100.
mvp-aristotle-comment-100
NOTE 100. P. 89.
13.13
THIS KIND OF PLEASURE IS NOT THE PROPER PLEASURE OF TRAGEDY, BUT BELONGS RATHER TO COMEDY, &C.
What is the proper pleasure to be expected from Tragedy, we have already been told, and we are told again, more plainly, if possible, in the next chapter. It is—
ἡ ἀπο ἐλεου και φοβου ἩΔΟΝΗ
: "the pleasure that arises from pity and terror". The double fable Aristotle seems to have considered as not giving this pleasure, or at least, as giving it weakly and imperfectly, because all the unhappiness of the catastrophe falls on the odious characters, the
σφοδρα πονηρος
. In the room of this pleasure, which Tragedy ought to give, the double fable substitutes that of a satisfactory conclusion; a catastrophe accommodated to the wishes of the spectator. But this, says Aristotle, is a pleasure that rather belongs to Comedy than to Tragedy:
ΜΑΛΛΟΝ της κωμῳδιας οἰκεια
. For he is not here rejecting this double plan, but only shewing why it is not, as some held it to be, the best,
πρωτη
. Such Tragedies, he says, afford a pleasure of the same kind, at least, with that which Comedy affords; though Comedy indeed goes farther; for there, all must end well; enemies, as inveterate as Orestes and Ægisthus, must shake hands
at last, and the spectator must be dismissed with no impression upon his mind, but that of pure and unmixed pleasure.
If we understand the passage in this way, it will not, I think, be necessary to suppose, what, I own, I was once much inclined to suppose with
Heinsius
, that the text is defective; and that, after the word
θεώταις
, Aristotle had, originally, mentioned the third and worst kind of fable, terminating in a happy event to all the characters; to which, and not to the second species, what follows about Comedy was meant to be applied . Very specious reasons might certainly be produced in support of such a conjecture, if it were necessary. But we have no encouragement from MSS. to suspect any omission, and the passage, as here explained, seems to have little, or no, difficulty. The chief objection is, that what is here said of Comedy is not applicable to the double Tragic fable, in which there is no reconciliation of enemies, &c. But it was not, I think, intended to be so closely applicable. All that Aristotle meant must have been, to shew, that the pleasure arising from his second species of fable, differed only in degree from that of Comedy; that the circumstance of ending satisfactorily was common to both
1
.
Chaucer's Monk had the true Aristotelic idea of Tragedy:
Canterbury tales, v. 13979. Mr. Tyrwhitt's ed.
Tragedie is to sayn a certain storie,
As olde bookes maken us memorie,
Of him that stood in gret prosperitee,
And is yfallen out of high degree
In to miserie, and endeth wretchedly.
But the knight, and the host, were among the
θεαται ΑΣΘΕΝΕΙΣ
:
Ho! quod the knight, good sire, no more of this:
That ye han said is right ynough ywis,
And mochel more; for litel hevinesse
Is right ynough to mochel folk, I gesse.
I say for me, it is a gret disese, [uneasiness]
Wher as men have ben in gret welth and ese,
To heren of hir sodein fall, alas!
And the contrary is joye and gret solas,
As whan a man hath ben in poure estat,
And climbeth up, and wexeth fortunat,
And ther abideth in prosperitee:
Swiche thing is gladsom, as it thinketh me,
And of swiche thing were goodly for to telle.
v. 14773, &c.
