Aristotle’s Poetics

1
00:00:01,110 --> 00:00:01,890
So this week,

2
00:00:01,890 --> 00:00:16,140
we're going to talk about Aristotle's poetics and one of the things you could bear in mind in reading the poetics is that it's a fragmentary work.

3
00:00:16,140 --> 00:00:20,970
So originally it encompassed more than what we've got.

4
00:00:20,970 --> 00:00:30,870
It's believed that some of the missing parts dealt with comedy, which would've been interesting and possibly other genres of poetry as well.

5
00:00:30,870 --> 00:00:36,270
The portion that we have deals primarily with tragedy and says some things about

6
00:00:36,270 --> 00:00:42,210
comedy and about epic and a very small amount about other forms of poetry.

7
00:00:42,210 --> 00:00:47,730
So the focus in the fragmentary thing that we have is on tragedy.

8
00:00:47,730 --> 00:00:53,460
And it's also important to bear in mind.

9
00:00:53,460 --> 00:01:00,360
Well, it's quite obvious when you start reading it, is that the work is not polished.

10
00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:09,900
A lot of people think this is Aristotle's lecture notes for the lectures he gave in his school.

11
00:01:09,900 --> 00:01:19,500
So with that in mind, I thought it would be worth saying a little bit about what the aims of the poetics appear to be on the evidence of what we got.

12
00:01:19,500 --> 00:01:24,930
And based on what Aristotle says that he's going to do in politics.

13
00:01:24,930 --> 00:01:30,390
So these are on your handout. And I think you sort of form an overview of the work.

14
00:01:30,390 --> 00:01:37,260
So I'm going to go over these. Just in summary form first and then I'm going to focus on a few during the lecture.

15
00:01:37,260 --> 00:01:43,020
So the first name is evidently to explain how poetry and its genres originated.

16
00:01:43,020 --> 00:01:54,630
Second, to define at least some of the genres of poetry, notably tragedy in the material that we have to identify the main elements,

17
00:01:54,630 --> 00:02:05,790
parts and species of these genres and sometimes the sub elements, sub parts and subspecies of these to say what makes a poem a good poem?

18
00:02:05,790 --> 00:02:13,560
This is very important. And finally, in the very last chapter, to rank at least some of the genres of poetry.

19
00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:20,010
Aristotle makes a case that tragedy is a better form than epic.

20
00:02:20,010 --> 00:02:30,870
That's the overview. I'm not going to focus on the third one, identifying the elements, part species, subspecies of the different genres of poetry.

21
00:02:30,870 --> 00:02:38,640
It's not so much philosophical interests, not irrelevant, but not of great interest.

22
00:02:38,640 --> 00:02:41,140
And I'm also not going to focus on the last one.

23
00:02:41,140 --> 00:02:51,630
They're the ranking of the two genres of poetry there, if you're familiar with other aspects of Aristotle's work.

24
00:02:51,630 --> 00:02:56,880
Some of these aims will remind you of what he describes as the four causes.

25
00:02:56,880 --> 00:03:01,440
So this is the way it's often translated, the four causes.

26
00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:07,380
Actually, what he's talking about, our four kinds of explanation that you can offer of a phenomenon.

27
00:03:07,380 --> 00:03:13,470
So one of these kinds of explanation is to explain something by reference to its origins.

28
00:03:13,470 --> 00:03:21,690
So this is what Aristotle describes as the efficient cause, and that would correspond, obviously, with the first of these aims.

29
00:03:21,690 --> 00:03:33,720
So, for example, you could explain why there is a crater outside by saying, well, a meteor struck there some time ago.

30
00:03:33,720 --> 00:03:41,400
Second, what he describes as the formal cause of something or how that is translated is to explain is

31
00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:47,430
an explanation of something by reference to its essence as given in the definition of it.

32
00:03:47,430 --> 00:03:52,890
So, for example, you could explain why this shape has a 180 degrees internal angles.

33
00:03:52,890 --> 00:03:58,310
By saying it has that because it is a triangle, clearly also.

34
00:03:58,310 --> 00:04:02,850
Aristotle provides us the materials with which to understand poetry in these terms.

35
00:04:02,850 --> 00:04:09,930
By giving definitions and providing the essences of certain genres of poetry.

36
00:04:09,930 --> 00:04:14,460
And he also talks about explaining something by reference to its purpose.

37
00:04:14,460 --> 00:04:19,650
So you could explain why this implement is sharp. By saying that it is for cutting.

38
00:04:19,650 --> 00:04:25,980
That's why it's sharp. And Aristotle also gives us the materials with which to understand poetry in these terms.

39
00:04:25,980 --> 00:04:31,830
By talking about the aims that different forms of poetry should have won.

40
00:04:31,830 --> 00:04:42,420
The final one or the last one? That's not obviously present in the poetics is explanation by reference to the material constitution of the thing.

41
00:04:42,420 --> 00:04:53,880
So you might explain why this object conducts electricity by saying that it's made of metal and metal conducts electricity.

42
00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:59,830
It's not self evident quite whether Aristotle's providing us the materials of this sort with.

43
00:04:59,830 --> 00:05:10,460
Which to understand poetry. But I think at least the first three types of explanation clearly are related to what he's doing in the poetics.

44
00:05:10,460 --> 00:05:19,670
OK. So that's a bit of background and overview. So now I want to get into the first one about how poetry originated.

45
00:05:19,670 --> 00:05:24,410
So Aristotle has a very brief story about how poetry in general originated.

46
00:05:24,410 --> 00:05:33,140
And a number of more detailed stories about how the different genres originated. And I'm just going to focus on how poetry in general originated.

47
00:05:33,140 --> 00:05:38,960
So he attributed it to causes. First of all, it's from our natural propensity to imitate.

48
00:05:38,960 --> 00:05:53,500
So Aristotle thinks that this is one of the things that distinguishes us from other animals is that we have a natural inclination to imitate others.

49
00:05:53,500 --> 00:06:00,550
Furthermore, he says that there's a reason why we have this inclination.

50
00:06:00,550 --> 00:06:10,090
And that's because it enables us to learn. We learn. We take our first steps in understanding, as he puts it, through imitation.

51
00:06:10,090 --> 00:06:19,360
And this is, of course, something that is going to remind you rightly of Plato's discussion throughout the poetics.

52
00:06:19,360 --> 00:06:25,480
It's worth thinking about which aspects of his discussion are meant as responses to Plato.

53
00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:34,090
And as we saw last week, Plato very much downgrades the epistemic status of poetry, cognitive value of poetry.

