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Aristotle on as Author(s): Göran Sörbom Source: The Journal of and Criticism, Vol. 52, No. 1, The of Music (Winter, 1994), pp. 37-46 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/431583 . Accessed: 26/09/2011 11:57

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http://www.jstor.org GORAN SORBOM

Aristotle on Music as Representation

In his Politics and Poetics Aristotle claims that othersof motion,and of theselatter again, some have music is a form of imitation () and that a morevulgar, others a noblermovement.3 pieces of music are images of character.' It is a view Aristotle obviously shares with ,2 I. LISTENING TO MUSIC IS A FORM and this outlook seems to have been accepted OF AESTHESIS by many authors throughout antiquity, even if it is not the only view held during this period of In an attemptto understandthe ancient Greek the nature of music. In our times it is, on the way of thinkingand describingwhat music is, it contrary, not natural to regard pieces of music is useful to start with the theory of aesthesis, as images of something or to say that we listen i.e., the Greek conception of what it is to look at to images. In this paper I try to reconstruct and to listen to things and generally to perceive parts of the conceptual framework within things. An initial difficulty here is that the terms which the idea that music is a kind of image has "aesthesis" and "" are not syn- been thought and formulated in antiquity, as a onymous. We cannot presuppose that what we background for a better understanding of the understandby "perception"is what the Greeks ancient outlook on music as image. First some understoodby "aesthesis." crucial quotations from Aristotle's Politics in Basic here is the distinctionbetween aesthe- which the nature of music in terms of images sis and noesis, which is the distinctionbetween and imitations is discussed: what we can see (and vision is often used as the most importantform of aesthesis and thus the and supply imitations of anger and representativeof the other senses) and what we gentleness, and also of courage and temperance,and think. In Plato's strongly dualistic view, what of all the qualities contraryto these, and of the other we can see we cannot think and what we think qualities of character,which hardly fall short of the we cannot see.4 Noesis grasps the world of uni- actual affections, as we know from our own experi- versals, whereas aesthesis consists of the im- ence, for in listening to such strains our souls printson the mind of the particularsof the world undergo a change. ... The objects of no other sense, in a variety of ways. such as or touch, have any resemblanceto moral The fundamental metaphor used by both qualities; in visible objects there is only a little, for Plato and Aristotle in describing the process of there are figures which are of a moral character,but aesthesis is that of pressure;the particulars,i.e., only to a slight extent, and all do not participatein the things seen, heard, touched, etc., press their the feeling about them. Again, figures and colours individual shapes and qualities into the minds are not imitations,but signs, of character,indications of the living organisms via the sense organs which the body gives of states of feeling. ... On the (and sometimes through a medium like air). other hand, even in mere there is an imita- They do so without imposing the matterof the tion of character,for the musical modes differ essen- particularon the perceiver; only their shapes tially from one another,and those who hear them are and qualities appear in the mind of the per- differently affected by each.... The same principles ceiver. There is, of course, a large variety of apply to ; some have a character of rest, opinions in antiquity regarding the nature of The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism 52:1 Winter 1994 38 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism noesis and aesthesis and their interrelations;for image generated, for instance, by drugs and instance, the atomists described aesthesis in fever. When we are hallucinating there is no terms of atoms, and the neoplatonistsdescribed outward object that can be correctly or incor- the appearanceof particularsin the mind as an rectly related to the mental image occurring, interplaybetween impressions from the outside but the spectator there is; maybe the and universals residing in the mind. Alter- hallucination also lacks in consistency com- natively, some believed that the paredto correctaesthesis, whereas strengthand mind sends out something like rays through vividness can be both strongeror weaker than the sense organs in orderto "feel" the shape of average aesthesis. the particulars.5But either way, it is the meta- Thus, correct aesthesis, illusion and hallu- phor of pressure which is fundamental. cination all are forms of aesthesis. But there are The process in which this pressureresults in yet other forms of awareness of particulars an awareness in the mind of the particulars related to aesthesis. Aristotle claims that cor- seen and heard is often described with the rect aesthesis, illusion and hallucination are terms "like" and "unlike"; there is a shift passive forms of aesthesis in the sense that in the sense organ from unlike to like, and this mental images are created or received in the shift generatesthe mental image of the particu- mind without the active