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Pathos in the Poetics of Aristotle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

B. R. Rees
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Extract

The past thirty years have brought us much closer to the meaning of many puzzling terms employed by Aristotle in the Poetics. But there are still many whose meaning may never be established with any certainty, partly because of inconsistencies or deficiencies in the argument and partly because of our own ignorance of the dramatic and critical terminology of the fourth century. For example, it is reasonable to assume that the terms used by Aristotle to describe his three μ⋯ρη of tragedy—пεριп⋯τεια, ⋯ναγνώρισις, and п⋯θος—were all part of the technical vocabulary of the contemporary theatre, and that if only we were familiar with that vocabulary, we should not find Aristotle's vagueness and carelessness in explanation such a hindrance to understanding.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , April 1972 , pp. 1 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1972

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References

page 1 note 1 Aristotle's Poetics: the Argument (Harvard, 1957), 356 ff., 414 ff.Google Scholar

page 1 note 2 Aristotle, Poetics (Oxford, 1968), 134f.Google Scholar

page 2 note 1 L'Évolution du pathétique d'Eschyle à Euripide (Paris, 1961)Google Scholar: see especially: 16 and 38, where to pathos is contrasted with to drama.

page 2 note 2 On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy (London, 1962).Google Scholar

page 2 note 3 Bremer, J. M., Hamartia (Amsterdam, 1969), 6f.Google Scholar

page 2 note 4 53b29–32.

page 4 note 1 Else translates and interprets this passage differently.

page 5 note 1 Else, op. cit. 420.

page 5 note 2 The Origin and Early Form of Greek Tragedy (Harvard, 1965), 87 ff.Google Scholar

page 5 note 3 Aristotle's Poetics, 4. 20.

page 6 note 1 Op. cit. 349 f., 414f.

page 7 note 1 Aristotele, Poetica (Turin, 1944), 64.Google Scholar

page 7 note 2 55a28; 59b25.

page 7 note 3 Ar. Pr. 922b17; Dem. xviii. 180.

page 8 note 1 Baldry, H. C., The Greek Tragic Theatre (London, 1971), 73.Google Scholar

page 8 note 2 e.g. in Xen. An. i. 3. 21 (with ⋯κοũσαι); Dem. xviii. 235 (with βουλεύεσθαι).

page 8 note 3 Op. cit. 220.

page 8 note 4 Op. cit. 186.

page 9 note 1 Gudeman, A., Aristoteles Poetik (Berlin, 1934), 227 f.Google Scholar

page 10 note 1 54a 4–9.

page 10 note 2 53b3–7. ‘Spectacle’ must be understood as referring to the visual aspect of the drama as a whole, which would for a Greek mainly be concerned with the appearance of the chorus and actors.

page 11 note 1 The Origin and Early Form of Greek Tragedy, 88.

page 11 note 2 The first version of this paper was read to a seminar at the University of Manchester, and a revised version at Trinity College, Dublin; the final version has greatly benefited from comments made by members of the audience on these two occasions. Despite my disagreement with Else and Lucas on certain points of detail it will be apparent that I am greatly indebted to both for their treatment of pathos in their commentaries.