54
00:06:34,090 --> 00:06:38,230
Here, Aristotle is suddenly differentiating himself from this,

55
00:06:38,230 --> 00:06:48,460
saying that actually poetry comes from the very same impulse that drives us to discover, not to seek knowledge and to acquire knowledge.

56
00:06:48,460 --> 00:06:58,330
Second source of poetry, he thinks, is the pleasure that we take and contemplating imitations.

57
00:06:58,330 --> 00:07:07,960
So he also says that we even enjoy very precise or accurate images of things whose sight in itself causes us pain.

58
00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:18,340
So, for example, dead bodies. The example he gives. And once again, he ties this to our desire for knowledge.

59
00:07:18,340 --> 00:07:25,540
So he says we enjoy contemplating imitations even of things whose sight in itself causes pain.

60
00:07:25,540 --> 00:07:32,350
Because we get to apply reasoning and our understanding to the imitations themselves.

61
00:07:32,350 --> 00:07:35,800
And so we identify this part as the eye.

62
00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:43,910
And this part is the nose. And we find that very pleasurable. And the thought is this is once again connected to our desire to know.

63
00:07:43,910 --> 00:07:53,860
That's a very important theme for Aristotle. As he says, at one point, all men by nature desire to know.

64
00:07:53,860 --> 00:07:57,370
Now, he may have been generalising a bit too much from his own case.

65
00:07:57,370 --> 00:08:07,320
But this is clearly something that he frequently appeals to in order to explain why we're motivated as we are at various stages.

66
00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:14,650
OK. So far, that's fairly brief discussion of this first point.

67
00:08:14,650 --> 00:08:22,900
Longer discussion is of the definitions of different genres of poetry.

68
00:08:22,900 --> 00:08:29,560
So Aristotle opens the work by talking about how you can define I am my Medek art form.

69
00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:36,430
So he says that's any memetic art form can be defined by identifying three things.

70
00:08:36,430 --> 00:08:42,250
First of all, by identifying what sort of thing it represents.

71
00:08:42,250 --> 00:08:52,380
And it's worth noting that in Aristotle, the basis seems to me tends to mean representation a lot more clearly than it does even in Plato.

72
00:08:52,380 --> 00:09:00,790
So we talked about last week, but I'm not saying there's no difficulties of interpretation there.

73
00:09:00,790 --> 00:09:07,150
Second, what you identify is what the art form uses to represent what it represents.

74
00:09:07,150 --> 00:09:17,570
So the medium. And third, you say how it uses the medium in order to represent what it represents.

75
00:09:17,570 --> 00:09:26,470
And so he thinks any memetic art form can be defined by identifying these three things, or at least genres of poetry.

76
00:09:26,470 --> 00:09:34,360
And it's on this basis that he provides us with his definition of tragedy.

77
00:09:34,360 --> 00:09:48,450
So the object of tragedy, that is what it represents, he says, is an action which is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude.

78
00:09:48,450 --> 00:09:52,480
Now he explains this, a serious action.

79
00:09:52,480 --> 00:10:00,460
It emerges means and ethically serious action, killing your father and sleeping with your mother.

80
00:10:00,460 --> 00:10:11,860
For example, a complete action seems to mean an action whose beginning, middle and end is represented.

81
00:10:11,860 --> 00:10:19,980
So it's not just a snapshot, but it's the whole course of the action represented in the tragedy.

82
00:10:19,980 --> 00:10:27,180
All this certain magnitude, as far as I can make out, seems to mean that the action takes time.

83
00:10:27,180 --> 00:10:33,820
It's not an instantaneous action as some.

84
00:10:33,820 --> 00:10:43,060
And some actions perhaps are it's one that endures.

85
00:10:43,060 --> 00:10:52,600
So that's the object, the medium of tragedy is language in spoken metre and in lyric song.

86
00:10:52,600 --> 00:11:07,180
So the speeches of the actors in Greek tragedy were spoken, but in metre and choruses of Greek tragedies use lyric sang in lyric poetry.

87
00:11:07,180 --> 00:11:12,130
The mode is that of dramatic enactment.

88
00:11:12,130 --> 00:11:20,980
So this harkens back to Plato's distinction in Book Three of the Republic in which he talks about the different kinds.

89
00:11:20,980 --> 00:11:27,010
Well, what he's effectively talking about other modes where he distinguishes between narrative,

90
00:11:27,010 --> 00:11:36,740
direct speech and imitation and a mixture of the two Aristotle drawing on that, saying it's not in their narrative in tragedy.

91
00:11:36,740 --> 00:11:44,930
It's a dramatic enactment. So what Plato described there as mimesis.

92
00:11:44,930 --> 00:11:49,530
That's another reason for thinking that Aristotle tends to mean representation.

93
00:11:49,530 --> 00:11:57,620
Find the basis, since this is just one kind of mimesis here, namely dramatic enactment.

94
00:11:57,620 --> 00:12:04,090
But that's what Plato described. I identified with Mace's at least in book three.

95
00:12:04,090 --> 00:12:13,190
OK. So far, so good. Then we run into a passage that has caused an enormous amount of controversy.

96
00:12:13,190 --> 00:12:18,140
So having set out what a definition should be, then it should have these three elements.

97
00:12:18,140 --> 00:12:28,820
And then he gives us these three elements. He add something. He adds that the aim, or at least as far as I understand it, he's talking about the aim,

98
00:12:28,820 --> 00:12:36,720
is to produce through pity and fear the catharsis of such emotions.

99
00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:41,880
Now, the word catharsis has passed into English and has a meaning of its own.

100
00:12:41,880 --> 00:12:53,010
In English, the Greek word catharsis that it comes from as used by Aristotle in this passage.

101
00:12:53,010 --> 00:13:06,510
Nobody really knows what he means here. He's clearly speaking metaphorically and he's using a noun derived from a verb that means to purify.

102
00:13:06,510 --> 00:13:12,900
But he's talking about emotions and then being purified.

103
00:13:12,900 --> 00:13:19,960
I mean, literally, that's what he's saying now.

104
00:13:19,960 --> 00:13:31,590
And it's making sense of this metaphor of the catharsis of emotions that has exercised a lot of commentators on Aristotle.

105
00:13:31,590 --> 00:13:37,320
Even one hundred years ago, articles written on this were saying,

106
00:13:37,320 --> 00:13:43,950
I'm so sick of all the people who spent time talking about catharsis, and it's only continued ever since then.

107
00:13:43,950 --> 00:13:49,170
So the reality probably is nobody really knows what he means.