interference of the lar thing heard and looked at. For example, mind. But the mind can also on its own call when a signet ring is pressed into wax, it forth mental images of particulars without changes the wax from a shape which is unlike there anything outside the mind arousing the ring to a shape which is like the ring.6 them, as in correct aesthesis and illusion and, Now, there are five senses but just one con- in a way, also in hallucination. When we re- sciousness. This fact made Aristotle postulate member something a mental image is called that there is an aesthesis koine (common sense) forth, a mental image that often lacks in con- which synthesizes the "reports"from the dif- sistency and vividness compared to correct ferent senses into one complex but unified aesthesis. It is a recalling which is partly image of the world of particulars. steered by our will of things once experienced Further,the philosophers of antiquitydistin- in aesthesis, and we know that this is the fact; guished a number of kinds of aesthesis. These otherwise the mental image would be a delu- distinctions are drawn with regard to the rela- sion. Memories are always of particulars.We tion between the mental image and the things cannot rememberthoughts; we can only think arousing it, particularlythe correctness,consis- them. Or in Plato's vivid metaphor of anam- tency and vividness of the mental images and nesis, thoughts are memories of the acquain- the awarenessof this relationin the receiver. As tance with Platonic ideas in an earlierexistence a rule, a mental image is taken to be correct in an eternal world. Dreams belong to another when the shape of it is the same as the actual form of active aesthesis which certainly can be shape of the particular thing seen or heard. as vivid as but seldom as consistent as correct Obviously this is not always the case. The clas- aesthesis. At least when we are awake we know sical example is introduced by Plato: if we, that dreams are generated by the mind itself. when rowing, look at the oars while they are But we don't know this in the state of dreaming. partly under water, the mental image shows Plato remarks:"Is not the dream state, whether broken oars. But we know they are not. The the man is asleep or awake, just this: the mis- "higher part of our mind" which calculates, taking of resemblance for identity?"8 Finally, measures, etc., tells us the , Plato wrote.7 daydreamsand fantasies are forms of aesthesis. This latter kind of aesthesis is often called When we are imagining something we know illusion; there is a thing outside the mind arous- that there is no outwardthing answering to the ing a mental image, but this mental image is not mental image createdby our imagination.When adequate to the thing looked at. The perceiver we are daydreamingwe are, perhaps,balancing believes it is, however. Vividness and consis- on the edge between knowing and not knowing tency may be the same in both cases; the oar that there is no outwardobject answeringto the looks broken even if we know it is not. An mental image, and this act of balance gives hallucination, on the other hand, is a mental strengthand vividness to the daydream. Sorbom Aristotle on Music as Representation 39

II. IMAGES AND (REAL) THINGS In The Cratylus Plato contrasts words and images with each other with respect to what To look at images and imitationsis, of course, a they representor what they signify. Words sig- kind of aesthesis. But this kind of aesthesis has nify, he maintains in one part of the dialogue, a mysterious double character which troubled universals, whereas images signify things in Plato; it is both an illusion and a correctaesthe- their particularity.Here images are regardedas sis at the same time, or something in between- signs; it is thus naturalto understandthe "being neither full illusion nor correct aesthesis. nothing but similar in some given respects" as In The Plato divides the world of an attempt to characterizethe sign function of things, that is the world of particulars, into images.13 (real)9 things and images. Further, these two Fundamentalto semiosis, or our uses of signs, classes can, each of them, be split into (real) is that we know that the thing we apprehendis a things and images made by human and sign. When we read or hear the word "," such made by God or Nature. The result was we must know that it is a word referring to the following "map"of the world of particulars beauty and not beauty itself or just a series of with examples of each class: noises. And similarly, when we look at a sculp- ture, it is importantfor us to know that it is an God or Human image of a beautiful person and not a living Nature Beings beautiful person in front of us. Even if Greek paintersand sculptorstried to make their paint- trees, stones, artifacts (real)(rea) thngsthings animals ings and as full of life as possible, they seldom intended to trick the spectators shadows, and into the that they had a (real) thing in reflections, pieces of images constellations and front of them and not an image.14 This bor- derline between knowing and not knowing of stars music whethersomething is an image or a real thing is also Plato's concern in The Sophist. He wants to In an attempt to define what distinguishes show that the are such tricksters.They images from (real) things, Plato claims that an have no wisdom but put up the appearanceof image is something which is similar to some- having it and