On Plato, Aristotle, Horace & Longinus...

Horace’s Ars Poetica is a piece that tries to describe define poetry by isolating textual qualities and, at times, drawing correlations between which textual qualities are most suited for particular audiences. The goal of this piece seems to be to trace parallels between the complicated process of writing poetry with other arts, such as painting for the purpose of elevating the cultural status of poetry. Like Ars Poetica Aristotle’s Poetics continues to elaborate on a general definition and description of poetry; yet, more specifically Arisitotle draws boundaries around particular genres (focusing mainly on tradedy). Plato’s dialogues are unique in the form they take to explore love through a series of speakers and also lend insight to the ways in which the other authors might be viewing notions of “public” and “general audience”. Through varying speeches, Plato’s dialogues offer the general insight that love will lead us to beauty. Longinus’ On The Sublime offers a discussion regarding how a text can be written or arranged to transcend the ordinary (including reflection on anything from plurality to narrative structure). These discussions, in their strive to get to the nature of beauty, perfection and love, seem to have the cumulative effect of persuading the public to read and regard texts (and the complex processes that are needed to create them) in favorable ways and to distinguish the “good” from the “bad”.

The texts by Plato, Aristotle, Longinus and Horace seem to make many of the same assumptions about who their audiences might be and which values they might hold. All texts (except Plato) share in common a prescriptive--sometimes an almost textbook-like--style to describing and defining the arts. The style of these texts, then, brings me back to something we discussed within our groups last week--that aesthetics are a kind of codification. Plato, Aristotle, Longinus and Horace (despite the fact that they weren’t all writing during the same time period) seem to approach the texts they write about in ways that attempt to determine the pieces, parts, to reflect on the exigencies and to, in a sense, set the rules. The tone in which these three texts define successful writing, good tragedy, or a great poem are seemingly matter-of-fact (albeit, there is some discussion on how the parts must work together to form a successful whole thus indicating that following prescriptive rules is correlated with success yet does not simply determine it); yet, if we think about aesthetics as a process of codification and consider for a moment the time in which these texts were written, then rhetorically it makes sense that these writers would be attempting to define and re-define what was involved in the process and what the ideal product would look like. Put differently, because these textual forms were in their earlier stages of development, it was necessary for all of these texts to try to clearly define some generic rules that those less familiar could use as a basis to better understand and respect a given text as well as, of course, to think in new ways about composing a text of that sort.

To extend this even further, given that these genres were still being developed and discussed, it would make sense for the writers writing about these crafts would attempt to convey the difficulty and complexity involved in engaging in these practices. This final motivation is perhaps most clear in Horace’s Ars Poetica with his multiple attempts to draw parallels between poetry and painting to argue that the process of both are very similar. The constant comparisons between artistic processes in these texts is particularly striking to me given that artistic process if often talked about as being quite idiosyncratic today (i.e. this artist’s process versus that artist’s process). Granted, there are still many current texts that attempt to do the kind of defining and describing that these authors are doing; however, texts that do this today would likely we read only by novices whereas it seems that these texts were read by if not exclusively insiders than an audience that at least included them.

Thus far, I have mainly focused on the shared purposes of these texts and how these might inform our sense of the audience’s culture preparedness for these treatises. Yet, I have mentioned little regarding the textual clues informing us of who--in terms of social position--the audience for these texts might be. Although I am certainly no expert in classical Greek philosophy, all of these texts seemed to privilege the elite (e.g. “to learn gives the liveliest pleasure, not only to philosophers but to men in general; whose capacity however, of learning is more limited”--Aristotle’s Poetics), the middle-aged, and, of course, men. I find it funny to think about the original audience for texts that discuss audiences in relatively static ways. That is, although I’m sure I’m missing a ton in reading these texts due to the fact that I was not the originally intended audience, I can still understand and contextualize these texts. However, I got a strong sense that audiences’ social positions were seen as much more static at the time when these texts where being written. There is much discussion throughout all four of these texts regarding which genres and features are appropriate for which audiences. There is a tension then, between defining the parameters of “good” poetry or “good” plays and what is considered “good” and appropriate to honor particular audiences.


Questions:

Toward the end of Aristotle’s Poetics (on the top of page 27), he discusses the class distinctions between Epic poetry and tragedy. To set up this point, he states the following, “So we are told that Epic poetry is addressed to cultivated audience, who do not need gesture; Tragedy to an inferior public”. How does Aristotle trouble this distinction? What similar distinctions exist today between art forms for audiences that “do not need gesture” and those that do?

In Ars Poetica, Horace seems to offer insight regarding the limitation of beauty alone. On page 7 he states, “Sometimes a tale that lacks stylistic elegance, grandeur, and skill but is adorned with impressive passages and characters that are accurately drawn is a greater source of pleasure and better holds the interest of an audience that verses that lack a vision of reality and are mere trifles to charm the ear”. What is Horace suggesting here about beauty? What does this passage suggest about realism and its relationship to beauty? Who do beauty and realism belong to within this society?

In Longinus’ treatise On The Sublime, he state that “For some hold generally that there is mere delusion in attempting to reduce such subjects [the sublime] to technical rules” (15). Yet, he goes on to write the treatise. This trend of producing technical rules for defining and describing “good” poetry and, more generally, art has been a common theme across our readings for this week. These types of texts (listing technical rules and observations) are given mostly today to novices; yet, to what degree do these authors sense that these technical rules need to work together in ways that cannot be easily described or expressed? What exceptions do they allow for and how do these exceptions introduce a kind of fluidity to the otherwise rigid treatment of text and context?