d Plato keeps to the idea of a daimon allotted to a person. Elsewhere he often uses δαίμων in traditional senses: e.g. Rep. 468e-9a, Laws 713d, 717b, 730a, 738d etc. On Tim. 90a see Dodds, E. R., The Greeks and the irrational (1951) 213Google Scholar with n. 31.

12. On these and related terms cf. Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Sophocles: an interpretation (1980) 150–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. At Laws 957e4 the vices of the wicked are described as ‘truly fated’ (ὄντως ἐπικεκλωσμέναι).

13. See also Il. 3.164, 19.409-10, and Od. 1.32, where Aegisthus, like the hasty souls of Rep. 10, ignores a warning: cf. Dover, K. J., JHS 103 (1983) 43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Rep. 378d, 380a-b, 392a-b, (cf. 364), Laws 660e-661c. Plato believes that the equation between justice and happiness would be worth asserting even as a lie: Laws 663c-d, and the corollary at Rep. 378a.

15. Sympathy for undeserved misfortune is touched on at Laws 936b, for orphans at 926e, for strangers at 729e6, for the unjust man (n.b.) at 731c-d and Gorg. 469a-b, and for the prisoners in the cave at Rep. 516c6. Socrates renounces pleas for pity at Apol. 34-5, tragic pity (cf. Ion 535b-c) is rejected at Rep. 387d and 606b, and at Laws 757e τὸ σύγγνωμον is said to clash with strict δίκη.

16. If one were looking for consistency, one could say that the hasty soul's tyranny belongs to the fallen type mentioned at 618a5-7, as opposed to τὰς διατελεῖς (618a5).

17. Cf. Laws 804b with the preceding passage.

18. Kuhn, H., ‘The true tragedy: on the relationship between Greek tragedy and Plato’, HSCP 52(1941) 12Google Scholar: Plato's objection to mourning ‘is tantamount to a negation of the essence of tragedy. Tragic lament and tragic suffering are … inseparable’. This has some validity for Greek culture, with its strong emphasis on rituals of mourning, though it would not be universally so. Kuhn's article (with a second, HSCP 53 (1942) 37–88Google Scholar) contains much that is stimulating and germane to my argument, though a great deal is too speculative.

19. See e.g. Epist. 7.334e, Rep. 585b-d, Laws 959c (a corpse is τῶν σαρκῶν ὄγκος, on which mourning is wasted).

20. Rep. 605-6; 603e refers back to 387-8.

21. Esp. 387e9, 388a6, b4, 605dl, 606bl.

22. Rep. 473d-e, 501e, and cf. Epist. 7. 326a-b.

23. Rep. 379d, cf. Laws 906a.

24. E.g. Laws 873c, 924a and d, 926e, 928a, 929e, 936b, 944d.

25. The dialogues of Plato ed. 4 (1953) II 406Google Scholar. Kuhn, 25, more aptly calls the Phaedo an ‘anti-tragedy’, though even this needs qualification.

26. This is not to suggest that pious attempts to assimilate Plato to Christianity, such as that of Ardley, G., ‘Plato as tragedian’, Philosophical Studies 12 (1963) 7–24Google Scholar, are anything but misplaced.

27. Phaedo 88c: later doubts at 103c and 107b.

28. Cf. e.g. Illiad 6.407-13, Soph. O.T. 1071-2, Eurip. Ale. 270-71, Hec. 202-4, 409-14, Tro. 740-41, 761.

29. See Socrates’ later explanation of his dismissal of the women, 117d-e, with the references at Rep. 387e and 605e to giving tragic laments to women. On mourning before death as a bad omen cf. Alexiou, M., The ritual lament in Greek tradition (1974) 4–5Google Scholar.

30. Note also the restrictions on mourning at Laws 947b-c, 959e-60a. Socrates’ decision to wash his body before death, 116a, is a gesture against a normal funereal procedure: see e.g. Il. 18.343-53, 23.41-2, Soph. Antig. 901, El. 1139, O.C. 1602-3. At Phaedo 84e-5a Socrates denies the lamentations of swans, nightingales etc. – common poetic symbols: e.g. Od. 19.518-23, Hesiod W.D. 568-9, Aesch. Agam. 1142-5, Soph. El. 107, 147-9, 1077, Eurip. El. 151-5, Phaethon 67-70 (Diggle), and cf. the choice of a swan's and nightingale's life by the grieving bards, Orpheus and Thamyras, in the Myth of Er, Rep. 620a.

31. ἀνὴρ τραγικός is taken by Burnet and Hackforth to mean a character in tragedy, but it could equally well mean a tragedian or ‘someone using tragic language’: cf. the metaphorical τραγικῶς λέγειν at Rep. 413b and 545e. Hegelochus, a tragic actor, is called ὁ τραγικός in Sannyrion fr. 8 (Kock, CAF I 794Google Scholar). εἱμαρμένη in the present passage reinforces my earlier argument that the hasty soul's case in Rep. 10 is intended to carry a tragic echo.

32. Cf. Tarrant, D., ‘Plato as dramatist’, JHS 75 (1955) 82–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. It should be noted that Phaedo feels no pity but a mixture of pleasure and pain at the start, 58e-9b, yet the effect of the whole dialogue is to elicit his self-pity at the loss of Socrates.

34. The Phaedo's myth contains echoes of Homer: see Burnet's notes on 112a2-4, e5, 113b3, e2. For the earlier references to μυθολογία (Plato's standard conception of poetry: cf. p. 59 and n. 38 below) see Phaedo 61b4-5, e2,70b6. On Plato's philosophical μουσική cf. Dalfen, J., Polis und Poiesis (1974) 287–304Google Scholar.

