Are you completely mad? "Perhaps by the time Aristotle wrote, the plays were not being done as trilogies as was originally the case"? Dude, I invented tragedy. Of course I know about the trilogies. Sophocles was the model I used. How is the Oedipus cycle not about the destruction of a great man? Are you insane? There is no definition of tragedy without me. It's like if you decided to argue that Karl Marx didn't really understand Marxism. You could talk about how tragedy isn't what it used to be -- Arthur Miller tried that, but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (about whom I don't know much), what is the matter with you people?
'Sides, you're not the Aristotle we know and recall fondly. You the son-of-the-one? No reason to knock yourself out by going full throttle, though, Mr. Aristotle.
According to P. W. Buckham's Theatre of the Greeks (p. 121), Aristotle averred Aeschylus was the inventor of Greek tragedy as we know it; additionally, he cites, as his source, August Wilhelm von Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature to cement his case.
(I believe it was Ed Champion who suggested others begin to oblige themselves to proffer proof for their claims, in another post here today, IIRC. Good advice. Think on't twice' since, in that case, I admit I was the guilty party despite the fact my source appeared above reproach. It was fool's goad :(. Once bitten; twice bold.)
BTW, you can download the above-mentioned free e-book to have a Schlegelian peek-seek at this for yourself:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7148
Aristotle observed Aeschylus added the second actor while your Sophocles added the third; guess we're nuts; but, we're not wrong, aren't we?
BTW, BTW, have a peek-see at The Cambridge Guide to Theatre aussi. (Martin Banham's work, in case you need to know about the tragic show.)
And, please, I beg of thee, come back without shooting straight from the tips when PEBKAC's just a tad too rampant in these HAR parts these daze as far as I can cyber-see.
My shaky recollection of Aristotle's Poetics has him making a distinction between plot and action, with plot subumed to action - action being more like the sum of what is going on, internally and externally, plot the grid on which it's laid out, as it were. This seems to me very useful. Crime and Punishment, for example, has little plot - but boy does it have action...
No shakiness on your part, Nige, not IMO; in fact, you're rock-solid; but, I responded to — what, er, whom? The Ghost of Ari? — Aristotle MMVIII thinking my comment on N.B.'s N.B. — you being The Nigeness, he — him? — being EnBee (N.B.) — had already appeared and it hadn't; but, what I did say was in response to Frank's comment on EnBee's commentaria, theria; and, it went like this:
Aeschylus (524-456 BC) and Aristotle (384-365 BC) . . . I think the answer may be located in the lost fourth Satyric play of The Oresteia :); actually, Frank and Nigel, it's perhaps relevant to this discussion that the trilogy was not divided into acts and scenes proper (as they were, say, later in Shakespeare). I know you both know this; but, there was only one major scene change, remember, in the thing, a fact which does, ISTM, bear upon our understanding of plot and plotting in terms of tragedy.
Also, what Albin Lesky wrote in '65 may bear upon the progression under discussion in terms of the character-flaw conundrum:
"Aeschylean tragedy shows faith in a sublime and just world order, and is in fact inconceivable without it. Man follows his difficult, often terrible path through guilt and suffering, but it is the path ordained by god which leads to knowledge of his laws. All comes from his will."
And, Frank, I agree with you in your first comment's final statement; OTOH, I'd prolly write:
IOW, action and character are the head and heart of the drama’s body; the plot is its soul. Therein lies unity, the sum of its parts, its synchro-humming whole.
(EnBee gets up much later than yours truly, a fact which explains why it's not appeared yet; but, Nige, I like the horizontal / vertical angles upon which you elaborate; and, they make [ahem] sublime sense to me, Longinus not-with-rolling-over-in-his gravitas. What would you place at the matrix or on the imaginary axis where internal meets external, so to speak, if one existed in your construct?)
