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In Defense of AristotleAuthor(s): Herbert Edward MierowReviewed work(s):Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Dec., 1945), pp. 122-124Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and SouthStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3292011.

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IN DEFENSE OFARISTOTLEP ROFESSORWILHELM SCHMID, inhis Historyof GreekLiterature,1resentssome ideas regardingGreektragedythat areratherdisturbing.He thinks that Aeschyluswas the teacherof the people;and he thinksthat Aristotle'sfamousdictumaboutpity andfear is a reflectionof fourth-centurycondi-tions.2These ideas are a developmentor con-tinuationof views to be found in Schmid'sedition of Christ's Historyof Greek Litera-ture.3R6mer's article in the transactionsofthe BavarianAcademy4no doubt played aconsiderable artin the developmentof theseideas.

Strangely enough the view set forth isreallyquiteold, emanating riginally rom heclown, Aristophanes.Schmidsays that Aes-chyluswas the instructorof his audience.Hisplaysstandon a highreligiousplane.The au-diencewas edifiedby them,and was properlyattunedto the spiritand nobleteachingof thegreatpoet. But as timewent on the characterof the audiencechanged.The theoric fund,saysR6mer(58if.), brought nto the theatre-audiencea less intelligentstratumof society.Furthermore,he sophistic movement,withits skeptical attitude, by degrees broughtdownthe highlevel of Aeschylean tragedy othe levelof the affairs f commonday.Inplaceof religiousnobility and high exaltation wehave the stridentclamorof every-dayhuman-ity and excitingtheatricaleffects. Insteadofplays endingin reconciliationof the conflict-ingelementswe have the catastrophal nding.This conditionof affairsn which the pub-lic,turningaway rom he highreligious each-ing of Aeschylus, came to prefer aestheticcharm,andto be satisfiedwith suspenseandstrongemotions, s the conditionwhich Aris-totle describes n his poetics. Doubtless cor-rectly for his time, writes Schmid,Aristotledesignatedpityandfearas the two feelingsbywhose excitation and purification tragedy

Contributions to this departmentin the form ofbrief objective notes should be sent direct tothe editor, John L. Heller, University of Minne-sota, Minneapolis14, Minnesota

soughtto attain its goal.The tragicpoet, hesays, became the entertainer nstead of theinstructorof the people.The religious nter-est was replacedby the psychological ndthenovelistic. The publicof Aristotle's time ex-pectedof tragedyshock,the arousingof pityandfear,and the catastrophal nding.On theintellectual side it expected the enigmaticcharmof involvedsituations,accompaniedyreversaland recognition.5In all this there seems to be an implicationthat is to my minderroneous:hat Aeschyluswas the teacherof the people, and that thereligiousdramaof Aeschylus is for some un-knownreasonsuperior o the aestheticcharmof Euripides.Let us be fairto Aeschylus.Hewas a great artist. Aristophanes has be-clouded the issue by putting words into hismouth.It is verymuch o bedoubtedwhetherhe himselfever would have said such thingsas Aristophanes mputesto him.He was pri-marilyan artist, interestedin the aesthetic.6And not only this is true. It is no doubtalsoproper o say thathe was writingwith aneyeon posterity.7

Aeschylusan InnovatorIf AeschylushadcriticizedEuripides,with-out doubt he would have done so from theaesthetic side. He might perhapshave ob-jected, as Christ does,to the loweredtoneoftragedy,to its realism,andto its sensational-ism. On the other hand,he mighthavebeen

intensely interested in the new phase thattragedy was undergoing in the hands ofEuripides.Aeschylus himself, we must re-member,was a great innovator, practicallythe creatorof tragedy.We mustalsorecall hefact that he evidently admiredthe sensa-tional. He employed argeand striking heat-rical effects which Euripidesmay have cop-ied.8 In fact, there seems to be no reasontodoubt that Aeschylus was primarily nter-estedin tragedyas an art. A high seriousnessis the qualityof greatpoetry, and his poetryhas this quality.Euripideshasnot the titanic

