Plato, Aristotle and Homer
Plato believes, as does Aristotle, that the poet's aim as entertainer is to provide his audience with maximum emotional satisfaction; this 'emotionalist thesis' 4 challenges the deep-rooted idea in Greek society of poetry (especially Homeric epic) as the basis of literate, civic education, to which the Platonic dialogues offer an alternative. 5 The link between epic and tragedy is further explored in the Ion , where the eponymous rhapsode admits that when he performs an episode from the Iliad or Odyssey of ‘Achilles rushing at Hector, or one of those piteous episodes about Andromache or Hecuba or Priam’, 6 he is beside himself: he feels himself present in the action described, presenting what is directly portrayed as the real thing to his audience to achieve the most telling effect. It is made equally clear that through this performance, in which he is divinely inspired (a conclusion to which Ion reluctantly resigns himself), he carries out the aims of the literary artist as the audience ‘weep and look at [him] with dire emotion in their eyes’. 7 In Plato’s chain of inspiration, the rhapsode is the link between poet and audience. 8 Moving to Aristotle's Poetics , with its explicit interest in the formal characteristics of poetry , we see a clearer answer for his side. Picking up the challenge thrown down in the Republic by Plato to defend poetry’s role in the good society, 9 Aristotle argues the case for the positive effect the imitative art can have. In his view, man is a naturally imitative animal, from which the various kinds of poetry stem: ‘Imitation comes naturally to human beings from childhood (and in this they differ from other animals, i.e. in having a strong propensity to imitation and in learning their earliest lessons through imitation)’. 10 All along, it seems as though Aristotle is discussing both genres epic and tragedy, since for him they are genetically linked, not least as epic (Homer most of all) was the natural antecedent of Attic tragedy. For Aristotle, epic and tragedy share their material cause, language in verse, imitate the same objects, and differ in their manner; 11 yet he even praises Homer for limiting how often he as a poet speaks (narrates), instead bringing on various characters, in which case he engages in the dramatic mod e, Homer’s style of mixed narrative being also noted by Plato. 12 The split between narration and imitation is roughly equal, as approximately half of the Homeric epics
4 Gulley 1977. 5 Hunter 2006. 6 Ion, 535b. 7 Ibid. 535e. 8 Hunter 2006. 9 Rep. 607d. 10 Poet. 1448b. 11 Hogan 1973. 12 Rep. 394c.
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