CZECHOSLOVAK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

The Posthumous Life of Plato SCIENTIFIC EDITOR

Prof. Dr. Ludvik Svoboda, DrSc. Corresponding Member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences

J. L. Barton, B.C.L., M.A. (Oxon) Scientific and linguistic adviser The Posthumous Life 0 Plato

Frantisek Novotny

MARTINUS NIJHOFF THE HAGUE 1977 Published in co-edition with ACADEMIA, Publishing House of the Czecho• slovak Academy of Sciences, Prague

Distribution throughout the world with the exception of socialist countries: Martinus Nijhoff's Boekhandel en Uitgeversmaatschappij B. V. Lange Voor• hout 9-11. The Hague, The Netherlands

© FrantiSek Novotny - Ludvik Svoboda 1977 Translation © Jana Fabryova 1977 Preface © Ludvik Svoboda 1977 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1977 All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form ISBN-13: 978-94-009-9706-6 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-9704-2 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-9704-2 Frantisek Novotny (29th August 1881 - 20th September 1964)

Frantisek Novotny was first encouraged to become a scholar while he was still a student at the Charles University in Prague by his great teacher Josef Kral whom he remembered with affection for the rest of his life. Novotny made soon full use of this opportunity and set forth on the path of independent and original research. He followed Josef Kral's example in several respects. First of all in'the wide extent of his interests. Until Krru's time Czech classical philology had been taken to mean philology in the strict sense: the grammar of the two classical languages and the criticism of the exegesis of the texts. It involved little study of literature, and even less of the realities. This state of affairs was changed principally by Josef Kral (1853-1917), who consi• dered himself, as he used to say, "a mere autodidact", especially in prosody, mythology and the so-called antiquity. Kral's earliest important contributions were inspired by more practical motives. While preparing an edition of Plato's dialogues (Apology, Crito, Protagoras) for the requirements of gymnasia he found it necessary to study also the history of the Platonic manuscripts, which was of great importance for the establishment of the Platonic texts. Kral proved that the opinion generally held upon the mutual relationship of the manuscripts was incorrect and he amended the text of the dialogues in accord with the results of his research. These were confirmed afterwards by fragments of the texts of Plato's dialogues found among Egyptian papyri. While preparing an edition of the Greek tragedians for gymnasia he made a more elaborate metrical analysis of the choral parts in Sophocles than had hitherto been attempted. Hence grew his monumental work "The Greek and Roman Rhythm and Metric" in four volumes (1890-1913). This is an original work, but also "notably onesided", as F. Novotny wrote later. Kral kept here to the rhythmic theory of Westphal's and it was upon it he built his own theory of metric. The so-called historical school (Wilamowitz), which was opposed by Krru, emerged, however, victorious. Together with this rasearch Kral was concerned also with problems of the Czech prosody, which he encountered in reviewing translations from classical literature. His inquiry was broad and profound. He published its results over a period of many years in the Filologicke listy (= Philological Letters). Prof. Jan Jakubec edited them in the CAY (= Cze• choslovak Academy of Sciences) as late as in 1923, but a shorter edition was published earlier in 1909 in Otto's World Library (Svetova knihovna). Kral 6