trick innocent people into the thing else but only in some respects, and that the belief that they, the sophists, are wise. In The function or nature of images is to be nothing Republic Plato claims something similar: the but similar in these respects.10A thing, which is painters can trick simple people with their similar to something else in all respects, is not paintings and that is a danger.15But even if this an image of that something but another exam- can be the case sometimes, this does not mean ple of its kind.1 The respects in which the that all images are used in such a way or that image resembles something else are tied to the tricking people into false beliefs is the goal of medium in which the image is made, as Aris- image-making.On the contrary,if we look back totle remarksin his classificatory discussion of into history for all the different kinds of usage different kinds of imitation in the first chapter of images, the spectators know in most cases of the Poetics.12 But things can be similar to that it is an image and not a (real) thing they are other things in some respects without being looking at and that this awareness is intended. images of the things they resemble. The crucial There are no real persons standing along the characteristicis that this partial similarityis the funeral road in Kerameikosin Athens, or in the only function or form of the image Agora or on the Acropolis. And it is not the real has. Suppose we look at Myron's famous sculp- Oedipus who investigates why Thebes is ture of a cow. This piece of bronze is in some plague-strickenin the performancesof Sopho- respects (three-dimensional form materialized cles's Oedipus Rex in the theaterof Dionysus. in bronze) similar to cows, and the basic func- To look at or to "listen to" an image implies tion of it is to be nothing but similar to cows, that the spectatorsand listeners, to some extent i.e., when we look at it, mental images of a cow at least, expect different things from images are meantto occur in the minds of the spectators. than from (real) things and that they accord- 40 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism ingly act differently in front of an image than other kinds of images and imitations): "First, they would do in front of real things of the kind the instinct of imitation is implanted in man representedin the image. Aristotle is aware of from childhood, one between him this fact: "Objects which in themselves we and other animals being that he is the most view with , we delight to contemplatewhen imitative of living creatures,and throughimita- reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the tion learns his earliest lessons; and no less uni- forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead versal is the pleasure felt in things imitated.... bodies."'16When we know that we are "listen- Next, there is the instinct for '' ing to" or looking at an image we act in a way and rhythm,meters being manifestly sections of which is different from the ways in which we rhythm."19The capacity to appreciaterhythm usually act in front of the things representedin and harmony in things heard as well as the the image. "Again, when we form an opinion capacity to appreciatesymmetry and good pro- that something is threateningor frightening,we portions in things seen is unique for human are immediately affected by it, and the same is beings and these qualities, namely rhythm,har- true of our opinion of something that inspires mony, symmetry and good proportions,belong courage; but in imaginationwe are like specta- to images and imitations as objects in them- tors looking at something dreadfulor encourag- selves irrespectiveof what they represent.Thus ing in a picture."''7 Aristotle clearly saw the twofold characterof In a sense, images have a double nature,and images and imitations as the following quota- this doublenessmight be mystifying:it is both a tion also shows: "For if you happennot to have real thing in its own right and a sort of illusion. seen the original, the pleasurewill be due not to Myron's cow is a lump of bronze which we can the imitation as such, but to the execution, the look at and touch. The sculpturehas its own set colouring, or some such other cause."20 of qualities, like yellow-browncolors, a smooth Described within the conceptual frame of touch and formal and structuralfeatures. These aesthesis, looking at or "listening to" images the sculpturehas irrespectiveof its being a repre- and imitationsgives the spectatorand listener a sentation of a cow or not. But secondly, it has double imprint-both the shape of the image its representationalfunction, i.e., to create an itself with its rhythms,, symmetries, inner image of a cow in the mind of the specta- and good proportions, and the shape of the tor. The spectatorsees a cow but knows that it is thing represented.Crucial here is that the spec- not a real cow, just as the person who imagines tator and listener know that the representational things knows that the things imagined are not imprint is without counterpart in the (real) outside of him or her, or as the person remem- world. Or, as Plato formulatesit, an image is "a beringsomething knows thatthe mentalimage is sort of man-made dream produced for those relatedto somethingthat occurredback in time. who are awake."'21 In The Laws Plato comments on the double Thus an image is, according to the ancient character of images and imitations. The gods