106.
mvp-aristotle-comment-106
NOTE 106. P. 92.
14.19
BUT THE BEST OF ALL THESE WAYS IS THE LAST.
In the 13th chapter (Transl. Sect. 12.) Aristotle had pronounced that to be the best constituted Tragedy, which terminates unhappily; and had represented that species, which gratifies, by its catastrophe, the sympathetic wishes of the audience, as inferior, and affording a kind of pleasure rather appropriated to Comedy. Yet here, he appears to give the preference to a plan calculated to afford that very pleasure in the highest degree. This seeming inconsistence has given the commentators much trouble. It is rather surprising, that Dacier should have perceived what had escaped the superior acuteness of the Italian annotators, viz. that Aristotle is not, in this chapter, inquiring what is the best constitution of a Tragic fable in general, but, what is the best method of managing the most disastrous and atrocious incidents of Tragic story, so as to produce the highest possible degree of Tragical emotion in the spectator, without producing horror and disgust.
With this view of the subject, the reader, perhaps, will not see much difficulty in reconciling Aristotle to himself. He might surely say, without inconsistence, "Tragedy, to be perfect, should terminate unhappily. Yet there may be particular exceptions to this general rule. The end of Tragedy is, to excite terror and pity; and that end is most effectually answered, when those emotions are not only excited in the course of the drama, (as they undoubt-
edly may be, and to a high degree, even in such pieces as end fortunately,) but are left impressed upon the mind of the spectator by the catastrophe itself. Yet this Tragic terror is not to be pushed to absolute horror, nor the
τραγικον
to be confounded with the
μιαρον
: and I allow, that where the circumstances of the traditional story, from which the Poet takes his plot, are such, as leave him only the alternative, either of disgusting and shocking the spectator, or of gratifying his wishes, the latter is clearly to be preferred; and the
διπλη συστασις
, the double fable, to which I assigned only the second place
1
, will, in that particular case, deserve the first".
Nothing seems more just, or more accurately expressed, than Aristotle's idea of the end of Tragedy; that it is, "to give that pleasure which arises from pity and terror through imitation:" —
την απο ελεου και φοβου δια μιμησεως ηδονην παρασκευαζειν
cap. xiv. (Transl. P. II. Sect. 13.)
. But the Greek Tragedians will be thought, I believe, by most modern readers, to have sometimes pushed this principle rather too far, and to have excited a degree of horror, which even the charms of imitation cannot well be conceived to have softened into pleasurable emotion; and it appears to me, that Aristotle himself inclined to this opinion, and that he intended this chapter as a lesson of caution to the Poets against this excess. He seems plainly to have considered the actual murder of a mother, a son, a brother, and the like, as incidents rather too horrible to be exhibited in any way. If the deed must be done, let it, he says, if possible—if the story will permit it—be done ignorantly. But it will be still better, if you can avoid doing it, entirely; if you can contrive to make the expectation, combined with the atrociousness of the event expected, answer your purpose, by raising as much anxiety, commiseration, and terror in the spectator, as may consist with that pleasure which is the end of Tragedy, and then relieving him at last, by prevention at the very moment of execution.
That Aristotle thought the end of Tragedy might be sufficiently answered by the mere expectation of such events, properly managed, appears from his expression above:—
ει αδελφος αδελφον, η παις πατερα, η μητηρ υιον, η μητερα, αποκτανῃ, Η ΜΕΛΛΗι ταυτα δρᾳν
— "When a brother kills, or is going to kill," &c.. For this purpose, not only the expectation must be such, that the action shall appear imminent and inevitable, but the action itself expected must be such, as, had it taken place, would have been dreadful, "intolerable," &c. —
τι των ΑΝΗΚΕΣΤΩΝ
2
, as Aristotle expresses himself in describing these prevented
παθη
. By these means, the emotion of terror is brought as near as possible to that which would arise from the actual perpetration
3
.
If the purport of this chapter has been here rightly explained, the reader will see how Aristotle has been misrepresented by many modern critics, who have understood him to recommend the
Cresphontes of Euripides as a model of the best possible construction of a Tragic fable in general. Thus
Maffei, in the dedication of his Merope:
"Parla di essa Aristotele nella Poetica, dove trattando de' modi di ben comporre la favola, da per esempio dell' ottimo il Cresfonte d'Euripide, in cui l'atrocità veniva dalla ricognizione impedita."
And
Voltaire, in his letter to Maffei:
"Aristote, dans sa Poetique immortelle, ne balance pas à dire, que la reconnoissance de Merope et de son fils, etoit le moment le plus interessant de toute la scene Grecque. Il donnoit à ce coup de Theatre la preference sur tous les autres."
107.
mvp-aristotle-comment-107
NOTE 107. P. 92.
Plutarch's account of the effect of this
coup de Theatre upon the audience, is worth transcribing, though apparently incorrect.
Σκοπει δε την εν τῃ Τραγῳδιᾳ ΜΕΡΟΠΗΝ, επι τον υιον αυτον, ως φονεα του υιου, πελεκυν αραμενην, και λεγουσαν—Ὅσιωτεραν δη τηνδ᾿ εγω διδωμι σοι Πληγην—οσον εν τῳ θεατρῳ κινημα ποιει, συνεξορθιαζουσα φοβῳ και δεει μη φθασῃ τον επιλαμβανομενον γεροντα, και τρωσῃ το μειρακιον.
[
Περι Σαρκοφ. p. 1837, ed. H. St.
] For other fragments of this Tragedy, the reader may see the Ox. Euripides.