deals here with the controversy about the Czech prosody which arose during the National Revival and proves that the Czech rhythm is governed by into• nation and therefore the quantitative metre is unsuitable for the Czech verse. Novotny investigated this question later more than once. He came to the conclusion that Kral's classical approach had rendered him insensitive to romantic elements, that his concept of the rhythm was narrow and therefore he did not understand that rhythm is dependent also upon our subjective perception of the expressivness of the syllables and tones, and finally that quantity too has a greater significance in the Czech language than Kral thought. Besides this, Kral's example was an incentive for Novotny also to study Hu• manism. Novotny's first works already deal with Plato, and in particular with his Epistles: These are his DPh dissertation "On Plato's contacts with the Court in Syracuse" (1905) and "A Contribution to the Solution of the Question of the Authenticity of Plato's Epistles" (LF 33, 1906). He published then in the compendium of the Gymnasium in Vysoke Mjto the translation of the 7th epistle (1907), his first translation of Plato. At this period there were distin• guished experts who held Plato's Epistles spurious. Novotny arrived, however, at the conclusion that almost all are authentic. Thus we gain valuable infor• mation about Plato's life and his teaching. His 7th epistle is particularly im• portant because it tells us something authentic of Plato's philosophy, for which it had previously been necessary to rely upon the dialogues, which adopted the requirements of artistic form, and where the author's own views could be deformed by aesthetic considerations. Novotny already used in this "Contribution to the Solution of the Question of Authenticity of Plato's Epistles" the so-called stilometric method in which he made certain im• provements. According to K. Janacek (in the obituary in the LF 88, 1965) Novotny "penetrates thus to the very substance of the matter, i. e. to the artistic aim and to the effect of metres, clauses, arrangement of words and other artistic manifestations of the writer's style". Janacek sees NovotnY's own contribution also "in the comparison of the clause with the other less prominent parts of the sentence". In other words: Novotny did not isolate the clauses, but mea• sured the part by the whole, respecting the dynamic of the style. Janacek is right in considering this a dialectical concept. Let us mention, just as a matter of interest, that Novotny verified his method also on a modern text, a short story of Antal Stasek (LF 42, 1915). Stasek admitted with astonishment to Novotny, that he did in truth deviate from the customary word-order to achieve the so-called heroic clause. Novotny dealt with the rhythm of Greek and Latin prose systematically in his huge work "Eurhythmics of the Greek and Latin Prose" in two vommes (I 1918, II 1921). The first volume is histo• rical; Novotny here analyses chronologically the views and theories of the 7 antique writers on eurhytmics. Iil the second volume, entitled "Manifestations of Eurhythmics", he treats critically the new theories Oil the rhythm of prose and also expounds his own view upon this question. Novotny conceives eu• rhytmics in a very broad and complex sense. He does not deal only with rhythm in the current sense of the word, but also with the articulation of the language, with its harmony and elocution, with the significance of melody for rhythm, with different means by which rhythm may be achieved, with the significance of the study of eurhythmics for the criticism of the texts and also for the so• -called higher criticism, and he speaks even of eurhythmics of the intellectual content. Much attention is bestowed on the method of investigation. Novotny succeeded in applying his method also to the analysis of Sallust's contro• versial writings. He proves here that the so-called Invectiva is spurious (LF 45, 1918). He described the contemporary state of eurhythmical stu• dies in the article Etat actuel des etudes sur rhythme de la prose latine (Lwow 1929). It is not possible to enumerate here Novotny's grammatical works, nor his etymological, semasiological, onomatological and other contributions, al• though even these do not lack interest for the philosopher. Philosophical inte• rests were always apparent in Novotny, although he claimed to be no phil• osopher. It is sufficient to study in his grammars particularly the passages on syntax and style. All these distinct branches of linguistic study were with Novotny somehow mutually interconnected. For example the article What is Metonymy? (LF 79,1956) lies on the borderline between stylistic and lexicogra• phy. He was always attracted by the relation of language to thought. This is apparent also in the exemplary arrangement of the headings in the well-known Latin-Czech dictionary, which he first published with J. M. Prazak and J. Sedlacek in the year 1910 and which was later many times reedited but thereafter under the sole care of Novotny. In Novotny's grammatical works there are many specific observations which reveal the experienced translator who always ponders upon the peculiar qualities and possibilities of the Czech language as compared with the classical languages. We learn from Janacek's obituary that Novotny was preparing up to the very end of his life a complete Latin~Czech dictionary, wherein he wished "for the first time to find Czech equivalents for thousands of unusual expressions and construc• tions" (LF 88, 1965). The centre of gravity of Novotny's activity is, however, the inquiry into Plato. It bore fruits in quite a number of preparatory writings, partial studies and expositions, a translation of the complete corpus of Plato and a systematic work called simply "On Plato" (I-III 1948-9), the 4th volume of which is here presented to the reader. Let us recount here a number of studies which served as intellectual preparation for this great work. These are, apart from the two first works in 1906 mentioned above, following: 8 1911 "The Secret Teaching" ana Plato's Epistles (Sbornlk filologicky = Phi• logical Anthology 2). 1919 Plato in the Scientific Literature of Our Times (Nove Atheneum = New Athaeneum 1). 1922 Plato and Religion (Ruch filosoficky = Philosophic Movement 2). 1922 Socrates' Demon (Sbomik filologicky 7). 1926 Socrates. - Plato (Two lectures given in the Society of the Friends of Antique Culture, which were published together with others in the collection "The Greek Philosophers and Mystics"). 1926 Plato's Epistles and Plato. (Novotny gives here an account ofthe history of the origin of the epistles and appraises their singificance for the knowledge of Plato's philosophy.) 1927 Plato, Philosophy and Youth (Ruch filosoficky 7). 1929 !:wxpOCTY)C; xoc).Oc; X(xL VEOC; (LF 56, written in Latin). 1929 Annotationes ad quosdam Platonis epistularum locos (Eos 31). 1930 Platonis Epistulae commentariis illustratae. 1932 Plato's Life. - The tradition of Platonism. (These are two lectures given in the Society of the Friends of Antique Culture, published together with others in the collection "Plato. His Life - Work - Influence".) 1937 Plato (an article in the OSNND), (about the change in attitudes to Plato in comparison with the 19th century). 1938 Plato (article in the Pedagogical Encyclopedia II). 1938 Masaryk and Plato (Nase veda = Our Science 19). (Novotny here proves that Masaryk is no Platonist, although he some• times styled himself one.) 1942 The Presensory Experience in Plato's Philosophy (Had = Order 8). 1944 Bohac, The Physis in Plato's Philosophy (lecture in "Our Science"). 1947 St. Augustine and Plato (Archa 31). 1960 Platonis Epinomis commentariis illustrata. Novotny is perhaps the only scholar in the world, besides Schleiermacher, who translated the whole Corpus Platonicum into the national language. He translated and published Plato's writings step by step in this order: 1915 Symposium (2nd ed. 1936, 3rd ed. 1947). 1919 Timaeus and Critias. 1921 Republic (using Emanuel Peroutka's translation). 1928 Plato's Epistles (CAV). 1931 Philebus. 1932 Gorgias. 1933 Theaetetus. 1733 Sophist. 1934 Statesman. 1934 Euthyphro - Apology - Crito (2nd ed. 1942). 9 1935 Phaedo. 1935 Cratylus. 1936 Parmenides. 1937 Phaedrus. (2nd ed. 1949, 3rd ed. 1958). 1938 Alcibiades 1-Alcihiades II - Hipparchus - Erastae. 1939 Protagoras. 1940 Charmides - Laches - Lysis - Theages. 1941 Euthydemus - Meno. 1941 Hippias Major - Hippias Minor - Ion - Menexenus. 1942 Epinomis - Minos - Clitophon - Pseudoplatonica - Epigrams. 1945 Epistles. 1961 Laws. This is how Novotny's life-work on Plato was prepared and grew. The three volumes published hitherto are: 1. Life, II. Work, III. Philosophy. The content of the IVth volume is "The Second", i. e. "The Posthumous Life of Plato", picturing the history of Platonism. This is a unique book, unique also from the viewpoint of world literature, in regard to its utmost possible comple• teness. The author himself admits in the introduction to this voluminous work: "I would not have dared to write a book about Plato unless I were convinced that the first book of this kind is better written by a philologist, even if he is no philosopher by profession, than by a philosopher who has no philological knowledge of Plato's work and his Greek environment". This is how the author looks upon the purport of his work. He consciously sets himself "a task of objective description" in order to serve the work of the philosophers objecti• vely. Novotny is here philologist and not a philosopher. But the widespread opinion that Novotny himself is a Platonist is mistaken. I remember that he considered himself to be merely a student of Plato. To be sure, Novotny in all his scientific activity, including his research on Plato, was always undogmatic and critical, open to any differing opinions or objections provided they had some foundation. Thus for example he took a critical view of Plato's ideal• istic account of the existence of the world of ideas. He was very reserved also on controversial questions about the evidence for the authenticity of the Epistles or on the exegesis of problematical passages in Plato's dialogues. He was always careful in judging what in Plato's writings was really his own, what belonged perhaps to Socrates, or how and why artistic considerations also played an important role in certain passages in the Platonic texts. Circumspection marked Novotny's work as a translator too. He worked on his translations consciously -see his article "On the Translation of Plato's Philo• sophical Language" (Slovo a slovesnost = Word and Literature 1, 1935). He wanted his translations to be philologically accurate, but at the same time presented in such a manner that the reader should not notice that he reads a translation. He wanted to interpret the content of the text in a manner which 10