outlook, a humanly made thing with a set of gave human beings, in pity for the beastly life qualities of its own which might be organized of the humanrace, the ability to appreciatehar- into a harmonious, rhythmical, and well-pro- mony and rhythmin song and . But since portionedwhole and with an ability to create an songs and also are representative, it inner image of some particularthing which it is might happen that people take delight in the not in itself. Primarily images and imitations rhythms and harmonies of representationsof are meant to call forth mental images in the immoral content and are thus tricked into the minds of the spectatorsand listeners. Then this belief that the thing represented also is good function can be put into a large variety of situa- (since most people believe that the things that tions in which this human ability is used.22 In give pleasure are good).18 most cases it is importantthat the spectatoror Aristotle seems to have a similar outlook in listener is aware of the fact that it is an image or the fourth chapter of The Poetics. The reasons imitationhe or she is looking at or listening to. why human beings use images and imitations Sometimes, however, the image can be used to are two (Aristotle writes about poetry in gen- trick the receiver into the false belief that he or eral, but what he says is clearly valid also for she is looking at a real thing. Sbrbom Aristotle on Music as Representation 41

III. MUSIC, IMITATION, AND THE answering: "We enjoy different types of songs PLEASURES OF MUSIC for their moral character,but we enjoy rhythm because it has a recognized and orderlynumeri- If you claim that pieces of music are images or cal arrangement and carries us along in an imitations, this means, within the conceptual orderly fashion; for orderly movement is natu- framework sketched above, that a piece of rally more akin to us than one without order, so music is a humanly made thing the sole func- that such rhythm is more in accordance with tion of which is to create a mental image of a nature."25 double characterin the mind of the listener: a Thus music can give us hedonic pleasure, mental image of the piece of music as a thing structuralpleasure (beauty), and pleasure from with particularqualities, foremost rhythms and learning. But what can we learn from listening harmonies, and a mental image of something to music, and what can music represent? which the piece of music is not, that is, what it represents.Further, it is implied that the listener IV. MUSIC AND ETHOS knows that the representationalimpression does not originate from a real thing of the kind Music also has an influence on the characteror shown in the mental image. disposition (ethos) of persons. Such characters Very few persons deny that listening to music or dispositions of persons are in antiquity de- can give the listener pleasure, although there is noted by means of words like "frenzy," "sober- a great disagreement about the value of such ness," "temperance," "strength," "lascivious- pleasure and about the role it should play in ness." The idea that music can influence the human life. There is also disagreement about characterand dispositions of persons seems to the origin of musical pleasure. Musical hedo- be the very center of Plato's and Aristotle's ar- nism can be described as the view that pleasure gument on the natureof music. Aristotle refers from music is direct and immediatein the same to it several times as something we know from way as the pleasure of good tastes and odors. our own .26 When we listen to a Another way of describing pleasure in con- piece of music it happens that our minds shift, nection with music, not necessarily denying the and what changes is our ethos, i.e., our disposi- hedonistic view, is to claim that good propor- tion or character.Sextus Empiricustells the fol- tions in the thing heard arouse pleasure. This lowing anecdote: "Thus Pythagoras, having type of pleasure, tied to the structuralproper- noticed on one occasion that the youths who ties of the sensuous thing, is called beauty fol- were in a state of Bacchic frenzy from drunken- lowing a very long tradition from the Pythag- ness differed not at all from madmen, advised orean school.23 Since taste and smell have no the flute-player who was with them in their structural features in their sensuous objects, revels to play them the 'spondean' tune; and they cannot share this kind of beauty, and touch when he had done as instructed,they suddenly can only do it to a certain extent. Only sight changed and became sober just as if they had and hearing provide us with full-fledged sen- been sober from the beginning."27 suous beauty. The fact Aristotle uses as foundationfor his Since music is a form of imitation, the plea- argumentis, then, that music has the power to sure experienced in listening to music can also changethe mind of its listenersso theircharacters be the pleasure of learning something. "Again, or dispositionschange. Since listeningto pieces of since learning and wondering are pleasant, it music is a kind of aesthesis, it often is de- follows that such things as acts of imitation scribedas a change from "unliketo like." Now, must be pleasant-for instance, , sculp- the change is describedas a change of ethos, of ture, poetry-and every productof skillful imi- characterand disposition. The natural conclu- tation; this latter, even if the object imitated is sion would be, then, thatthe