108
00:13:49,170 --> 00:13:56,190
But you can make a case and I'm going to go through some of the different interpretations of what has been meant by catharsis.

109
00:13:56,190 --> 00:14:05,760
One reason this excites a lot of people is that it seems to provide a response to Plato's criticisms of the emotional effects of poetry on people.

110
00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:12,660
People have tried to see in this some sort of description of beneficial emotional effects of tragedy.

111
00:14:12,660 --> 00:14:17,310
So by producing pity and fear and the catharsis of such emotions,

112
00:14:17,310 --> 00:14:25,110
that's evidently a good thing that people have tried to read in such a way that it answers Plato because the rest of the

113
00:14:25,110 --> 00:14:32,910
poetic Plato Aristotle doesn't talk a great deal about the emotional effects of poetry in terms that would answer Plato.

114
00:14:32,910 --> 00:14:38,040
That would satisfy Plato. Perhaps here he's doing that.

115
00:14:38,040 --> 00:14:46,560
One interpretation that's been offered is just to say, well, OK, this is a purification of emotions and what is a purification of emotions?

116
00:14:46,560 --> 00:14:55,650
Well, pity and fear, a painful and at the end of tragedies, you often feel a kind of relief and the pain is gone.

117
00:14:55,650 --> 00:15:07,830
And so maybe the point of the metaphor here is that pity and fear are purified in that the pain is removed from them.

118
00:15:07,830 --> 00:15:15,180
This Tali's very well because as we'll see, this Talley's very well with other things, Aristotle says, because as we'll see,

119
00:15:15,180 --> 00:15:21,090
Aristotle thinks the tragedy is supposed to produce, as he puts it, the pleasure deriving from pity and fear.

120
00:15:21,090 --> 00:15:29,130
So perhaps the pleasure deriving from pity and fear is the pleasure you get when you are relieved of pity and fear.

121
00:15:29,130 --> 00:15:36,040
That's the thought, anyway. And of course, this.

122
00:15:36,040 --> 00:15:40,540
Seems to tally, as I say, with that point of Aristotle's,

123
00:15:40,540 --> 00:15:49,990
one objection raised to it is that it doesn't seem to make sense to say that pain is an impurity in pity and fear,

124
00:15:49,990 --> 00:15:56,860
pity and fear are supposed to be painful, and particularly the events toward which we're feeling pity and fear and tragedy.

125
00:15:56,860 --> 00:16:02,110
On an Aristotelian view, we're supposed to be feeling pain towards them.

126
00:16:02,110 --> 00:16:07,900
That's one objection. Not saying it's decisive, but that's one that's been raised.

127
00:16:07,900 --> 00:16:11,770
Not a lot of people support that view anymore.

128
00:16:11,770 --> 00:16:21,070
The one that they primarily support is one offered by Jacob Bernays in the 19th century, according to which tragedy cording,

129
00:16:21,070 --> 00:16:28,090
which catharsis, rather, is to be understood in terms of purging as a purging metaphore.

130
00:16:28,090 --> 00:16:41,380
So the word catharsis was often used in medical contexts to talk about purging the noxious fluids of the body and thereby purifying the body.

131
00:16:41,380 --> 00:16:50,290
But you purge the fluids from it, and the thought is that the emphasis should be on the purging of the emotions.

132
00:16:50,290 --> 00:16:59,740
And as I say, this was advanced by Jacob Bernays, who was I think it was the uncle of Sigmund Freud's wife.

133
00:16:59,740 --> 00:17:10,570
And he drew attention to the passage, which is on the back of your hand at the others place in Aristotle,

134
00:17:10,570 --> 00:17:16,450
where he talks about catharsis at a lot more length. This is from the politics.

135
00:17:16,450 --> 00:17:21,610
So Aristotle writes, their music should be studied not for the sake of one, but of many benefits.

136
00:17:21,610 --> 00:17:28,870
That is to say, with a view to education, to catharsis and the word catharsis we use at present without explanation.

137
00:17:28,870 --> 00:17:33,040
But when here after we speak of poetry, we will treat the subject with more precision.

138
00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:42,280
Evidently, we don't have that discussion. Music may also serve for intellectual enjoyment, for relaxation and for recreation after exertion,

139
00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:51,250
for emotions such as pity and fear or again, enthusiasm exists very strongly in some souls and have more or less influence overall.

140
00:17:51,250 --> 00:17:56,710
Some persons fall into a religious frenzy and we see as a result of the sacred melodies when they have used

141
00:17:56,710 --> 00:18:02,920
the melodies that excite the soul to mystic frenzy restored as though they had found healing and catharsis.

142
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:09,130
Those who are influenced by pity and fear and every emotional nature must have a life experience and others,

143
00:18:09,130 --> 00:18:15,840
insofar as each is susceptible to such emotions and all receive a sort of catharsis and are relieved with pleasure.

144
00:18:15,840 --> 00:18:20,170
The cathartic melodies likewise given innocent pleasure to men.

145
00:18:20,170 --> 00:18:28,120
So for Bromet Bernays, he thought that this is what we should use to make sense of what the poetics is saying that he thought.

146
00:18:28,120 --> 00:18:36,250
That's the key point in this passage, or a key point in this passage is that Aristotle was talking about people influenced by pity and fear,

147
00:18:36,250 --> 00:18:40,480
which he understood as being very susceptible to pity and fear.

148
00:18:40,480 --> 00:18:45,550
Emotional people, fearful people, pity inclined people.

149
00:18:45,550 --> 00:18:57,400
And that what tragedy offers is an outlet for these people who are always sort of in this emotional state on a bit on edge in the theatre.

150
00:18:57,400 --> 00:19:02,080
They get a release. They get to feel the emotions that they're inclined to feel.

151
00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:11,560
And then they feel calm, at least for a time. So it's an outlet for people who are afflicted by this kind of morbid tendency

152
00:19:11,560 --> 00:19:17,110
to these emotions and gives them a kind of healing by giving them this outlet.

153
00:19:17,110 --> 00:19:25,540
So in that sense, they're they're purged. Now, what he also says is that you shouldn't understand the catharsis,

154
00:19:25,540 --> 00:19:32,980
the passage that's translated as the catharsis of such emotions to refer to the catharsis of such occurrences, of emotions.

155
00:19:32,980 --> 00:19:37,930
But as the catharsis of such inclinations to feel emotions.

156
00:19:37,930 --> 00:19:53,890
So what gets purged here is the inclination by producing an occurrence of these emotions and giving them relief as a result.

157
00:19:53,890 --> 00:20:02,060
And he thinks this deals very well with the politics passage. And we should understand a similar thing in the case of the poetics.