should convey the real meaning of the work without ambiguity. That is why he struggled not only with professional philosophical terminology - there is no doubt that he enriched the Czech language in this respect - but also with the technique of style, and this even in the minutest details, endeavouring not only to reproduce the sentence - structure of the original, but also the most subtle linguistic nuances, the Socratic irony and other peculiarities. He always respected the philosopher-artist in Plato, and he took his artistic aims into consideration and applied them in interpreting his philosophical texts. No• votny formulated his intentions as a translator in Nase veda (= Our Science) V 173--4 thus that "he introduces his translations with an account of the origin of each work in Plato's thought and its significance in past and present culture". And whenever Novotny reviewed new translations from classical literature, he was always concerned "that the Czech readers should once and for all comprehend that Homer, the tragedians, Aristophanes, Plato, Horace belong to world literature and not to the classical philologists" (ibid., p. 174). That is why he so often complained that translations from classical languages received little attention in the periodicals. The reader who is primarily a philosopher might be interested in these other writings of NovotnY's: Gymnasion. Meditations on Greek culture (1922), about which we shall talk later; Socialist Endeavours in Old Greece (1922, orig. in the Ceska revue 14 = Czech Revue 14), which contains an account of various political theories and visions; Antique States and Religion (1925); Virgil in Czech Philological Science in the collection Pio vati in honour of the 2000th anniversary of the poet's birthday, 1930; the lectures The Hellenistic Era and the Character of its Poetry and Epigram (both in the collection of the Society of the Friends of Antique Culture: The Greek Poets of the Hellenistic Era 1930); Homer in the Light of Japhetidology (LF 58,1931), wherein the author already censures and rejects Marrism; The Scientific Work of Josef Kral (1931 in the volume of the Prace (= Work) of the 2nd Congress of the Slav Classical Philologians in Prague); The Antique Search for Beauty (V olne smery = Free ways, 29, 1932); Horace in Czech Philological Science (LF 63, 1936); the lecture The Academy and the Peripatos in the Hellenistic Era in the collection of the Society of the Friends of Antique Culture: The Philosophy of the Helle• nistic Era, 1938); The Antiquity in Czech Literature (1940, in the volume issued in memory of Arne Novak: The Custodian of Tradition); The memory of Arne Novak: The Custodian of Tradition); The Life of Josef Kral (LF 76, 1953); P6ros the Father of Eros (LF 82,1959); Tadeusz Zielinski (LF 83,1960). Novotny payed his tribute to Czech Humanism particularly with two works about Sigmund Hruhy of Jelen{: Sigmund HlUhy of Jeleni the Editor of Pliny's Naturalis historia (Shornlk filolog. 3, 1912) and On the Activity of Sigmund Hruhy of Jeleni as a Translator (Kral's vol. 1913). Novotny WI"ote furthermore an article On Burleigh's Lives ofthe Old Sages and its Czech Treatment (LF 40. 11