Are you completely mad? "Perhaps by the time Aristotle wrote, the plays were not being done as trilogies as was originally the case"? Dude, I invented tragedy. Of course I know about the trilogies. Sophocles was the model I used. How is the Oedipus cycle not about the destruction of a great man? Are you insane? There is no definition of tragedy without me. It's like if you decided to argue that Karl Marx didn't really understand Marxism. You could talk about how tragedy isn't what it used to be -- Arthur Miller tried that, but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (about whom I don't know much), what is the matter with you people?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteArgumentum ad hominem? E-gawds! Get a gripe, SVP.
ReplyDelete'Sides, you're not the Aristotle we know and recall fondly. You the son-of-the-one? No reason to knock yourself out by going full throttle, though, Mr. Aristotle.
According to P. W. Buckham's Theatre of the Greeks (p. 121), Aristotle averred Aeschylus was the inventor of Greek tragedy as we know it; additionally, he cites, as his source, August Wilhelm von Schlegel's Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature to cement his case.
(I believe it was Ed Champion who suggested others begin to oblige themselves to proffer proof for their claims, in another post here today, IIRC. Good advice. Think on't twice' since, in that case, I admit I was the guilty party despite the fact my source appeared above reproach. It was fool's goad :(. Once bitten; twice bold.)
BTW, you can download the above-mentioned free e-book to have a Schlegelian peek-seek at this for yourself:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7148
Aristotle observed Aeschylus added the second actor while your Sophocles added the third; guess we're nuts; but, we're not wrong, aren't we?
BTW, BTW, have a peek-see at The Cambridge Guide to Theatre aussi. (Martin Banham's work, in case you need to know about the tragic show.)
And, please, I beg of thee, come back without shooting straight from the tips when PEBKAC's just a tad too rampant in these HAR parts these daze as far as I can cyber-see.
My shaky recollection of Aristotle's Poetics has him making a distinction between plot and action, with plot subumed to action - action being more like the sum of what is going on, internally and externally, plot the grid on which it's laid out, as it were. This seems to me very useful. Crime and Punishment, for example, has little plot - but boy does it have action...
ReplyDeleteNo shakiness on your part, Nige, not IMO; in fact, you're rock-solid; but, I responded to — what, er, whom? The Ghost of Ari? — Aristotle MMVIII thinking my comment on N.B.'s N.B. — you being The Nigeness, he — him? — being EnBee (N.B.) — had already appeared and it hadn't; but, what I did say was in response to Frank's comment on EnBee's commentaria, theria; and, it went like this:
ReplyDeleteAeschylus (524-456 BC) and Aristotle (384-365 BC) . . . I think the answer may be located in the lost fourth Satyric play of The Oresteia :); actually, Frank and Nigel, it's perhaps relevant to this discussion that the trilogy was not divided into acts and scenes proper (as they were, say, later in Shakespeare). I know you both know this; but, there was only one major scene change, remember, in the thing, a fact which does, ISTM, bear upon our understanding of plot and plotting in terms of tragedy.
Also, what Albin Lesky wrote in '65 may bear upon the progression under discussion in terms of the character-flaw conundrum:
"Aeschylean tragedy shows faith in a sublime and just world order, and is in fact inconceivable without it. Man follows his difficult, often terrible path through guilt and suffering, but it is the path ordained by god which leads to knowledge of his laws. All comes from his will."
And, Frank, I agree with you in your first comment's final statement; OTOH, I'd prolly write:
IOW, action and character are the head and heart of the drama’s body; the plot is its soul. Therein lies unity, the sum of its parts, its synchro-humming whole.
(EnBee gets up much later than yours truly, a fact which explains why it's not appeared yet; but, Nige, I like the horizontal / vertical angles upon which you elaborate; and, they make [ahem] sublime sense to me, Longinus not-with-rolling-over-in-his gravitas. What would you place at the matrix or on the imaginary axis where internal meets external, so to speak, if one existed in your construct?)
You people crazy.
ReplyDelete