158
00:20:02,060 --> 00:20:11,060
Now, one obvious problem with this is that it seems to imply that the aim of tragedy is just to have this effect in overemotional people.

159
00:20:11,060 --> 00:20:19,400
Why would Aristotle identify this as the aim of tragedy and even put it in the definition of tragedy?

160
00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:31,650
To say that it's addressed to people who are overemotional, who are inclined to feel pity and fear.

161
00:20:31,650 --> 00:20:41,400
I mean, it's interesting, if you wanted to push this view of catharsis, there's an interesting there's an easy fix to this.

162
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:49,740
Of course it's not. It's to forget the stuff about people who are naturally inclined to feel pity and fear and just to say you purge pity and fear,

163
00:20:49,740 --> 00:20:51,930
you feel pity and fear and then you're done.

164
00:20:51,930 --> 00:20:58,110
You're relieved of them in the tragedy, whether or not you're the type of person who's overemotional or not.

165
00:20:58,110 --> 00:21:00,450
That would be quite an obvious alternative.

166
00:21:00,450 --> 00:21:08,860
If you wanted to avoid this objection, then everybody, normal people over emotional people, cetera, are addressed by tragedy.

167
00:21:08,860 --> 00:21:13,560
They caused pity and fear. It causes pity and fear in them and relieves them of it.

168
00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:20,640
That seems to be an obvious alternative to the way Bernays develops the purgation interpretation.

169
00:21:20,640 --> 00:21:26,340
So that, as I say, is the purgation interpretation very influential.

170
00:21:26,340 --> 00:21:33,300
Lastly, there is the view. The catharsis is a kind of clarification or education of the emotions.

171
00:21:33,300 --> 00:21:38,790
So famously, Aristotle thought that it's part of being a virtuous person,

172
00:21:38,790 --> 00:21:51,080
that you feel the right sorts of emotions towards the right objects to the right degree at the right's times, and that it's a sort of education,

173
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:58,260
education and something Monteil that he's talking about here by presenting somebody,

174
00:21:58,260 --> 00:22:04,980
namely the tragic hero who deserves pity and presenting an event that is genuinely fearful

175
00:22:04,980 --> 00:22:10,710
and getting us to feel those emotions towards the right objects in those cases training us.

176
00:22:10,710 --> 00:22:14,820
And that seems to offer a rather clear response to Plato.

177
00:22:14,820 --> 00:22:25,920
If you Buyers' Sato's general view that part of being a virtuous person is feeling the right sorts of emotions towards the right objects.

178
00:22:25,920 --> 00:22:35,910
That's an advantage, and it seems also to have the potential of explaining the pleasure that we get in tragedy.

179
00:22:35,910 --> 00:22:43,320
So we understand a bit better. What sort of things deserve pity and fear than we did before?

180
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:49,650
The thought goes. But I mean, one difficulty with this.

181
00:22:49,650 --> 00:22:57,510
And again, I'm not saying it's decisive because nobody really quite knows what's going on here is that in the passage from the politics,

182
00:22:57,510 --> 00:23:03,510
education is listed alongside catharsis as one of the kinds of effects that music can have.

183
00:23:03,510 --> 00:23:10,230
So at least if you push it a bit too hard on the reading of it as educating the emotions,

184
00:23:10,230 --> 00:23:18,780
it seems that he's distinguishing catharsis from education in this passage.

185
00:23:18,780 --> 00:23:22,380
As I say, that's one of the standard objections. Maybe it's not so great.

186
00:23:22,380 --> 00:23:33,930
Maybe people who take this view don't have to insist on describing this as an education and they can get around the politics passage that way.

187
00:23:33,930 --> 00:23:38,340
OK, so those are the kinds of issues that arise out of his definition of tragedy.

188
00:23:38,340 --> 00:23:44,910
Virtually all of them centred on this bit about catharsis.

189
00:23:44,910 --> 00:23:53,520
Now, let's go on to his discussion of what makes something a good poem or a good poem of its kind.

190
00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:59,080
Now, last week when we talked about Plato,

191
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:06,570
I think is worth making a distinction here between what Aristotle's doing for the most part in this and what Plato was doing.

192
00:24:06,570 --> 00:24:11,700
So Plato was talking about whether poetry is a good thing or not.

193
00:24:11,700 --> 00:24:16,890
Aristotle, for the most part, is talking about what makes something a good poem.

194
00:24:16,890 --> 00:24:23,670
And it's important to see that these are not exactly the same questions.

195
00:24:23,670 --> 00:24:32,820
So here's an analogy. If I tried to tell you what makes something a good method of torture, I might mention causing fear,

196
00:24:32,820 --> 00:24:37,410
causing pain, causing sadistic pleasure, keeping the population under control.

197
00:24:37,410 --> 00:24:38,580
Cetera, et cetera.

198
00:24:38,580 --> 00:24:46,410
And you could agree all that stuff makes something a good method of torture while disagreeing that good methods of torture are good things.

199
00:24:46,410 --> 00:24:54,120
It's not good that there are good methods of torture around, analogously, perhaps slightly less dramatically.

200
00:24:54,120 --> 00:25:04,050
Plato could say, yeah. Okay, all of that stuff is the standards that a poem has to meet in order to be a good poem.

201
00:25:04,050 --> 00:25:12,390
But even so, it's not good for there to be poetry either, because he thinks most poetry doesn't meet that standard, which, as we'll see,

202
00:25:12,390 --> 00:25:20,010
is roughly his view or because doesn't matter to him whether something meets the standards that it takes to be good poetry.

203
00:25:20,010 --> 00:25:27,750
Still not a good thing for there to be things around that meet those standards, just as we might say,

204
00:25:27,750 --> 00:25:34,110
not a good thing that there are methods of torture that meet the standards that make something a good method of torture.

205
00:25:34,110 --> 00:25:41,270
So this difference between what makes something a good poem and whether poetry is a good thing is an important distinction to keep in mind.

206
00:25:41,270 --> 00:25:47,790
Aristotle is very much talking about what makes a poem a good thing.

207
00:25:47,790 --> 00:25:57,390
Now, as I said, Plato's concern is the other question, but he's not entirely unconcerned with what makes a good poem.

208
00:25:57,390 --> 00:26:04,170
So in a passage that we didn't discuss last week from the laws which I put on the handouts,

209
00:26:04,170 --> 00:26:08,730
which I don't think I will read, I'll just summarise the main points from it.

210
00:26:08,730 --> 00:26:12,910
Plato is talking about what appears to make something a good poem.