1913). We may add to this list a study of the earliest translations of Plato into Czech and Slovak languages (in the collection of works of the philosophical faculty of the university in Brno 8, 1963). Novotny was of course an enthusiastic admirer and indefatigable propagator of Antique culture. He wrote about it an excellent informative article for the 1st volume of the Pedagogical Encyclopedia (under the heading Antiquity). Therefore he welcomed any publication about the significance of Greek and Latin culture. Several appeared after the first world war. Novotny himself translated as early as 1910 from the Russian the stimulating lectures ofT. Zie• liD.ski, then professor of the university in Petersburg, about the significance of the Antiquity and published them in book form under the title "The Ancient World and Ourselves". On various occasions when the system of secondary education was reformed, he drew urgent attention to the cultural importance of teaching classical languages. I mention only these addresses: Latin and Greek in the Secondary Schools (1919, an original lecture in the Jednota filosoficka = Club of the philosophers); The Secondary School without Classical Languages? (on the occasion of the 1st congress of university teachers, 1922); Humanistic Education (an informative article in the Pfitomnost = Presence IV, 1936); The Mission of the Classical Philology in the Secondary School of To-day (an address at the IIIrd congress on pedagogical and didactical questi• ons for secondary schools, published in the Stfedni skola = Secondary school, 1938); It is a Great Thing (an editorial in the Svobodne noviny = Free Gazette of the 10th may 1947). Novotny never wanted just to accept and to understand Antiquity as a mere system of rules. On the contrary, he understood it, as Zieooski did, as a seed which will yield ample fruit in the national culture and will be a powerful life-giving force. Novotny connected his idea of Antiquity with the idea of progress and culture as a whole. He says for example: "The condition of culture is not a progress, which only knows its point of departure, but a progress, which also knows its goal, which has its ideal. To acknowledge the ideal of culture means to acknowledge Antique culture, which created it". (From the review of the work of Jar. Ludvikovsky, Antique Thought in TyrS's Sokol and National Programme, 1923, Nase Veda V 130/1). Antiquity meant for Novotny the entirety of Greek and Roman culture. He showed a lively interest in all its components and aspects and he always strove for a synthetic understanding of Antique culture. It is characteristic for him that he attempted to reach such a synthesis in the booklet Gymnasion which most reveals his personality. Novotny defended himself against the objection that his picture of the old world was one-sided with the, assertion, that Antiquity means for every age "something else than the life oflhe Greek and Latin nation" (Ruch filosoficky = Philosophical Movement, 5, 1925) and that he intentionally selected from the complexity of Antique culture whatever interested him. Gymnasion was here for Novotny a symbol. Novotny's aim 12

