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The Influence of Rhetoric on Fourth-Century Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Georgia Xanthakis-Karamanos
Georgia Xanthakis-Karamanos
Affiliation:
Athens
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Extract

The predominance of the rhetorical spirit in fourth-century tragedy has often been remarked: Aristotle himself explicitly attests the rhetorical character of contemporary dramatic compositions when he says (Poet. 6, 1450b4–8) that the older poets used to present the dramatis personae speaking like statesmen

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , May 1979 , pp. 66 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1979

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References

page 66 note 1 The statement cannot be taken strictly, since it is unthinkable that Sophocles, for instance, represented his characters talking like statesmen. probably implies, as Else, G. F., Aristotle's Poetics: The Argument (Leiden, 1957), pp. 265 f.,CrossRefGoogle Scholar suggests, the combined arts of Ethics and Politics; cf. Lucas's note on 1450b6.

page 66 note 2 thought, is defined in Poet. 6, 1450a6 f. and 1450b11 f. as demonstration with arguments, and dealing with generalizations, on practical questions of ordinary life: cf. the notes by Else (pp.273 f.) and Lucas ad loc. (1450b12); in the fuller exposition, 19,1456a34–b8, the stirring of emotions is added as a third category of in the Poetics, Dale, A. M., Collected Papers, (Cambridge, 1969), pp.139–55.Google Scholar applies to and is contrasted with (i.e. of moral purpose) in Rhet. 3.16, 1417a24 f. On functions in the Rhetoric as compared with those in the Poetics see Dale, , op. cit., p.150.Google Scholar

page 66 note 3 For Sophocles' steady development of character-portrayal note the Anon. V. Soph. 21

page 66 note 4 Euripides is often classed among the ‘moderns’’ in the Poetics: apart from the present case (1450b8, cf. Bywater and Lucas ad loc, Atkins, J. W. H., Literary Criticism in Antiquity (Cambridge, 1934), 1.114),Google Scholar note also 1450a25 (with Bywater's note ad loc.); but in 13, 1453a18 ff. Else, , op. cit., p.390,Google Scholar seems to be right to include Sophocles and in 14, 1453b28 Euripides appears to be included in cf. Denniston, J. D., CR 43 (1929), 60,Google ScholarElse, , op. cit., p.418 n.29.Google Scholar

page 67 note 1 Especially in early plays, like the Medea, Alcestis, Hippolytus. Nevertheless, the rhetorical features of Euripidean tragedy are recognized by ancient authorities: Ar. Pax 534, Quintil. 10.1.68, Dio Chrys. or. 18.

page 67 note 2 used (Poet. 6, 1450a25) for character-portrayal in fourth-century tragedy seems unlikely to mean ‘completely characterless’’. It most likely implies the indisputable decline in full delineation of character which started from the later plays of Euripides; cf. Lucas on 1450a24.

page 67 note 3 Sud. s.v. a4265 (Hsch.) …

page 67 note 4 Sud. s.v. a4556 (Hsch.); [Plut.] vit.X orat. 4.16.838 B, 839 C: A. wrote rhetorical speeches and won an (change of fortune) procedure.

page 67 note 5 Sud. s.v. θ 138 (Hsch.) … Steph. Byz. s.v. [Plut.] op. cit. 837Google Scholar C; Phot, . bibl. 260 p.486 b 40.Google Scholar

page 67 note 6 Cf. Pfeiffer, R., History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford, 1968), pp.46 f.Google Scholar

page 67 note 7 Cf. Aristotle in Quintil. 3.1.13, Cic. Or. 176.

page 67 note 8 Cf. 5.27, 13.16, 15.47: Isocrates on his own style. For his adaptation and development of the structure and style of Gorgias' speeches see Webster, , Art and Literature in Fourth Century Athens, pp.12 f.;Google Scholar for his corrections of Gorgias' views, intended as an answer to Plato's criticism against rhetoric, see recently Romilly, J., Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Harvard, 1975), pp.52 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 67 note 9 See above, notes 3, 5.