35. In the reference to Ajax there may be a humorous inversion of Odysseus's experience at Od. 11.543-64, which is echoed in the Myth of Er, Rep. 620b.

36. This and many other points in the second half of this paper will be dealt with more fully in my forthcoming book on the Poetics.

37. Lucas, D. W., Aristotle: Poetics (1968) 239Google Scholar. Lucas xxii (‘nor is he concerned…’) offers a representative judgement of the kind which it is my aim to qualify.

38. Cf. n. 34 above, and e.g. Rep. 378e3, 380c2, 392d2, 394b9-10, Laws 941 b-c.

39. For a concise statement of Aristotle's aesthetic philosophy see Hubbard, M., Ancient literary criticism ed. Russell, D. and Winterbottom, M. (1972) 86–7Google Scholar.

40. This vacillation has been persistently ignored by interpreters of the Poetics, largely in order to allow to ch. 13, where Aristotle commits himself to the δυστυχία-ending, more authority than it merits, and to make ch. 14, where the εὐτυχία-ending is advocated, appear more aberrant than it is. Outside these two chapters the relevant passages are: 1451a13-14, 1452a22-3, 31-2, 1452b2, 1455b28, in all of which the direction of the change is left open.

41. In fact we would expect some difference in the balance of emotions, since fear specifically concerns prospects: E.N. 1115a9, Rhet. 1382a21. Limited pity too can be felt for the prospective (Rhet. 1382b26, 1386bl), but cf. n. 44 below.

42. I believe that the continuity of premises behind the arguments of chs. 13 and 14 has often been underestimated. This is one, though not the only, reason why I cannot accept the common suggestion that Aristotle's focus changes from the plot-structure as a whole in ch. 13 to the πάθος as such in ch. 14.

43. See Plato Rep. 619a4, ἀνήκεστα κακά and LSJ s.v.

44. At Rhet. 2.8.14-16, 1386a-b, it is claimed that the more close-at-hand πάθη are, the more pitiable they become.

45. One need not associate plays such as the I. T. with what Aristotle says in ch. 13, 1453a30-39, and conclude that the former too are quasi-comic. Aristotle thought the ‘double’ plot too morally comfortable, but his account of plays of averted catastrophe does not put them in this category. Interpretation of the end of ch. 13 is anyway difficult, and complicated by the fact that Aristotle here seems to assimilate the Odyssey to comedy, whereas elsewhere (1448b38-9, 1451a24-30, 1454b26-30, 1455a2-4, (?) 1455b16-23, 1459b2-4, 14-15) he tends to treat it, with the Iliad, as quasi-tragic.

46. See esp. E.N. 1.8.15, Rhet. 2.12.2, 2.17.5-6.

47. Ch. 6, 1450a17-20.

48. See esp. E.N. 1.8.15-17 and 1.9.11 for the original acknowledgement, 1.10.9-11 for later misgivings, and 1.10.12-14 for the final concession of the point.

49. The others are: firstly, the antithesis to ὁ σφόδρα πονηρός, 1453al; secondly, the reference back in ὁ μήτε ἀρετῇ διαφέρων., 1453a8.

50. See E.N. 5.8.7, and cf. Stinton, T. CQ 25 (1975) 226CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51. See Phys. 2.196b6-8. Some passages in which τύχη and the gods are connected: Hes. Theog. 360, Hom. Hymn 11.5, Pind. Ol. 8.67, 12.1, Pyth. 8.53, Nem. 6.24, fr. 21 (Bowra), Soph., Phil. 1326Google Scholar, Eurip., H.F. 309, 1393Google Scholar, I.A. 1136, Plato Rep. 619c5.

52. I shall argue elsewhere that the principle of ‘necessity or probability’, on which Aristotle repeatedly insists, is a matter of structural causation, not of mere plausibility, despite a connection with rhetorical εἰκός.

53. Of the six references to the I.T. (1452b6-8, 1454a7, 1454b31-5, 1455a18, 1455b3-12,14-15) only one, the third, contains an element of criticism. The O.T. is cited slightly more often (1452a24-6, (?)33, (?)1453b6-7, 31, 1454b7-8, 1455a18, 1460a29-30, 1462b2-3), but on three occasions (1453b31, 1454b7-8, 1460a29-30) it is noted for a feature less than ideal.

54. Apollo's agency begins before the action of the play, but it is sustained in and through it: cf. I. T. 77-94, 711-23, 936-78, 1438.

55. The exclusion of τὸ ἄλογον (1454b6-7, 1460a28-9, 1461b14-15, 19-20) is the negative counterpart of the requirement for ‘necessity or probability’. It should be noted that divine agency and τὸ ἄλογον are juxtaposed in ch. 15, 1454a37-b8, as comparable defects in what one might call plot-logic.

56. MacIntyre, A., After virtue: a study in moral theory (1981) 153Google Scholar; cf. also 147-8 for some related reflections on tragedy.

57. For some brief but suggestive remarks on the relation between the philosophers’ ethics and tragedy's sense of human insecurity, see Williams, B., The legacy of Greece ed. Finley, M. I. (1981) 252–3Google Scholar: but when he writes of a sense of significances, found in tragedy, which had ‘disappeared … perhaps altogether from their [the philosophers’] minds’, I think Williams overlooks the tensions to be traced precisely in their treatments of tragedy.