is to establish that the Greek love of freedom was compatible with the accep• tance of restrictions in all areas of activities, and this for the sake of freedom jtself. He speaks about the significance of the type, which he does not treat, as we do, as a generalisation deduced from single instances. For the Greek the type was something superpersonal, because it was identical with the ideal. The evolution of every thing has its purpose, telos, which is to be reached. It is the physis of that thing, its perfect natural state. Once it has reached that state, the Greek fears that it will then degenerate. Novotny sees then the Greek love for restriction everywhere. He speaks of the restriction by tra• dition, restriction in philosophical thougt, in art and in life as a whole. For the right understanding of the Greek culture formal restriction is particularly important. The beautiful is in Greek aesthetics always connected with measure, i. e. with form. The lack of form is ugliness. The Greek transpose this analo• gically also into the moral sphere. Novotny shows this in independent short chapters on restriction in the literary and graphic and plastic arts and also in the personal and civic life of the individual. Compared with the Greek love of freedom, restriction in the moral sense of the word is only something secondary, a beneficial curb. It was objected that the excessive value which Novotny placed upon restriction was a sign of his conservatism. But surely Novotny tried to provide a balance for this somehow by placing beside re• striction agon, the struggle between opposing forces which mutually comple• ment one another. Let us raise at last the question, what kind of a scholar was Frantisek Novotny? He answered this question involuntarily himself in his article about his teacher Josef Krlil, whose analytic mind and scientific criticism he never ceased to admire. But he holds that his positivist attitude led him to employ excessively mechanical methods, which handicapped him in his studies on rhythm and metre, and also in his criticism of translations from classical literature. He asserts that he was not able "to substitute aesthetic similarity with mechanical resemblance". By comparing Krill's Metrics with Novotny's Eurhythmics we can understand what Novotny means. This is why Novotny was not a typical positivist scholar, although he might appear one because of his predilection for philological accuracy, his preference for facts and his meticulous care for objectivity. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that thoughts meant for Novotny more than facts, and that he had also a sense for the irrational elements of human creation, which were beyond the scope of "Kral's sober analytic realism". Because Kral "had no sense for the irratio• nality ofhuman thinking and creation", he could not - in NovotnY's view• penetrail "into the more subtle problems of literary history and criticism". In short, he was no synthetist. With this type of scholar Novotny contrasts his own ideal which he saw personified in T. Zielinski, whose creative phil• osophy he compares with Krru's positivist critical realism. In many ways he 13 regarded Zielinski as an example to he followed, as he asserts modestly. We, however, know that Novotny himself was equipped with those gifts that make a man a real scholar and personality. LUDViK SVOBODA Preface