211
00:26:12,910 --> 00:26:21,420
The key points that emerge from this, rather unsurprisingly, is that good poetry represents things correctly.

212
00:26:21,420 --> 00:26:29,100
Good poetry also is morally valuable and also the pleasure that it produces is irrelevant.

213
00:26:29,100 --> 00:26:36,810
And the reason he says this in the passage is that it's a mimetic art.

214
00:26:36,810 --> 00:26:44,250
If it weren't trying to represent things and if it didn't cause any harm, various other conditions,

215
00:26:44,250 --> 00:26:49,380
then we could judge it by pleasure, by whether it produced good pleasure and whether it produced pleasure or not.

216
00:26:49,380 --> 00:26:54,240
So things like this path as translated that are made for the sake of charm.

217
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:58,830
You can judge those by whether they produce pleasure or not. But not representational art.

218
00:26:58,830 --> 00:27:03,870
The standard for them is whether they represent things correctly or not.

219
00:27:03,870 --> 00:27:12,510
So this is a useful contrast, I think, with what Aristotle says about good poetry.

220
00:27:12,510 --> 00:27:25,390
So one thing that Aristotle says about good poetry is that what it's got to do is plausibly represent what the poet intends to represent.

221
00:27:25,390 --> 00:27:37,420
Now, a corollary of this is that it's not necessarily a flaw in a poem if it represents things as they're not.

222
00:27:37,420 --> 00:27:41,760
And if it represents immoral actions.

223
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:49,090
So he says, for example, representing things as they're not is permissible if obviously following from what he said,

224
00:27:49,090 --> 00:27:53,260
what the poet intends to represent is thereby represented plausibly.

225
00:27:53,260 --> 00:27:59,930
For example, he might be trying to represent things as they once were so obsolete military customs.

226
00:27:59,930 --> 00:28:10,120
One is one of his examples might be trying to represent things as they are said or believed to be or again, things as they should be.

227
00:28:10,120 --> 00:28:15,040
As, for example, he thinks Sophocles was doing.

228
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:23,620
It's also permissible so that so those are some conditions under which the poets can represent things as they're not.

229
00:28:23,620 --> 00:28:30,910
That's not clear. Air was always addressing Plato here. He wrote a work in which which has now been lost called Homeric Problems,

230
00:28:30,910 --> 00:28:37,030
in which he was addressing a whole range of often very weird objections to Homer.

231
00:28:37,030 --> 00:28:42,070
And some of this material appears to have gotten into Chapter 25 of the poetics.

232
00:28:42,070 --> 00:28:46,630
So it's not quite right to say that he's always talking to Plato here.

233
00:28:46,630 --> 00:28:53,980
He seems to be talking to a range of people who raised objections to Homer in this passage here.

234
00:28:53,980 --> 00:28:58,750
It's also OK to represent things as they're not provided,

235
00:28:58,750 --> 00:29:06,850
that there's no better way or no equally good way to get the emotions appropriate to the genre of poetry.

236
00:29:06,850 --> 00:29:16,760
We'll come back to that in a second. Furthermore, representing immoral actions is also permissible, i.e.,

237
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:25,180
not a flaw in a poem provided once again that what the poet intends to represent is represented plausibly.

238
00:29:25,180 --> 00:29:30,940
So maybe the poet intends to represent a bad person and bad people do bad things.

239
00:29:30,940 --> 00:29:34,240
It wouldn't be plausible to represent them as doing good things.

240
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:48,250
And so it's OK to do that, at least as far as the question of whether it's good poetry is concerned.

241
00:29:48,250 --> 00:29:55,100
Otherwise, poets should be representing things as they are and should not be representing immoral actions.

242
00:29:55,100 --> 00:30:02,050
But that's a very loose constraint. So it's essentially saying it's not a plausible representation of what the poet intends to represent,

243
00:30:02,050 --> 00:30:07,090
then it's bad to represent immoral actions or things as they are not.

244
00:30:07,090 --> 00:30:09,670
But that's very loose constraints.

245
00:30:09,670 --> 00:30:16,740
And really, it doesn't seem as though the problem is that they're immoral or that their things is represented as they're not,

246
00:30:16,740 --> 00:30:23,530
but that it's not plausible representation of what the poet intends.

247
00:30:23,530 --> 00:30:34,510
OK. And the other point he makes is that good poetry rep produces emotions that are appropriate to the genre.

248
00:30:34,510 --> 00:30:38,020
So for each genre, there are some emotions appropriate to it.

249
00:30:38,020 --> 00:30:47,580
So there's emotions appropriate to comedy. And as we'll see the tragedy as well, or as we've already talked about.

250
00:30:47,580 --> 00:30:52,840
And it's OK, or at least not altogether a flaw.

251
00:30:52,840 --> 00:31:03,700
If the poet produces those, even if he produces some things that are undesirable in other respects, that's very important for him.

252
00:31:03,700 --> 00:31:14,140
Now, he applies this then to tragedy. So remember the plausibility criterion?

253
00:31:14,140 --> 00:31:22,510
I take it he's applying to tragedy by saying the tragedy ought to represent a probable and necessary sequence of events.

254
00:31:22,510 --> 00:31:35,200
So each event in the tragedy after the beginning should be either a likely consequence or a necessary consequence of what went before it.

255
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:38,230
That's I was general principle applies to tragedy.

256
00:31:38,230 --> 00:31:46,660
He derives from this very interesting point, which does seem to at least be talking on the same ground as Plato,

257
00:31:46,660 --> 00:31:53,140
dressing the same kind of question as Plato regarding the epistemic value of poetry.

258
00:31:53,140 --> 00:32:02,830
So he adds this comment that poetry represents universals. Now, as he explains, universals are kinds.

259
00:32:02,830 --> 00:32:18,800
So kinds of person kinds of action. Actually, what he says, the poetry speaks of universals, doesn't say that represents universals.

260
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:27,230
What does he mean by this? Well, I think he is kind of onto something here.

261
00:32:27,230 --> 00:32:39,020
So think, for example, about the Merchant of Venice, often regarded or criticised as a racist anti-Semitic play.

262
00:32:39,020 --> 00:32:49,070
No one has ever tried to defend it. As far as I know, we're not inclined to defend it by saying, no, no, it's not saying that Jews are greedy.

263
00:32:49,070 --> 00:32:55,340
It's just saying Shylock is greedy. So what happens to be a Jew? But he's a fictional character, one fictional character.

264
00:32:55,340 --> 00:32:59,960
The only thing the Merchant of Venice is saying is the Shylock is greedy.