page 67 note 10 Cf. Chaeremon's fragments and some other pleasantly written ones, like Theodect. 6, 8, Astyd. 5, 8, Moschion 4, 6, 7, 9, Care. 5N2. See recently G. Xanthakis-Karamanos, , 'Studies in Fourth Century Tragedy (Ph.D. Thesis, U.C.L., 1976), Chs. V, VI.Google Scholar

page 67 note 11 L' dans la tragédie grecque 2, pp.105 f.

page 68 note 1 On the style of Moschion and Chaeremon see G. Xanthakis-Karamanos, op. cit., in the commentaries on the fragments from their plays. For an earlier discussion on Chaeremon cf. Collard, C., JHS 90 (1970), 22–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 68 note 2 Rhet. 3.1, 1404a28ff.

page 68 note 3 Poet. 11, 1458a18 ff.; ibid. 2, 1448all f. We are told that Cleophon's characters were on the level of everyday people, his work being put under the head of verse without music, a kind approaching prose writing (cf. 1, 1447a29 In Rhet. 3.7, 1408a14 f., his compositions, lacking the adaptation of language to subject, are said to have had the appearance of mere comedy.

page 68 note 4 Rhet. 3.2, 1404b24 f. Cf. also the author of the On the Sublime, 40.2, who remarked that Euripides only by the composition of words, using common language, achieves dignity, distinction, and an effect of grandeur. However, Euripides' smooth style is considered to be difficult to imitate: A.P. vii 50.1–4.Google Scholar On this drastic change in tragic diction cf. also Ar. Ran. 939–41, 959.

page 68 note 5 Cf. Else, , Op. cit., p.566.Google Scholar

page 68 note 6 Arist. fr. 133 R2 (Teubner, Stuttgart, 1966) = Anon, proleg. rhetor. VI. 19W, VII. 33W.

page 69 note 1 Hermes 82 (1954), 308;Google Scholar cf. Art and Literature in Fourth Century Athens 2, pp.67 f.Google Scholar

page 69 note 2 Cf. also Quintil. 10.1.68, Dio Chrys. or. 18.

page 69 note 3 On the systematic study of emotions by Gorgias and other masters of rhetoric as well as on the assimilation of rhetoric to poetry and their reciprocal influence see Romilly, , op. cit., pp.5 ff.Google Scholar

page 69 note 4 260 a, 260 c; in 261 a and 271 c denotes the method of influencing mens minds. On this term and its application in magic, tragedy, and rhetoric see Romilly, , op. cit., pp.15, 74.Google Scholar

page 69 note 5 In 2.1, 1377b23 f. the phrase means ‘to establish (i.e. the orator) a certain character in and by the speech, and a certain feeling in the minds of the judges’’ (Cope ad loc.). The various emotional situations created in the souls of the listeners are analysed (1–11); among them, fear (2.5, 1382a21 ff.) and pity (2.8, 1385b13 ff., 1386a5 ff.). In the third book (13–19) there are enumerated the basic feelings which each part of a rhetorical speech should arouse.

page 69 note 6 Cicero (Or. 172) praises Theodectes as an orator.

page 70 note 1 E. M. Cope, n. ad loc.

page 70 note 2 Snell, TGF, quoting the fragment (p.232), has assumed from the context as a second line

page 70 note 3 The concept is archaic tracing its origin from Athena's birth from Zeus (A. Eum. 664 ff., 736 ff.); it provides a common dramatic motif (note esp. the justification of Orestes’’ act in A. Eum. 625 ff., 602, 606, 658 ff., E. Or. 552–4, 562–3), and is also reflected in fourth-century rhetorical texts (Is. iii.64, x.19; Dem, . Neair. (lxi) 122).Google Scholar

page 71 note 1 The same sensitivity seems to be reflected also in other fourth-century plays which involve remarkable deviations from fifth-century dramatic treatments: see below p.74 and n.4.

page 71 note 2 On this form of debate, which is frequent in Sophocles and Euripides, see Duchemin, , op. cit., pp.217 ff.Google Scholar

page 71 note 3 Note the in E. Hel. 865–1029: Duchemin, , op. cit., p.75Google Scholar and n.2, Collard, C., GR 22 (1975), 69.Google Scholar On the question in general see also Dale, , op. cit., p.151.Google Scholar

page 71 note 4 E.Alcmeon according to Leo, F., Gesch. röm. Lit. (1967), p.396.Google Scholar

page 71 note 5 Snell, , TGF, pp.119, 216Google Scholar (on the plays by Achaeus and Chaeremon), Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., New Chapters iii.75Google Scholar (on Timotheus' Alphesiboea).