Plato's earthly life ended in the year 347 B. C. At the same time, however, began his posthumous life - a life of great influence and fame leaving its mark on aU eras of the history of European learning -lasting until present times. Plato's philosophy has taken root earlier or later in innumerable souls of others, it has matured and given birth to new ideas whose proliferation further dissemi• nated the vital force of the original thoughts. It happened sometimes, of course, that by various interpretations different and sometimes altogether contradictory thoughts were deduced from one and the same Platonic doctrine: this possibility is also characteristic of Plato's genius. Even though in the history of Platonism there were times less active and creative, the continuity of its tradition has never been completely interrupted and where there was no growth and progress, at least that what had been once accepted has been kept alive. When enquiring into Plato's influence on the development of learning, we shall above all consider the individual approach of various personalities to Plato's philosophy, personal Platonism, which at its best concerns itself with the literary heritage of Plato and though accessible was not always much sought for. Even then Plato's image was often remoulded and sometimes even distorted by particular interpretations or simply by misunderstanding. But for the history of Platonism it is not only what Plato really was and what he said that is important, but how he was accepted at certain times and interpreted and wherein his influence consisted; at times invention was of greater importance than the objective truth. Manifestations of personal Platonism are distinct stages in the history of human thought, according to which it is possible to determine the main trend of what is called the history of Platonism. In our survey there will be selected typical examples, which are but an attainable substitute for the unattainable completeness. There is also a collective Platonism: contents of thoughts derived directly or indirectly from Plato, widely diffused general ideas without any marks of indi• viduality, and which often did not even preserve their true significance and origin. It also belongs to the history of Platonism, but it is, of course, very difficult and sometimes even impossible to trace its course and manifestations. Finally, it would be right to include here also any philosophy which is in some way related to Plato's philosophy, but originated without his influence. An enquiry into such a kinship cannot be our task, if we do not want to go astray. Our survey does not claim to be a history of Platonism. It has been said that 16 to write the history of Platonism would mean in a certain sense to relate the whole history of philosophy,· but even this would not be a history of Platonism, for Platonism was also influential in other spheres than philosophy. A true history of Platonism could be presented only after enquiring into the history of all human culture with the attention focussed on everything in any way connected with Plato. F.N.

• P. M. Schuhl, Association Guillaume Bude, Congres de Strasbourg 1938 (Paris 1939). p. 231.