265
00:32:59,960 --> 00:33:04,910
Why are we not even inclined to defend the Merchant of Venice in that way?

266
00:33:04,910 --> 00:33:07,850
Now, whether we're inclined to defend it at all is another question.

267
00:33:07,850 --> 00:33:13,850
But that doesn't seem even to be on the table as a defence of the Merchant of Venice.

268
00:33:13,850 --> 00:33:21,830
It seems just evident that you can't just say what the play is saying about Shylock is that he's greedy.

269
00:33:21,830 --> 00:33:24,470
There does seem to be implicit in it.

270
00:33:24,470 --> 00:33:36,080
This claim that Jews are a kind of person, are greedy or tend to be greedy and Shylock is representative of them.

271
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:41,300
This, I think, is what aerosolize talking about when he says that poetry speaks of universals,

272
00:33:41,300 --> 00:33:47,180
speaks of kinds, despite, as he puts it, the addition of particular names.

273
00:33:47,180 --> 00:33:57,740
So what Merchant of Venice is speaking of is not just what Shylock did, but he's saying something anti-Semitic about Jews.

274
00:33:57,740 --> 00:34:05,630
Now, the fact that this seems to be a feature of poetry raises all kinds of interesting questions.

275
00:34:05,630 --> 00:34:11,930
So if the play had said Shylock is six feet tall, it doesn't seem to make sense to say.

276
00:34:11,930 --> 00:34:16,880
It's saying that people six feet tall tends to be greedy or enormously greedy.

277
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:25,190
So which kinds? It's saying something about and how we determined that I think are very interesting questions that arise.

278
00:34:25,190 --> 00:34:30,860
Once you recognise or acknowledge that this phenomenon of speaking of universals,

279
00:34:30,860 --> 00:34:39,280
despite the addition of particular names, as Aristotle puts it, occurs.

280
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:44,850
So not saying that it speaks of every single time that every single character belongs to.

281
00:34:44,850 --> 00:34:46,690
By any stretch of the imagination,

282
00:34:46,690 --> 00:34:54,190
I'm not saying it's easy to figure out why we select certain claims about kinds of people as the ones that the plays.

283
00:34:54,190 --> 00:34:59,050
Clearly, it's conveying but does seem to occur.

284
00:34:59,050 --> 00:35:03,400
And Aristotle seems to be right about this.

285
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:15,250
Is that plays representational art are not just about the particulars portrayed in it, as Plato sometimes seems to be implying.

286
00:35:15,250 --> 00:35:23,440
It is speaking of kinds of things. What's tends to be true of individuals of this kind?

287
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:25,090
Now, Aristotle connects this.

288
00:35:25,090 --> 00:35:36,160
He thinks this is somehow connected to the fact that poetry is trying to represent a probable or necessary sequence of events.

289
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:38,530
So quite apart from the plausibility of the claim,

290
00:35:38,530 --> 00:35:48,910
the connexion between that and the claim about probability, necessity, I think is worth dwelling on.

291
00:35:48,910 --> 00:35:59,260
When you think about what the poet must know in order to make his characters act as they must or as they would be likely to in that situation,

292
00:35:59,260 --> 00:36:03,160
I think you can start to see that the poet has got to know certain facts.

293
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:09,490
First of all, he's got to know what kind of person the character is and what kind of situation they're in.

294
00:36:09,490 --> 00:36:19,030
So he's got to know if he's face of the problem, how it Oedipus B like to be likely to act or how much Oedipus act in this particular situation.

295
00:36:19,030 --> 00:36:25,450
He's got to know what kind of person is Oedipus, what kind of situation is he in.

296
00:36:25,450 --> 00:36:44,900
And furthermore, he's got to have general knowledge about how people of that kind tend to behave would be likely to behave in situations of that kind.

297
00:36:44,900 --> 00:36:54,560
Now, given that it's common knowledge between the poet and the reader that this is what the poet is aiming to do.

298
00:36:54,560 --> 00:37:01,430
We can assume that the poet believes that people of these kinds or of some kinds to which the

299
00:37:01,430 --> 00:37:11,330
character belongs would be likely to or even must behave this way in a situation of that kind.

300
00:37:11,330 --> 00:37:18,350
So we can take it that the poem is implying, despite being about particular individuals also,

301
00:37:18,350 --> 00:37:24,560
that individuals of this kind are likely to or must behave in these ways,

302
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:29,480
because in order to construct probable or necessary sequence of events,

303
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:39,800
the poet must draw on their knowledge or their beliefs any way about how individuals of that kind are likely to behave or must behave.

304
00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:45,170
So I think this is how we get from the claim that the aim of poetry is to represent

305
00:37:45,170 --> 00:37:56,250
probable and necessary sequence of events to the claim that poetry speaks of universals.

306
00:37:56,250 --> 00:38:01,100
And we can come back to that at this time at the end.

307
00:38:01,100 --> 00:38:13,250
So very pointedly, he draws from this claim, any claim that poetry is therefore more philosophical than history.

308
00:38:13,250 --> 00:38:24,710
And this does seem to be aimed directly at Plato and incidentally, seems kind of unfair to history on ourselves.

309
00:38:24,710 --> 00:38:32,660
View history, just records what particular individuals did. No claims about how individuals of that kind are likely to behave or tend to behave.

310
00:38:32,660 --> 00:38:40,990
It's how they actually behaved, whether it was likely that they would or not.

311
00:38:40,990 --> 00:38:50,860
But it's because poetry encodes in this way that we've talked about claims about how people of a certain

312
00:38:50,860 --> 00:39:00,730
kind tend to behave or must behave in situations of a certain kind that is more philosophical than history.

313
00:39:00,730 --> 00:39:10,150
And if you look at the third quotation on the handout, there is a passage from the metaphysics that is relevant to this.

314
00:39:10,150 --> 00:39:17,560
So he writes, all knowledge deals either with what holds always or with what holds for the most part.

315
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:24,550
For example, that honey water, for the most part, benefits. The feverish experience is knowledge of individuals.

316
00:39:24,550 --> 00:39:31,240
Scale of universals, knowledge and understanding belong to skill rather than to experience.

317
00:39:31,240 --> 00:39:34,720
Scale arises when for many notions gained by experience.

318
00:39:34,720 --> 00:39:42,310
One universal judgement about similar objects is produced for to have a judgement that when Callas was ill of this disease, this did him good.

319
00:39:42,310 --> 00:39:47,590
And similarly, in the case of Socrates and in many individual cases, is a matter of experience.