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IN DEFENSE OF ARISTOTLEutteranceof Aeschylus,but he, too, is seriousin his own way. And-I say it at the risk ofinconsistency-it mighteasilybe argued hathe was tryingto educate he people,not to besure in the old conservative deas,but in newandperhapsbetterways of thinking.But the main questionto be discussedisSchmid'sattitude toward Aristotle. He sug-gests,aswe havealreadyndicated, hatAris-totle's Poetics s conditionedby his time andplace.But this is aninsult to Aristotle. Aris-totle was a scholar, and a scholar who ap-proachedhis topic in what we should call ascientificway. Let us take anexampleor two.When Aristotle undertook he study of poli-tics, he studied the constitutionsof some158city-states,and on the basis of these studieshe made his generalizations.Furthermore,fhe had beeninfluencedby the ageandplace nwhich he lived, would he not have cometothe conclusion hat democracywas the finestform of government-and that extreme ormof democracyound in Athens in the fourthcenturybeforeChrist?But this is absurd Ar-istotlecame o no such conclusion.

Again, what did Aristotle think of thesophists?It would be fair, I believe, to saythat he admiredhe fifth-centuryophistsandthat he did not admire the later group ofsophistsof his own day.9Is this being influ-encedby one's own time and place?

EuripidesMost TragicIs it not true, also, in the case of tragedythat Aristotle, a scholar, perhapsthe bestscholar in the history of the world, wouldnaturallymakehimselfacquaintedwith the

history of tragedy, would make himself fa-miliar with all the great tragicwriters, andwouldthen,onthe basisof hisstudy,write anobjective reatiseon tragedy? t was certainlyhisobject n his Poetics o discover he natureof tragedy.He givesus a definition f tragedy,not of Euripides'tragedy, but of a certainform of literature.And he derives his ideasfromhis acquaintancewith manywriters,notEuripides lone.However,he comesto a con-clusion which some people do not seem tolike, that Euripides s the most tragicof thepoets. Goethe, I think, would not have ob-jected to it. I have suggested elsewhere a

translation of the famous passage in thePoetics:"Euripides,even if at times he doesnot orderhis housewell, still seemsto be themosttragicof the poets."'0What I suggestedin this connection was that Aristotle hadbeen talkingof happy and of unhappyend-ings, and that what he meant was this, thatEuripides oo often appealed o his audienceby use of the happy ending but that, at hisbest, when he employsthe unhappyending,he was the mosttragicof the poets. The factthat the unhappyendingis the right endingexplainsfurther the importanceof pity andfear in Aristotle's definition.The idea of tragedy inheres in tragedy.From the study of many tragediesby manytragicwriters one may attempt,as Aristotledid,to obtainatrueconceptionof this formofliterature. It is not conditionedby time orplaceor audience.It is a universalart-form.will not go so far asto say,with Plato,that insomeremoteandcuriousheaven,besidea per-fect chairand the idea of forkthere standstheideal tragedy. It is a beautiful and poeticthought. It mayeven be true. But I will notinsist upon it.

But I do insist upon this, with Aristotle,that from the examinationof many tragediesonemayarriveat the ideaof tragedy,onemaydiscover the essential characteristicsof thetype, one may say, disregarding ime andplaceandrace, hat one tragedy s betterthananothertragedybecauseone contains,morethan anotherdoes, the ideaof tragedy.HERBERTDWARDMIEROWColoradoCollege

NOTES1Geschichteder GriechischenLiteraturvon WilhelmSchmidundOtto Stahlin,ErsterTeil ..., von WilhelmSchmid,Zweiter Band,Miinchen, I934.2 Ibid. I56 f: Aristoteles hat, fur seine zeit jedenfallsrichtig, Furcht und Mitleid als die beiden Gefiihlebezeichnet, durch deren Erregungund Reinigung dieTragodievornehmlich hren Zweck zu erreichensuche.3 Wilhelm von Christ's Geschichteder GriechischenLiteraturbearbeitetvon Wilhelm Schmid, Erster Teil,Sechste Auflage, Miinchen, I9I2.4A. R6mer, "Ueber den literarischaiisthetischenBildungsstand es attischenTheaterpublikums,"Miinch.Ak. Abh. 22 (1905).5Op. cit. (see note I) I6I.6 It seemsto methat Schmidputs too muchemphasison the ethicalcharacterof Aeschylus' writing.