piece of music has a not pleasant in itself."24 characterwhich it "imprints"on the listener or, The Pseudo-Aristotelian text, Problemata, at least, that it is similar to such a character. makes this distinction clear by posing the ques- The basic assumption is, of course, that tion, "Why does everyone enjoy rhythm and music has characterand means to communicate tune, and in general all consonances?"and then this characterto the listener. In Problemata the 42 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism following question is put: "Why is hearing the Knowing this, the listener reacts differently only perception which affects the moral char- than in "ordinary"situations: if we see a sad acter? For every tune, even if it has no words, person it is, in many situations,natural to try to has nevertheless character;but neither colour, comfort him or her. But we do not comfort the smell nor flavour have it."28 performing musician or the composer. On the In this passage Pseudo-Aristotle claims that contrary,we enjoy the shape of sadness because music has character. But in another passage we learn something by listening to it, Aristotle close to it in the same text Pseudo-Aristotle would say; we learn about sadness. In the same asks about music's relation to character:"Why way as we enjoy looking at paintings of things are rhythm and tune, which are only an emis- which we would dislike and detest in real situa- sion of the voice, associated with moral charac- tions, we enjoy learning about characters and ter, while flavours, colours and scents are not?" dispositions which we, if we met with them in In both cases Pseudo-Aristotle's answer is that real life, would abhor.And we would try to turn they have movement. "Is it because, like actions, away from them as quickly as possible, which they are movements? Now, action is a moral is contraryto looking at them with enjoyment. fact and implies a moral character,but flavours and colours do not act in the same way." V. THE IMITATION OF UNIVERSALS What does it mean to say that rhythms and harmonieshave characteror are similar to char- Since Plato's challenge that images and imita- acter? Aristotle claims that it is a plain fact, tions cannot represent anything but individual something everybody knows from his or her things in the visual and audible world, i.e., that own experience and that the explanation is they cannot representPlatonic ideas,29a central found in movement. For Plato, Aristotle, and question has been: what can images and imita- many other, but not all, ancient thinkersit was tions represent? Can they in some way tran- natural to use the conceptual framework of scend the limits of the visual and audible world aesthesis and mimesis in orderto describe these and represent something that is invisible and processes. A piece of music is not, for instance, inaudible, that has no body? anger itself in abstractionnor is it an example In the Poetics Aristotle claims that poetry is of anger, i.e., angry behavior, but it is an image more important than history because poetry of anger, namely something that is similar to represents something more universal, whereas but not an instance of anger, and this "nothing history is the representationof individual and but similarity in certain respects" is the basic particular occurrences, and universality (to natureof music apartfrom its rhythms,harmo- katholou) is, to Aristotle and to many with him, nies, and shapes as well as it is basic for all of greater value than particularity. Aristotle other kinds of image and imitation. A piece of writes in De interpretations: "I call universal music is a humanly made thing which is ex- that which is by its naturepredicated of a num- pressively made in order to give us inner ber of things, and particularthat which is not; images of anger which are individual and par- man, for instance, is a universal, Callias a par- ticular in shape and necessarily individual and ticular."30 Thus, can images and imitations particular,sinceto listen to music is a form of show and teach us something about human aesthesis. At the same time, the receiver knows beings in general and not only about particular that it is neither anger itself nor an example of human beings as, for instance, the individual anger but an image of anger which she or he is fate of Callias? looking at or "listening to"; recognizing some- At least poetic imitation can, according to thing to be an image implies that it is not under- Aristotle, teach us universal , and this stood as a "real"thing. This and the feature of poems is the distinctive differentiaof praxis tied up to it is to a large extent culturally poetic imitation. But it is likely that also other established and acquiredby the members of the forms of imitation in addition to poetic imita- culture in a process of acculturation,in which tion can teach us about universals. Let us first they learn which things are images and imita- take Aristotle's own example of poetic imita- tions and how to react in front of them and how tion: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. The universal to use them. truth about human existence, which we can Sbrbom Aristotle on Music as Representation 43

