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.