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English
223
Greek and Roman Literature
Wendy Furman-Adams
Aristotle's Poetics and Horace's Ars Poetica:
Some Notes to Guide Your Reading |
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Dates and Context:
Aristotle lived from 384 to 322 B.C.E., and
wrote his Poetics up to a full century after
Sophocles and Euripides wrote the tragedies upon
which he based his observations.
Horace lived from 65 to 8 B.C.E., and wrote his
Ars Poetica right in the midst of the Augustan
Age (42 B.C.E.-17 C.E.)--indeed, with Catullus
(84 - 54 B.C.E.) and Virgil (70-19 B.C.E.) was
responsible for producing the emergent
literature he sought to describe and improve.
Unlike Aristotle, a philosopher-critic looking
back on an essentially completed body of work (a
canon--which he helped to establish by
establishing criteria for judgment), Horace was
a poet-critic writing poetry about poetry (a
verse epistle) from within his own current
praxis--and in so doing was creating, rather
than codifying, a literary tradition. But
ultimately, Horace embodies Roman literary
values as fully as Aristotle does Greek values.
Together, the two are the most important voices
of classical literary criticism (with Longinus a
close third); they serve as the foundation of
literary theory to (and including) our own day.
Essential Points in The Poetics:
1. Art is an imitation (representation) of an
object or an action, and these imitations
(representations) can vary according to their
medium (Dorsch, 32), their object (33), or their
manner (genre; 34).
2. Poetry (which means all literary composition,
not just the versified kind) arose because of
the human instinct for, and pleasure in,
imitation (35).
a. Comedy is the imitation of a ridiculous
action--an action by "the worse types of men."
"The ridiculous consists in some form of error
or ugliness that is not painful or injurious"
(37).
b. Tragedy (by far the most important genre for
Aristotle) "is a representation of an action
that is worth serious attention, complete in
itself, and of some amplitude; in language
enriched by a variety of artistic devices
appropriate to the several parts of the play;
presented in the form of action, not narration;
by means of pity and fear bringing about the
purgation of such emotions" (39).
c. Plot is more important than character
(39 - 40).
d. The plot should lead to reversal and
recognition, which ideally come either together,
or in that order (40)--as happens in Oedipus,
but not in Antigone (recognition comes first) or
in Medea (where Medea sees all along what she is
doing and Jason, arguably, never sees).
e. The plot should be supplemented by "thought"
and "diction," generally supplied by the chorus
(40-41).
3. Aspects of Tragedy:
a. Plot--should be unified (42 - 43; 45); should
embody poetic "truth" (43 - 44); may be simple or
complex (45). It must (46) lead to reversal and
recognition, arousing fear and pity through its
catastrophe (or calamity). The means of
discovery (recognition) should grow directly and
inevitably out of the plot and not be merely
"manufactured" (53 - 54).
b. Character (51 - 52)--must be good, appropriate,
life-like, and consistent.
c. The chorus "should be regarded as one of the
actors; it should be a part of the whole, and
should assume a share in the action, as happens
in Sophocles, but not in Euripides" (57).
4. Epic poetry:
a. "As for the art of representation in the form
of narrative verse, clearly its plots should be
dramatically constructed, like those of
tragedies; they should centre upon a single
action, whole and complete, and having a
beginning, a middle, and an end, so that like a
single complete organism the poem may produce
its own kind of pleasure. Nor should epics be
constructed like the common run of histories, in
which it is not the exposition of a single
action that is required, but of a single period"
(65).
b. Epic has over drama the advantage of
"amplitude" and its ability to "represent many
incidents" that cannot be shown on a stage (67);
it can also give greater scope to "the
marvelous" (68)--as in The Odyssey. But even so,
as in tragedy, "probable impossibilities are to
be preferred to improbable possibilities" (68).
5. Imitation (or representation) in general:
a. "Like the painter or any other artist, the
poet aims at the representation of life;
necessarily, therefore, he must always represent
things in one of three ways: either as they were
or are, or as they are said to be or seem to be,
or as they ought to be. . . . Sophocles said
that he drew men as they ought to be, whereas
Euripides drew them as they are" (70).