learn from this , is what the chorus pro- ask: What sort of universals about human life nounces in its last lines: human happiness is can painting, , dance, and music pre- fickle. At any time the greatesthappiness can be sent in paradigmaticform to their audiences? reversed into the greatest unhappiness. In To know about human character (ethos) is order to communicatethis universal truthto his importantto human life. Such charactersor dis- audience, Sophocles chose to tell the story of positions as temperance,sorrow, and greed are Oedipus and the plague in Thebes. The fate of universalsthat can be shown in paintings,sculp- Oedipus demonstrates this universal with tures, and dramaticperformances. But, as both graphic clarity. What we see in the perfor- Xenophon and Aristotle maintain, they cannot mance of the tragedy is not, however, the uni- be exemplified directly. The only way to show versal truth in abstraction,something a philos- sorrowor temperance,for instance,in paintings, opher could demonstrate and clarify with sculptures,and dramaticperformances is through arguments. And it is neither a real thing, i.e., the outward signs of these characters. Oedipus himself in his search of the cause of Music, however, can represent character the plague, nor an image of what Oedipus actu- itself, Aristotle writes. Music shows us directly, ally did (that is the history of Oedipus), if he throughits images and imitations,paradigmatic ever lived and tried to find out why Thebes was examples of character. These examples are plague-stricken.It is an image which offers a received immediately and directly through a particularexemplification of a universal truth change of mind of the receiver to the character about human existence, and the fate of Oedipus imitated in the sense that the characteror dis- is chosen because it is such a strikingexample. position is not attached to the behavior of an Thus, the poetic image and imitation do not individual person as it is in what we may call present chance examples or actual examples of physiognomic imitation of character; it is a some general truthbut paradigmexamples of it. direct imitation of charactersand dispositions. "It is, moreover," Aristotle writes, "evident Aristotle maintains that hearing and music from what has been said, that it is not the func- are unique in this respect.33The other senses tion of the poet to relate what has happened,but cannot provide us with such images. Smell, what may happen-what is possible according touch, and taste cannot represent anything at to the law of probabilityor necessity."31 Not all all. Sight, Aristotle writes, can give us images images and imitations, however, are meant to of character,but only to some extent, and he be, or in fact are, presentations of paradigm also points at an importantrestriction: painting examples of universal truths;many images and and sculpturecan only representthe indications imitations tell about particulars.32 But the of character. Painting and sculpture can, ac- poetic images and imitations are, Aristotle cording to Aristotle, only represent character maintains, not historical in that sense. They physiognomically. present something more general to their audi- A similarview is found in Xenophon's Mem- ences. Furthermore,the universal truth exem- orabilia. Painting can only represent "the plified should be of importance to the life of works of the soul," Xenophon maintains in a human beings and the presentation of it in report about Socrates's discussions with the images and imitations should, thus, be paradig- painter, Parrhasius,on the limits of painting.34 matic. According to Aristotle, the audience Characteris something immaterial and cannot does not learn this universal truththrough argu- be represented.But it is possible to see and thus ments, but, throughthe pity and fear, representthe difference between an angry per- it reaches the insight that human happiness is son and, for instance, a happy person. fickle. Thus painting and sculpture can represent Aristotle mentions only poetic images and persons with a certain characteror in a certain imitations in connection with the presentation mood but unable to representthe characterand and exemplification of universals.But it is easy mood itself. This is so because not only paint- to see that other forms of images and imitations ing and sculpture but also poetry and theater can also be "poetic" in the sense that they ex- represent individuals in action. Music alone emplify, in paradigmaticform, some universals presents examples of these dispositions and importantto human life. Thus it is natural to characters themselves, which the listener 44 The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism knows are not real things but images and imita- To the high thoughts which animate his soul. tions. Pieces of music are images of character And when he sings of women, he assumes because the listeners know that they are neither A woman's garb, and dons a woman's habits. real and genuine signs of a character nor the characteritself; they are only similar to it. The MN. (aside to Euripides) When you wrote Phaedra, impression the listeners get results in a mental did you take her habits? image of, for instance, anger, i.e., an experience and conception of anger, and he or she knows AG. But when he sings of men, his whole appearance that it is neither anger in itself nor real genuine Conforms to man. What nature gives us not, signs of it. It is a thing made to give just angry The human soul aspires to imitate. "impressions" without instilling the belief that the piece itself or its maker is angry. MN. (as before) Zounds, if I'd seen you when you wrote the Satyrs!