320
00:39:47,590 --> 00:39:54,490
But to judge that it is done good to all persons of a certain constitution marked off in one class when they were ill of this disease,

321
00:39:54,490 --> 00:40:00,910
for example, to phlegmatic or bilious people when burning with fever. This is a matter of skill.

322
00:40:00,910 --> 00:40:11,020
Men of experience know the thing is so, but do not know why, while others know the why and because we do not regard any of the senses as wisdom.

323
00:40:11,020 --> 00:40:19,600
Yet surely these give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they do not tell us the why of anything e.g. why fire is hot.

324
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:23,560
They only say that it is hot.

325
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:35,800
This is the significance that general knowledge, knowledge of how people of certain kinds tend to behave, likely to behave or how objects tend to be.

326
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:39,820
That's the significance that knowledge of those truths enables you to.

327
00:40:39,820 --> 00:40:46,000
Well, that is the significance of knowledge of those troops. What it enables you to know is why certain things happen.

328
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:52,210
So if I give you this liquid, it cause you have the fever, you can understand why.

329
00:40:52,210 --> 00:40:59,500
If you know that it's honey water and if you know the general truth, honey water tends to benefit the feverish.

330
00:40:59,500 --> 00:41:07,510
It's in terms of these generalisations that poetry, as I said, seems to encode in a certain way that we understand particular phenomena.

331
00:41:07,510 --> 00:41:16,060
It's in terms of these sorts of things on this picture. And so it's in this sense, the poetry, as he puts it.

332
00:41:16,060 --> 00:41:21,610
It's much more philosophical than history, because on this caricature of history that he has here,

333
00:41:21,610 --> 00:41:29,050
it's like the man of experience that he's talking about in this passage from the metaphysics there does getting knowledge of particulars,

334
00:41:29,050 --> 00:41:33,100
but not getting knowledge of why the particular events happened.

335
00:41:33,100 --> 00:41:45,450
The particular things are as they are. OK.

336
00:41:45,450 --> 00:41:56,220
So that's a rather subtle reply, I think, to Plato dealing with the epistemological side.

337
00:41:56,220 --> 00:42:01,620
Now, in terms of the emotional effects of poetry, as we saw, he thinks that part of the thing.

338
00:42:01,620 --> 00:42:05,520
One of the things that makes something a good poem is the.

339
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:16,650
That it produces the emotional effects appropriate to the genre. One of these effects is, as he puts it, the pleasure deriving from pity and fear.

340
00:42:16,650 --> 00:42:25,020
In the case of tragedy. Now, Aristotle doesn't say much about the pleasure deriving from pity and fear.

341
00:42:25,020 --> 00:42:31,200
He says a good deal about what enables a tragedy to produce pity and fear.

342
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:39,630
So he talks about what kind of person the tragic hero has to be. And he talks about certain plot devices.

343
00:42:39,630 --> 00:42:45,750
But it doesn't say a great deal about the pleasure deriving from pity and fear.

344
00:42:45,750 --> 00:42:56,670
And this has attracted a lot of controversy. So how is it that essentially painful emotions can have pleasure derived from them?

345
00:42:56,670 --> 00:43:02,400
How is it possible for pleasure to derive from essentially painful emotions like pity and fear?

346
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:04,770
And this is a problem not limited to tragedy.

347
00:43:04,770 --> 00:43:12,780
So we enjoy going to see horror movies, all kinds of things that produce what are essentially painful emotions.

348
00:43:12,780 --> 00:43:17,700
But it seems we derive pleasure from them. This is puzzles, lots of philosophers.

349
00:43:17,700 --> 00:43:25,110
How is this possible? One tempting answer is to appeal to catharsis.

350
00:43:25,110 --> 00:43:29,760
So it seems to be he's saying both that the aim of tragedy is to produce catharsis

351
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:36,510
and that its aim is to produce the pleasure deriving from pity and fear. So natural thought is that it's catharsis that's pleasurable.

352
00:43:36,510 --> 00:43:41,160
And then you take whatever your view of catharsis is to explain this phenomenon.

353
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:45,720
So maybe, for example, that's the relief of the emotions that's pleasurable.

354
00:43:45,720 --> 00:43:54,120
So pleasure can derive from pity and fear. In that once you're done with pity and fear, the relief you get is pleasurable.

355
00:43:54,120 --> 00:44:02,310
That's one thought. Another thought is to appeal to the notion of understanding that Aristotle talks about.

356
00:44:02,310 --> 00:44:09,870
So we find it pleasurable, as he put it earlier, to contemplate images even of dead bodies, which we wouldn't like to see in real life.

357
00:44:09,870 --> 00:44:20,730
Is the use of understanding. Those are two possibilities relate to Aristotle.

358
00:44:20,730 --> 00:44:25,140
But quite apart from a quest as a question about the interpretation of Aristotle,

359
00:44:25,140 --> 00:44:34,080
there's still the kind of philosophical problem and a lot more answers have been provided to that question.

360
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:44,640
So Hume, in an essay called Of Tragedy, provides a very idiosyncratic solution to this problem.

361
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:53,550
So he thinks that there's all kinds of elements of a tragedy that are very pleasurable and unproblematic, pleasurable.

362
00:44:53,550 --> 00:45:04,380
So the skill with which the artist represents what he does, the beauty of the language, the force of expression and the imitation.

363
00:45:04,380 --> 00:45:12,880
So harkening back a bit to Aristotle's claim. He says the thing is about this in a good tragedy,

364
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:18,900
the pleasure we get from these things is stronger than the negative emotions, the pity and the fear.

365
00:45:18,900 --> 00:45:22,210
And that when this happens,

366
00:45:22,210 --> 00:45:32,200
the pain of these emotions is converted into pleasure because there is concurrent emotions that are pleasurable along with the negative ones.

367
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:39,400
And that's because they overpower the negative ones, converts the pain of those ones into pleasure.

368
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:44,410
And so the aggregate emotion is very pleasurable indeed, because you get the energy of the negative ones,

369
00:45:44,410 --> 00:45:52,330
which is no longer painful, converted into pleasure, combining with the pleasure of the independently pleasurable ones.

370
00:45:52,330 --> 00:45:58,600
And that's why we just love tragedy. This is a really weird view.

371
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:08,860
I don't understand why he said this very odd psychology.

372
00:46:08,860 --> 00:46:16,660
One of the problems with it did point out by Malcolm, but in a very good discussion of this.

373
00:46:16,660 --> 00:46:26,380
And it's common to some other answers to this question as well, is that it seems to deny that there is anything painful in the experience of tragedy.

