Ontology and the Art of Tragedy. An Approach to Aristotle's Poetics (SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy)
Martha Husain
Language: English
Pages: 152
ISBN: 0791451445
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A specialist work for those studying or researching Aristotle and his philosophy. Husain proposes an approach to reading Poetics based on principles and criteria associated with Aristotle's philosophy of being. This is not a translation, nor a commentary on the text itself, but a study of the distinctiveness of Poetics from Aristotle's corpus.
great in this as in many other things. I also wish to acknowledge the generosity of the Classics Department at Brock University, which has made its resources and expertise available to me for many years. My special thanks go to Fred Casler who first taught me Greek and to Richard Parker who read the Poetics in Greek with Murray Miles and me. The book also owes significant improvements to the fine work of my research assistant, Stefan Rodde. The following list of italicized transliterated Greek
would be misleading. Beauty is not part of Aristotle’s definition of a tragedy, and his paradigm of beauty is a living organism rather than a work of art (cf. De Partibus Animalium I.5). 2.4 Poetical Techne, Tragic Techne Approaching the distinctive subject matter of the Poetics by way of general and artistic techne enables us to understand its title, Aristotle’s About Poetical Techne. It narrows techne down from its general to its generic to its subgeneric level of poetical art. But it does not
have mentioned is the one which is most integral to the plot-structure and the action. For such recognition and reversal will have pity or fear (tragedy is on our definition the imitation of actions of this kind), since also faring ill and faring well will befall when such actions occur (kall√sth ≈´ma p⑀rip⑀t⑀√a˚ g°nhtai . . . ™ll# ≠ d‰ ™nagnÔrisiV, ˙tan a mºlista to£ m§qou ka¥ ≠ mºlista t›V prºx⑀wV ≠ ⑀i#rhm°nh #` ⁄l⑀on ÷st√n· ≠ gΩr toia§th ™nagnÔrisiV ka¥ p⑀rip°t⑀ia h ≈´ # ` ¤x⑀i h f¬bon [oiwn
language of datives, of dia, poiein, ek, dynamis (in the sense of power to affect), kataskeuazein, and agein marks them as transeuntly efficient causal means to an end extrinsic to themselves, and such means fall into the category of pros ti. This determines their good (t’agathon) to be the useful (to chresimon) and their standard of rightness (to eu) to be causal effectiveness (e.g., Rhetoric I.2.1356b18–20; I.1.1355a21– b11; II.18.1391b7; III.16.1416b34–7a3). As E.N. makes clear, the good is
and therefore health is not a questionable definitory end. Achieved health is good, while achieved rhetorical persuasion may only seem so. The Rhetoric is filled with directives to the rhetor to produce (poiein) pros doxan, the persuasive and the seemingly persuasive (to pithanon kai to phainomenon pithanon), to prove or seem to prove (dia tou deiknynai e phainesthai deiknynai), to make himself and his speech seem to be of a certain character (toioutoi phanountai kai autoi kai hoi logoi)