Plato, Aristotle and Homer
consist of direct speech. 13 Through μίμησις 14 ‘Homer imitates better people (βελτίους)’, 15 in which respect he is similar to Sophocles, the ‘tragic Homer’, 16 as both depict noble characters, who are better than ordinary.
Both Plato and Aristotle take issue with poetry as it portrays suffering dealt out arbitrarily or unfairly against good men; such a downfall is beyond the subject's control. For Aristotle, the subject of a tragedy must be 'intermediate between' these two extremes, as it would be μιαρόν (abominable) to witness the downfall of a man who is ἐ πιεικής (reasonable). 17 These two patterns form an antithesis to hamartia , which suggests loosely an action originating with the person who suffers its unforeseen or unintended consequences. 18 In this way, Aristotle ignores the religious aspect of tragedy, since within that world 'chance' had an important status; he seems to seek a secular kind of tragedy. Because of this, he prescribes a kind of plot in which some extreme δυστυχία between φίλοι is averted by a moment of recognition: this avoids the worst suffering, but also locates tragedy's causes firmly on the human level. This, however, does not actually exclude Homer's work. Homer's epics inspired Greek historiography partly because of their focus on human responsibility for events. The divine and human levels intersect closely, yet fundamentally the crisis and resolution of the Iliad (not the entire war) are rooted, respectively, in Agamemnon's refusal to return Chryseis, and Achilles’ temperance in Book 24. Zeus sends Thetis to inform Achilles that the gods are angry with him, ‘α ἴ κέν πως ἐ μέ τε δείσ ῃ ἀ πό θ ᾽ Ἕ κτορα λύσ ῃ ’, 19 a mix of politeness and threat ( ἐ μέ… δείσ ῃ ), but the conditional implies that ultimately it is down to Achilles. Hermes will accompany Priam only as far as the tent; beyond that he is at Achilles’ whim : the Greek hero had killed suppliants prior to this – why not now again? 20 ‘This is the fate the gods have spun for poor mortal men, that we should live in misery, while they themselves have no sorrows’ 21 – fundamentally, the Iliad presents a bleak world, in which suffering is seemingly arbitrarily dealt by the gods, ‘the fates of death . . . in a thousand forms’ 22 from Sarpedon’s speech: this is what is problematic for Plato.
13 de Jong 2016. 14 I shall avoid all debate over the translation of this term. 15 Poet. 1448a. 16 Easterling 1984. 17 Poet. 1453a.
18 Halliwell 1984. 19 Hom. Il. 24.116 20 Pelling 2006. 21 Hom. Il. 24.525-6. 22 Hom. Il. 12.326-7.
225
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting