INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely afreet reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Z eeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 ARISTOTLE’S POETICS : ITS THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS AND ITS RECEPTION IN HELLENISTIC LITERARY THEORY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Poulheria Kyriakou, B.A., M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1995 Dissertation Committee: A.J. Silverman J.W. Allison Adviser D.E. Hahm Department of Classics UMI Number: 9534013 UMI Microform 9534013 Copyright 1995, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Poulheria Kyriakou ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to express my thanks to Prof. Allan Silverman for his help and advice throughout the preparation of this dissertation. Thanks also go to the other members fo my advisory committee, Profs. June Allison and David Hahm. I would also like to thank my parents and my husband. VITA May 14, 1967 ..............Born -Volos, Greece 1989 .............................B.A, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece 1989 - 1990 ................ Visiting Fellow, University of Cologne, Germany 1990 - 1992...................Teaching Associate, Department of Classics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1992 ..............................M.A Classics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1992 -1994................... Teaching Associate, Department of Classics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1994-1995..................... Presidential Fellow, Department of Classics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Classics TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...........................................................ii VITA............................................................................................. iii INTRODUCTION................................... 1 CHAPTER PAGE I. POET AND POETRY IN THE POETICS ....... 5 II. ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF ART AND THE POETICS ...............................39 III. NECESSITY AND PROBABILITY IN THE POETICS ..............................................70 IV. ARISTOTLE AND THE TRAGEDIANS....... 89 V. ARISTOTLE’S POETICS AND HELLENISTIC LITERARY THEORY........ 106 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................. 181 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this thesis is to study the philosophical underpinnings of the notion of mythos in Aristotle’s Poetics. Despite the emphasis Aristotle lays on mythos, this task has never been seriously undertaken so far. By turning to Aristotle’s metaphysics and his theory of science I will argue that his literary inquiries in the Poetics, sui generis though they might seem, are firmly inscribed in the broader context of his philosophy and that the concept ofmythos is the link of the Poetics to this context. Mythos enables Aristotle to characterize poetics as an autonomous art in his own technical sense of the term. Thus my purposes are fairly limited: the thesis does not offer a new interpretation of thePoetics as a whole but rather focuses on a single but essential aspect of the treatise. The starting point of my inquiry is the realization that the Poetics occupies an almost unique place among Aristotle’s surviving works: lacking the strong philosophical appeal of theAnalytics, Physics or Metaphysics, it has been overlooked by historians of philosophy, whereas literary scholars, naturally interested in the work because of its subject, examine the Poetics in isolation from the rest of Aristotle’s philosophy. The implicit assumption here, that the Poetics needs to be viewed within the broader context of Aristotle’s philosophy, is potentially open to objections, not least because modern literary criticism is irrelevant to philosophical concerns. Such an attitude can be thought to be supported by the fact that the Poetics by no means resembles either the tenth book of Plato’s Republic or the end of the Phaedrus -in his discussion of poetry nowhere does Aristotle explicitly fall back on notions central to his philosophy. It is exactly the association with Plato, however, that warns against the assumption that the Poetics lies outside Aristotle’s strictly philosophical interests. Indeed, there is evidence that Aristotle addressed, and most probably rejected, Plato’s views on poetry in his lost dialogueOn Poets ; Plato’s influence, moreover, is felt throughout the Poetics, although he is nowhere mentioned explicitly, and certain passages in the treatise attack Platonic views, most probably harkening back to On Poets. But Aristotle could not have adequately undercut Plato’s views unless he rejected the philosophical assumptions that informed Plato’s hostile attitude to poetry. One is thus justified in looking for the specific philosophical foundations of the Poetics that could have enabled Aristotle to do exactly that. The question which is naturally raised here is how "philosophy" and "philosophical" are to be properly construed in the context of thePoetics. Butcher1 saw in the Poetics a clearly demarcated "theory of poetry and fine art" but one can comfortably side with Bywater who dismissed "aesthetics" as a modern notion irrelevant to the Poetics2. Indeed, no Greek parallel to "fine art" can be found and !Butcher (1907) ch. 8. 2Bywater (1909) ch. 7. there is abundant evidence that Aristotle does not distinguish between "art" and "craft". For him rexvrj is a blanket term that covers not only arts like music and crafts like housebuilding but also sciences like medicine and geometry. Now it turns out that a clear grasp of Aristotle’s concept of art is indispensible to the appreciation of certain aspects of the Poetics , not least because it speaks against the thesis of Halliwell (1986) ch. 2 and 3, the most recent and widely acclaimed attempt to put the Poetics in the larger context of Aristotle’s philosophy. My critique of Halliwell occupies the first chapter. Halliwell correctly dismisses any claim of "aestheticism" as irrelevant to the Poetics. Instead he proposes that Aristotle viewed poetry in terms of what he calls "natural cultural teleology". As is suggested by the term teleology, Halliwell’s argument bears directly on Aristotle’s account of the evolution of tragedy and poetry in general. For Halliwell Aristotle presents poetry as a natural cultural movement that transcends individual artists: on his interpretation, they become mere vessels of this impersonal natural cultural potential as it unfolds gradually and operates teleologically through the artists in order to achieve its own actualization. Moreover, by construing poetry in such objective, i.e. impersonal, terms, Aristotle resolves the traditional Greek dichotomy between poetic craft and inspiration: he does away with the latter and emphasizes the rational, teachable character of poetic craft. According to Halliwell in this scheme the personal talents of the poets play at most a subordinate role and do not affect significantly the progress of poetry which, as said above, transcends individual poets. As I argue in my critique, Halliwell’s account is flawed because he loses sight of Aristotle’s concept of art. The most important problem lies in Halliwell’s teleological characterization of poetry. Teleology is an intrinsic part of Aristotle’s concept of art but it does not bear out Halliwell’s interpretation of poetry. Throughout the Aristotelian corpus art as a potentiality is repeatedly said dependto ontologically on the individual artist and, as Aristotle makes clear, it is the individual artist who operates teleologically through this potentiality, not the other way around as Halliwell has it. It is, moreover, wrong to claim that Aristotle paints a largely impersonal history of poetry: in thePoetics Aristotle is aware of the contributions of individual artists (it is especially his references to Homer that bear this out). On the other hand it is impossible to argue, as Halliwell does, that Aristotle’s belief in the recurrence of cultures and civilizations reflects a belief in an objective natural potential of art, in