VI. MUSIC AND EXPRESSION AG. Besides, a poet never should be rough, Or harsh, or rugged. Witness to my words Modem languages find it easier to talk about Anacreon, Alcaeus, Ibycus, emotions than images with regard to the func- Who when they filtered and diluted song, tion of music. A piece of music calls forth an Wore soft Ionian manners and attire. of anger or expresses anger;it does not And Phrynicus, perhaps you have seen him, give us an image of character.But to ancient sir, thought it was natural to call pieces of music How fair he was, and beautifully dressed; images and imitations since they were not real Therefore his plays were beautifully fair. things, as discussed above. For as the Worker, so the Work will be. So far we have discussed music as imitation of characterfrom the supposition that pieces of MN. Then that is why harsh Philocles writes music have characteror are similar to character harshly, and that they stamp this character into the And that is why vile Xenocles writes vilely, minds of their listeners resulting in a change of And cold Theognis writes such frigid plays. character.But how can we explain that pieces of music have or are similar to character? AG. Yes, that is why.36 According to some authors there is a relation between the characterof pieces of poetry and Here it is stated that the character of the their creators. "Sublimity is the echo of a great maker is carried over to his products. This mind," Pseudo-Longinus writes.35 And much resembles the theory of poetic communication earlier Aristophanes ridiculed this idea in The given in Plato's Ion. The Muse seizes the poet Thesmophoriazusae. In the beginning of the who in his turn communicates what he has play Euripides and Mnesikles visit the poet, received from the Muse to the rhapsodist or Agathon, in order to recruit him to participate actor. And they continue the chain to the lis- in a religious festival of women where Eurip- teners. Plato describes the process metaphor- ides is threatenedto be sentenced to death for ically: it is like the power of a magnet which slandering women. Euripides is anxious to can attract rings of iron.37 Basic, here, is that it make Agathon speak in favor of him. When is the same content that is communicated from they knock at his door Agathon comes out the Muse to the listeners. Thus the pieces of dressed in women's clothes, and Mnesikles poetry and music are not signs of the character expresses his amazement. Agathon answers: in question but the character itself or resem- blances of it. Old man,old man,my earsreceive the words It is possible to describe the making of images Of your tongue'sutterance, yet I heed them and imitations as a reverse process of aesthesis. not. In the process of aesthesis the (real) world I choosemy dressto suit my poesy. imprints its shapes and qualities without its A poet, sir, mustneed adapthis ways matter into the mind of the receiver, whereas in Sorbom Aristotle on Music as Representation 45 making an image, the shape and charactercre- Translation, Vol. VI., trans. H. N. Fowler (London: Loeb ated in the imagination of the sculptor, poet or Classical Library, 1953). 12. Cf. also Plato's Cratylus, 434A. musician are forced upon some matter.38 13. Cratylus, 423C-D. Bronze,for instance.Myron created in his imagi- 14. Norman Bryson's idea in Vision and Painting: The nation a mental image of a cow, and with the of the (London:Macmillan, 1983) that the basic help of his skill (techne) he transformedthis goal of pictorial art up until recently was to produce the Essential Copy, a sort of thing that made the spectators shape into matter. Similarly, the character or believe that they looked at a (real) thing and not an image, disposition of the mind of the musician is is to my mind a very superficial interpretationof thoughts stamped upon the piece of music, which in its about and practices in the pictorial in antiquity. turn acts upon the listener in such a way that he 15. 598 C. or she changes to the characterof the piece of 16. Poetics, 1448b 10-12, in Aristotle'sTheory of Poetry and Fine Art with a Critical Text and Translation of the music. Poetics. First published 1894. Fourth ed., trans. S. H. So, possibly, theories of imitation and theo- Butcher (New York: Dover Publications, 1951). ries of expression meet in Aristotle's account of 17. Aristotle, De anima, 427b 22-25, trans. W. S. Hett the nature of music. Maybe we have to regard (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1964). 18. The Laws, 653C-654A, 655D-656C. Aristotle's description of musical representa- 19. 1448b 5-9, 20-22. Trans. cf. note 16. tion as an attempt to formulate a theory of 20. Poetics, 1448b 18-19. Trans. cf. note 16. expression within the conceptual frameworkof 21. The Sophist, 266C, in Plato with an English Transla- aesthesis and mimesis. tion: Theaetetus, Sophist, trans. H. N. Fowler (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1921). 