374
00:46:26,380 --> 00:46:33,640
It's all pleasure. And that seems to misrepresent the problem somewhat.

375
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:40,480
There does seem to be an element of pain or suffering in the experience of these tragic emotions.

376
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:46,870
And generally these negative emotions in ours. And the problem is, how can pleasure derived from that not?

377
00:46:46,870 --> 00:46:51,520
The question is not why is there no pain? It's where does the pleasure come from?

378
00:46:51,520 --> 00:47:01,360
Even though there is pain, you can raise a similar criticism against an answer to this question offered by Butcher,

379
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:08,500
who suggests that it's because of the fiction that there's no pain.

380
00:47:08,500 --> 00:47:13,870
We know we're not in danger, so there's no pain there.

381
00:47:13,870 --> 00:47:15,340
It's also pleasurable, he says,

382
00:47:15,340 --> 00:47:29,090
because we enjoy identifying with superior characters like tragic heroes are again subject to the same objection at least.

383
00:47:29,090 --> 00:47:38,310
So a good answer, it seems hard to not deny that there is a kind of a painful element to this.

384
00:47:38,310 --> 00:47:45,560
So these kinds of experiences, or at least to some of them that we have in response to rewarding experiences,

385
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:48,770
we haven't response, rewarding works of art.

386
00:47:48,770 --> 00:47:58,820
Susan Fagan has suggested that the pleasure is actually pleasure in our response of pity, in our painful response of pity.

387
00:47:58,820 --> 00:48:05,090
And the reason we take pleasure in the fact that we are feeling pity towards the person represented on

388
00:48:05,090 --> 00:48:14,390
stage is that we are pleased that we're the sort of person who's sympathetic to that type of event.

389
00:48:14,390 --> 00:48:30,090
So we're pleased to discover we're compassionate. After all. Or if not to discover it, then at least to have it affirmed.

390
00:48:30,090 --> 00:48:42,870
Problem with this view. One problem this raised, well, it doesn't kind of seem like that's what we're thinking about when we enjoy a tragedy.

391
00:48:42,870 --> 00:48:47,340
Doesn't seem like there's a second order response to our first order responses.

392
00:48:47,340 --> 00:48:54,900
It's going on, but kind of apart from the fact that doesn't seem to capture it.

393
00:48:54,900 --> 00:49:00,960
It would at the very least be limited in application. So it may explain why we take pleasure in pity.

394
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:13,230
But what about fear? It doesn't seem to be anything particularly pleasing to learn that we can be scared by terrifying events.

395
00:49:13,230 --> 00:49:19,380
I mean, if you were concerned that you might be incapable of that. That would be different. But that's a bit odd.

396
00:49:19,380 --> 00:49:24,060
There is the other concern that this kind of makes it a bit self-congratulatory.

397
00:49:24,060 --> 00:49:28,560
The experience of tragedy, that we're doing it because we're so pleased with ourselves,

398
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:46,420
not being pleased with ourselves is the pleasure deriving from pity and fear then that really kind of seems to misrepresent the experience.

399
00:49:46,420 --> 00:49:57,590
I last few I mentioned on this is Budd's view, Malcolm, but discussion in values of art is well worth reading.

400
00:49:57,590 --> 00:50:05,580
He thinks that we should kind of reconceived this question.

401
00:50:05,580 --> 00:50:13,230
So he thinks that even if some tragedies don't produce this kind of pleasure deriving from pity and fear,

402
00:50:13,230 --> 00:50:21,930
there are better reasons to value the overall experience of the thing than the pleasure we get from it.

403
00:50:21,930 --> 00:50:29,280
So it seems to kind of misrepresent the value of tragedy to focus just on the moment at which we get.

404
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:37,270
Or the aspect from which we get pleasure.

405
00:50:37,270 --> 00:50:46,750
Because the interesting question is really what reasons are there to value the experience of tragedy overall?

406
00:50:46,750 --> 00:50:51,340
The second reason it misrepresents it is that that's just one part of the overall experience.

407
00:50:51,340 --> 00:50:56,410
So it fixates on one part to the exclusion of the whole.

408
00:50:56,410 --> 00:51:00,430
Now, it's an integral part, in Budd's view, of a lot of the experiences of tragedy.

409
00:51:00,430 --> 00:51:08,380
But it is just a part and but gives a number of reasons why a tragedy might be valuable.

410
00:51:08,380 --> 00:51:10,450
Why the experience of it might be valuable.

411
00:51:10,450 --> 00:51:18,220
I should say and he thinks this is because, frankly, tragedies are quite varied and very different from one another.

412
00:51:18,220 --> 00:51:25,990
And we shouldn't expect one answer to apply to all of them. Certainly not if we reconceive the question in this way.

413
00:51:25,990 --> 00:51:37,660
And one of the answers he gives, which is kind of interesting and kind of Aristotelian, actually, is to point out that at least in some tragedies,

414
00:51:37,660 --> 00:51:50,540
one reason why experiencing them is valuable is that it enables us to enter much more fully than we otherwise could into the mind of suffering person.

415
00:51:50,540 --> 00:51:57,200
This is for a number of reasons, one of which it appeals to the kind of fiction ality of it is that we're not invested in it,

416
00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:07,730
or at least to the fact that it's a representation. So we have a certain detachment because it's a representation and not a real situation.

417
00:52:07,730 --> 00:52:12,350
So we wouldn't be able to contemplate it if it were a real event before our eyes.

418
00:52:12,350 --> 00:52:17,030
We have certain obligations and other factors would prevent that.

419
00:52:17,030 --> 00:52:24,470
But also because very striking feature of tragedy that Nichelle also pointed out

420
00:52:24,470 --> 00:52:28,730
is that tragic heroes are eloquent in a way that real suffering people never,

421
00:52:28,730 --> 00:52:41,640
ever are. They're very, very articulate about what it is like to suffer and to undergo catastrophically horrible things.

422
00:52:41,640 --> 00:52:46,590
And because of this and for other reasons, too,

423
00:52:46,590 --> 00:52:57,270
we're able to enter into the mind of a suffering person to identify with them in a way that would not otherwise be possible.

424
00:52:57,270 --> 00:53:08,400
This is a valuable experience because we value truth, because we value insight and particularly insight into these sorts of experiences.

425
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:20,460
But it's our reward that we can only get this insight on condition that we suffer to some extent with the tragic hero.

426
00:53:20,460 --> 00:53:27,220
But it's worth it. In Bud's view, because of our attachment to truth.

427
00:53:27,220 --> 00:53:34,076
Thanks very much.