page 72 note 1 For the competition between these heroes in a purely rhetorical form cf. the fictitious orations and by Antisthenes the Sophist in Art. Script. B XIX 11.12 Raderm.; see Pfeiffer, , op. cit., p.37 and n.2.Google Scholar

page 73 note 1 On the attribution esp. of fr. 7 to the Pheraioi cf. Duchemin, , op. cit., p. 106,Google Scholar and for the ascription of also the passage on progress to this play cf. Ribbeck, O., RhM 30 (1875), 159,Google ScholarRavenna, O., RSA 7 (1903), 762 ff.Google Scholar

page 73 note 2 Thus Meineke, A., Monatsher. Berl. Akad. Sitzung der phil. histor. Klasse (1855), p.106.Google Scholar

page 73 note 3 Ribbeck, , op. cit., pp.155 ff.;Google ScholarSchramm, F., Tragicorum graecorum hellenisticae quae dicitur aetatis fragments (Diss. Münster, 1929), p.68;Google Scholar C. Del Grande, pp.188 ff.

page 73 note 4 p.71.

page 74 note 1 On the other hand, Pausanias, 2.19.6, quotes a version in which Hypermestra, and not Lynceus, was brought to justice by Danaus because of her disobedience.

page 74 note 2 A picture on a Lucanian vase of the second quarter of the fourth century B.C. (Trendall, A. D. and Webster, T. B. L., Illustrations of Greek Drama (London, 1971), iii.6.3),Google Scholar which shows at the foot of an Ionic column a bearded man in stage costume (Danaus?) about to be slain by a negroid-looking youth with a sword (Lynceus?) while a woman and a boy (Hypermestra, Abas?–the son of the couple) carry off pieces of a throne, may illustrate the dethronement and murder of Danaus. For Danaus' throne in the temple of Apollo Lycius see Paus. 2.19.5, and for his column ibid. 2.19.7.

page 74 note 3 Cf. the associated passage in Poet. 14, 1453b27–39.

page 74 note 4 p.71. Further similar deviations in fourth-century tragedy point to this mild sentimentality. In Astydamas' Alcmeon the hero killed his mother not consciously, as in fifth-century treatments of the story, but in ignorance of her identity, and recognized the relationship afterwards (Poet. 14, 1453b29–34). In Carcinus' Alope Cercyon, Alope's father, instead of killing his daughter for having been seduced, as in Euripides' play, committed suicide (E.N. 7.8, 1150b6 ff., with the scholiasts' notes ad loc). See also Xanthakis-Karamanos, G., op. cit., Ch. II.Google Scholar

page 74 note 5 According to various traditions Medea's children were killed by the Corinthians who either were impatient of obeying a foreign sorceress or wished to avenge the murder of Creon and Glauke: ∑ E. Med. 9, 264; Paus. 2.3.6; Apollod. 1.9.28. Cf. Page, D. L., Euripides Medea (Oxford, 1961), pp.xxiii–XXV.Google Scholar

page 75 note 1 Cf. Duchemin, , op. cit., p. 106;Google ScholarSnell, , TGF, ad loc., p.231:Google Scholar ‘Helena captiva loqui videtur’’.

page 75 note 2 Cf. Duchemin, loc. cit.

page 75 note 3 Snell, (TGF, p.235Google Scholar n.10) assumed the Alcmeon, and Grande, C. Del (Dioniso (1934), pp.200, 209) the Orestes. But neither the mythological sources nor the dramatic treatments of the stories of Alcmeon and Orestes allude to a debate involving three persons and in such a relation as that which is explicitly referred to in our fragment.Google Scholar

page 76 note 1 The pronoun may have been omitted either for metrical reasons or for euphony, since it occurs both in the previous and the next verse. Moreover, often in tragedy, occurs without –or any other pronoun–whenever the meaning allows it; cf. E. Alc. 36, 233, 464, Andr. 8–9, 33, 205,456, Tr. 730, El. 61.