22. In discussing the different causes why a sculpture GORAN SORBOM exists and looks as it actually does, Seneca writes: "The Institutionenfor estetik 'fourth cause' is the purpose of the work. For if this pur- Uppsala Universitet pose had not existed, the statue would not have been made. Celsiushuset, Svartbacksgatan7-11 Now what is this purpose? It is that which attracted the which he followed when he the statue. It 753 20 Uppsala artist, made may have been money, if he has made it for sale; or renown, if he Sweden has worked for reputation;or religion if he has wrought it as a gift for a temple." Epistle 65 in Seneca: Ad Lucilium Epistolae Morales, trans. R. M. Gummere (London: Loeb 1. Politics, 1340a 18-22 and Poetics, ch. 1. Classical Library, 1967). 2. Republic, 401 B-403 C; Laws 655 D and 668 A: "We 23. Cf. Wladislaw Tatarkiewitz'spaper "The GreatThe- assert,do we not, that all music is representative(eikastiken) ory of Beauty and Its Decline," The Journal of Aesthetics and imitative (mimetiken)?"The Laws, trans. R. G. Bury and Art Criticism 31 (1972): 165-180. (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1952). 24. Rhetoric, 1.11. 1371b4-7 in The Complete Works of 3. 1340a 18-1340b 10. The Complete Worksof Artistotle: Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation,trans. W. Rhys The Revised Oxford Translation,ed. JonathanBarnes, trans. Roberts (Princeton:Bollingen Series 71:2, 1984). B. Jowett (PrincetonUniversity Press, 1984). 25. XIX.38. Aristotle: Problems, trans. W. S. Hett (Lon- 4. The Republic, 507B-C. don: Loeb Classical Library, 1957). 5. Cf. Boethius, De institutione musica, 179: "Whether 26. In the long passage from The Politics quoted above sight occurs by images coming to the eye or by rays sent out (1340a 18-1340b 19). to sensible objects is a point of disagreement among the 27. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors, VI.8, in learned, although this dispute escapes the notice of the Sextus Empiricuswith an English Translation,trans. R. G. ordinary person." Quoted in Fundamentals of Music: Bury (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1961). This anec- Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, trans. Calvin M. dote was apparentlystandard knowledge in antiquity. It is Bower (Yale University Press, 1989). told by several authors.Cf., for instance, Quintilian'sInsti- 6. Cf. Aristotle, De anima, 424a 17-28. tutio oratoria 1.10.32 and Boethius De institutions musica 7. The Republic, 602C-603A. 1.185. 8. The Republic, 476C in Plato: The Republic, trans.Paul 28. XIX.27. Trans. cf. note 27. Plato also believes that Shorey (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1946). music without words representscharacter but he is troubled 9. The Sophist, 265C-266D. An image is, of course, also about how to know which characteris representedin the a thing. But it is a thing of a particularsort, and it is the individual cases (Laws 669E): "[T]he poets rudely sunder distinguishing characteristicsof images that Plato is look- rhythm and gesture from tune, putting tuneless words into ing for; the nature of images in contradistinctionto (real) metre, or leaving tune and rhythmwithout words, and using things. the bare sound of harp or flute, wherein it is almost impos- 10. The Sophist, 239D-240B. sible to understandwhat is intendedby this wordlessrhythm 11. Cf. Cratylus, 432B: "[T]he image must not by any and harmony, or what noteworthy original it represents." means reproduceall the qualities of that which it imitates, if Trans. cf. note 2. it is to be an image." Quoted in Plato with an English 29. The Republic, 597E ff. 46 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

30. De interpretations, 17a 38-40, in The Complete jamin Bickley Rogers (London: Loeb Classical Library, Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. 1963). Jonathan Barnes, trans. J.L. Ackrill (Princeton:Bollingen 37. Ion, 533D-E. Series 71:2, 1984). 38. Cf. my paper "What is in the Mind of the Image- 31. Poetics, ch. IX, 1451a 37-39. Trans. cf. note 16. Maker? Some Views on Pictorial Representationin Antiq- 32. Ibid. 1451b 10-11. "The particular is-for exam uity," Journal of ComparativeLiterature and Aesthetics 1-2 ple-what Alcibiades did or suffered." (1987): 1-41. 33. Possibly dance, too, is capable of this since rhythmis An earlier version of this paper was read at the joint a constituentpart of dance. meeting of the British Society of Aesthetics and The Scan- 34. Memorabilia, 111.10.1-8. dinavian Society of Aesthetics in Durham, England, April 35. On the , IX.2. 9-12, 1992. 36. Aristophaneswith an English Translation,trans. Ben-