6. Epic and Tragedy compared:
Tragedy is superior to epic (1) because "tragedy
fulfills its own special function even without
the help of action, and in just the same way as
epic, for its quality can be seen from reading
it" (74); (2) because "tragedy has everything
the epic has" and offers "scenic effects and
music" (75); and (3) because "there is less
unity in the imitation of the epic poets" (75).
"If, therefore, tragedy is superior to epic in
all these respects, and also in fulfilling its
artistic function, . . . then obviously, in
achieving its ends better than epic, it must be
the better form of art" (75).
Essential Points in the Ars Poetica:
1. If for Aristotle the key idea is imitation,
for Horace, it is decorum--and the corollary
idea of "instruction through delight."
"Great poetry," writes Kenneth Reckford,
reflecting on Horace, "requires a balance of art
and inspiration, hard work and talent,
seriousness and play, and has the two-fold aim
of giving pleasure and instruction."
The Ars Poetica is not a treatise, but a
poem
which seeks to embody the balancing act it aims
to teach to other aspiring poets--a balance,
among other things, of inspired genius (or even
madness) and craft.
For Horace, civilization is both hard-won and
fragile: the poet, ideally, is a kind of Orpheus
who holds it together with the aesthetic and
ethical balance he attains in his work.
Within the framing idea of decorum, Horace takes
up three others: delight and instruction; nature
and art; and the importance of honest criticism
to the development of great poetry.
2. Ten aspects of Decorum (the great framing
idea):
a. Decorum requires unity: (1) not mixing "wild"
and "tame" (79); being concerned with the
relation of the parts to the whole and pruning
away any gratuitous ornament (79).
b. Decorum requires appropriateness: choosing a
subject suited to one's abilities (80).
Interestingly, Horace himself never tries epic
or tragedy, but sticks to lyric and satire (two
genres in which he excels to the extent of
defining the genres for the next 1800 years and
beyond).
c. Decorum requires a subtle understanding and
use of language (80 - 81)--and the observance of a
mean between wild inventiveness and mere
lifeless imitation of Greek models. Coining of
new words can be valuable (this is a period of
immense growth in both size and expressiveness
for the Latin language--its great classical
period, born paradoxically of innovation), and
one has to recognize that languages are mortal:
"Whatever they are, the works of men will pass
away. How much less likely are the glory and
grace of language to have an enduring life!"
(81).
d. Decorum requires a style suited to the
subject (82), one embodying both "charm" and
"beauty."
e. Decorum requires invention (83).
f. Decorum in narrative and dramatic art
requires plausibility of characterization (84).
g. Decorum in a play must take account of a
number of factors: an appropriate ratio of
dramatization to report (85); the avoidance of
deus ex machina solutions (85); the role of the
chorus (85 - 86) as an actor, but also as a source
of appropriate sentiments; the role of music
(86), and the avoidance of lewdness in its
selection; and the observance of decency (87).
f. Decorum in all literature requires a fine ear
for meter (88).
g. Decorum requires a fanatical commitment to
revision (89).
h. Decorum above all finds its "fountainhead" in
"sound understanding" (90)--common among the
Greeks but rare (Horace says) among the Romans
because of their "lust for profit."
3. The relationship of delight
and instruction (90 - 91):
a. "Works written to give pleasure should be as
true to life as possible" (90).
b. "The man who has managed to blend profit with
delight wins everyone's approbation, for he
gives his reader pleasure at the same time as he
instructs him" (91).
c. ut pictura poesis--"A poem is like a
painting: the closer you stand to this one the
more it will impress you, whereas when you stand
a good distance from that one . . . " (91).
d. Poetry has been useful since its inception
"to distinguish between public and personal
rights and between sacred and profane, to
discourage indiscriminate sexual union and make
rules for married life, to build towns, and to
inscribe laws on tablets of wood. . . . So there
is no need for you to blush for the Muse, with
her skill in song, and for Apollo the god of
singers" (93).
4. Nature vs. Art in poetry: "I myself cannot
see the value of application without a strong
natural aptitude, or, on the other hand, of
native genius unless it is cultivated--so true
it is that each requires the help of the other"
(93).
5. The importance (and rarity) of honest
criticism as opposed to mere flattery, in a
world where there are far too many bad (and mad)
poets (94 - 95).
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