Plato, Aristotle and Homer
scenes), and ethical, since it has not only a variety of types of character but numerous decisions or choices. The Odyssey is however inferior, as it contains a double denouement: Odysseus is restored to power and glory, while the suitors fall from grace and are massacred. 28 Aristotle is certainly justified in linking Attic tragedy and Homeric epic so close together, as inarguably many elements of the former are to be found in proto-form in the latter. In Homer, we find the monologue in which a character debates a line of reasoning, the messenger and prologue speech (in the form o f Zeus’ speech to Hera 29 ). Similarly, the Iliad and Odyssey contain an early example of the deus ex machina , when Athena intervenes at Iliad Book 2 to prevent an early departure home, 30 and again at Odyssey 24 to prevent bloodshed between Odysseus and the suitors’ families. Aristotle himself addresses the first of these two incidents, 31 disparaging it and Medea’s chariot in the eponymous tragedy as instances too irrational for dramatic plausibility. Moreover, the performance of rhapsodes likely served as the model for the Attic tragedians, who (like Plato and Aristotle) would’ve watche d them recite the epics, enthralled in the performer’s act (as the Ion makes clear) rather than purely in the text of Homer’s poetry. 32 Answering the titular question brings one into the murk of Plato's challenge, taken up by Aristotle, to defend poetry's role in society, and the infamous quarrel between philosophy and poetry. The two thinkers are not as divided as may at first seem: fundamentally, both view epic and tragedy as closely linked, almost identical disciplines. To both, epic and tragedy seek to portray, in part through imitation, extraordinary characters subjected to suffering: the divide comes through debate over whether this can have a positive, or negative effect. Neither takes poetry wholly uncritically: Plato is infamous for his disdain, yet even Aristotle sought to overwrite the element of chance and external cause. However, whether they wished it or not, Plato and Aristotle were both enamoured by Homer for his brilliance as both the first tragedian and epic poet. * * *
Bibliography
Aristotle. (335 BCE) trans. Heath, M. (1996) Poetics . Penguin Books Easterling, P.E. (1984) ‘The tragic Homer.’ Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 31: 1- 8 Golden, L. (1976) ‘Epic, Tragedy, and Catharsis.’ Classical Philology 71.1: 77-85 Gulley, N. (1 977) ‘Plato on Poetry.’ Greece & Rome 24.2: 154-169
28 Hogan 1973. 29 Hom. Il. 15.64-8.
30 Ibid. 2.271-7. 31 Poet. 1454b. 32 de Jong 2016.
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