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7 Cf. ErnestMyers, "Aeschylus,"in EvelynAbbott'sHellenica,(ed. 2, London, I898) 30: "But he had dedi-cated his works to time, and the dedication was approved.To his plays the Athenians assignedthe uniqueprivilege that they should be acted after his death atthe public cost, and in the Hellenic colonies they weretreasuredas part of the inheritance of the race; to belong afterwards transmitted, though incompletely, tomould the conceptionsof a wider world." I might in-stance the fact that the greatchoral odes of Aeschylusmust certainlyhave been written to appealto a widerand more cultured audience than that seated in thetheatre of Dionysus. How much of these could havebeen understoodand appreciatedupon their recitationin the theatre?8Herbert E. Mierow, "Euripides'Artistic Develop-ment," AJPh 52 (I93I) 339-350.9Theodor Gomperz,Greek Thinkers, Vol. I (Lon-don, 190) 421.o1 Poet. 13.1453 a 29; see CW 29 (I935-36) II4.

A LITERARY ECHO OFTHE DECLAMATIONSNCIENT critics rathergenerallyagreethat thedeclamationsweredesigned ostimulate magination, n aimwhich explainswhy so few themes can be traced back ex-plicitly to the inspirationof historicalevents.

Even as thorough an investigator as T. S.Simonds has discovered a factual basis foronly a smallnumberof declamationsn theelderSeneca's ollection.'One mustrecognizethe validityof Miss ElizabethHaight'sobser-vationthat these schoolexercisesoften dealtwith social and ethical problemsand familyrelations,and to that extent were realistic;2but they rarelywent beyondthis generalrue-nessto life.Bythe same oken,situationscom-parable o the subjectsof controversiaerenotlikelyto be found with anyfrequency n laterhistory.A pairof anecdotes n the De Ira ofSeneca the philosopher,however, claim at-tention as matching he broadoutlineof de-clamatorymatterratherclosely.The first (2.33.3-6) concerns a Romanknight,Pastorby name,whose son was beingheld in prisonby the emperorGaius(Calig-ula) on a flimsypretext.Pastor made a pleafor the captive'srelease,whereuponthe em-peror,as if reminded o exact a punishmenthehadforgotten,orderedanimmediate xecu-tion. "Ne tamenomnia nhumane aceretad-versus patrem," Seneca says ironically, he

7 Cf. ErnestMyers, "Aeschylus,"in EvelynAbbott'sHellenica,(ed. 2, London, I898) 30: "But he had dedi-cated his works to time, and the dedication was approved.To his plays the Athenians assignedthe uniqueprivilege that they should be acted after his death atthe public cost, and in the Hellenic colonies they weretreasuredas part of the inheritance of the race; to belong afterwards transmitted, though incompletely, tomould the conceptionsof a wider world." I might in-stance the fact that the greatchoral odes of Aeschylusmust certainlyhave been written to appealto a widerand more cultured audience than that seated in thetheatre of Dionysus. How much of these could havebeen understoodand appreciatedupon their recitationin the theatre?8Herbert E. Mierow, "Euripides'Artistic Develop-ment," AJPh 52 (I93I) 339-350.9Theodor Gomperz,Greek Thinkers, Vol. I (Lon-don, 190) 421.o1 Poet. 13.1453 a 29; see CW 29 (I935-36) II4.

A LITERARY ECHO OFTHE DECLAMATIONSNCIENT critics rathergenerallyagreethat thedeclamationsweredesigned ostimulate magination, n aimwhich explainswhy so few themes can be traced back ex-plicitly to the inspirationof historicalevents.

Even as thorough an investigator as T. S.Simonds has discovered a factual basis foronly a smallnumberof declamationsn theelderSeneca's ollection.'One mustrecognizethe validityof Miss ElizabethHaight'sobser-vationthat these schoolexercisesoften dealtwith social and ethical problemsand familyrelations,and to that extent were realistic;2but they rarelywent beyondthis generalrue-nessto life.Bythe same oken,situationscom-parable o the subjectsof controversiaerenotlikelyto be found with anyfrequency n laterhistory.A pairof anecdotes n the De Ira ofSeneca the philosopher,however, claim at-tention as matching he broadoutlineof de-clamatorymatterratherclosely.The first (2.33.3-6) concerns a Romanknight,Pastorby name,whose son was beingheld in prisonby the emperorGaius(Calig-ula) on a flimsypretext.Pastor made a pleafor the captive'srelease,whereuponthe em-peror,as if reminded o exact a punishmenthehadforgotten,orderedanimmediate xecu-tion. "Ne tamenomnia nhumane aceretad-versus patrem," Seneca says ironically, he

theninvited the petitioner o a feast thatveryday. The knight came,showingno reproachby his manner,drankthe huge bumperofwine which Gaiusput beforehim, and tookthe perfumes ndgarlandswhich the emperorlater sent to him by a slave enjoinedto ob-serve the guest's behavior. At table, thetyrantfilledand refilledPastor'scup, biddinghim banishhis trouble. Never by so muchasa tear or sigh did the latter give evidence ofgrief at his son's death. "Quaeris,quare?"asksthe writer, "habebatalterum."The subjectof compulsion xerciseduponagrief-strickenatherto be presentagainsthiswill at a feast is found in the Controversiaeof Seneca he rhetorician 4. ):While a man who had lost three sons was sitting bytheir tomb, he was draggedoff by a young wastrel tosomenearbygardens,shorn of his long hair,and forcedto changehis mourningattire and be presentat a ban-quet. Upon being let go, he brought egalaction,charg-ing iniuriae.Unfortunately, his declamationomes romabookwhich survivesonly in condensed orm;consequently t is impossible o assess the in-fluenceof the earlierworkon the languageofthe De Ira.In the second anecdote(3.I8.3f.) the em-perorGaiusis againthe villain.He had, thephilosopher writes, flogged and torturedSextus Papinius (son of a former consul),Betilienus Bassus (his own quaestor), andother senatorsand knights,non quaestionis,sed animi causa. Then, impatientof delay,Gaius, in the companyof ladies and othersenators, looked on with satisfaction as anumberof these prisonerswere put to deathby lamp-lightwhile he strolled o and fro in acolonnadebetween the palaceandthe river.3The same cold-bloodedcruelty, appeasedby the executionof a prisonerat night, is thebackgroundor anothercontroversiaf Senecathe rhetorician9.2):

The proconsulFlamininus,when a courtesanwho wasdiningwith him said she had neverseen a manbeheaded,ordered he executionof a condemnedprisoner.Flamin-inus was chargedwith laesamaiestas.4This time, the indebtednessof phrasing s

demonstrable.Senecathe elder says (9.2.25)that Vibius Rufus,a speaker f the old schoolwho used plain terms and did not trouble

theninvited the petitioner o a feast thatveryday. The knight came,showingno reproachby his manner,drankthe huge bumperofwine which Gaiusput beforehim, and tookthe perfumes ndgarlandswhich the emperorlater sent to him by a slave enjoinedto ob-serve the guest's behavior. At table, thetyrantfilledand refilledPastor'scup, biddinghim banishhis trouble. Never by so muchasa tear or sigh did the latter give evidence ofgrief at his son's death. "Quaeris,quare?"asksthe writer, "habebatalterum."The subjectof compulsion xerciseduponagrief-strickenatherto be presentagainsthiswill at a feast is found in the Controversiaeof Seneca he rhetorician 4. ):While a man who had lost three sons was sitting bytheir tomb, he was draggedoff by a young wastrel tosomenearbygardens,shorn of his long hair,and forcedto changehis mourningattire and be presentat a ban-quet. Upon being let go, he brought egalaction,charg-ing iniuriae.Unfortunately, his declamationomes romabookwhich survivesonly in condensed orm;consequently t is impossible o assess the in-fluenceof the earlierworkon the languageofthe De Ira.In the second anecdote(3.I8.3f.) the em-perorGaiusis againthe villain.He had, thephilosopher writes, flogged and torturedSextus Papinius (son of a former consul),Betilienus Bassus (his own quaestor), andother senatorsand knights,non quaestionis,sed animi causa. Then, impatientof delay,Gaius, in the companyof ladies and othersenators, looked on with satisfaction as anumberof these prisonerswere put to deathby lamp-lightwhile he strolled o and fro in acolonnadebetween the palaceandthe river.3The same cold-bloodedcruelty, appeasedby the executionof a prisonerat night, is thebackgroundor anothercontroversiaf Senecathe rhetorician9.2):

The proconsulFlamininus,when a courtesanwho wasdiningwith him said she had neverseen a manbeheaded,ordered he executionof a condemnedprisoner.Flamin-inus was chargedwith laesamaiestas.4This time, the indebtednessof phrasing s

demonstrable.Senecathe elder says (9.2.25)that Vibius Rufus,a speaker f the old schoolwho used plain terms and did not trouble

NOTESOTESz24z24