hcayless · September 7, 2018 19:01
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            <title level="a">BMCR 04.01.01, Ruth Scodel on Elizabeth S. Belfiore, Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion
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                  <addrLine>University of Michigan</addrLine>
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               <email>[email protected]</email>
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            <head>BMCR 04.01.01, Ruth Scodel on Elizabeth S. Belfiore, Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion</head>
            <biblStruct>
               <monogr>
                  <idno type="ISBN">ISBN 9780691068992</idno>
                  <idno type="worldcat">http://worldcat.org/1234</idno>
                  <title>Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion</title>
                  <author>
                     <name ref="http://viaf.org/12334">Elizabeth S. Belfiore</name>
                  </author>
                  <imprint>
                     <pubPlace>Princeton</pubPlace>
                     <publisher>Princeton University Press</publisher>
                     <date>1992</date>
                  </imprint>
                  <extent>Pp. xvi + 412</extent>
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            <p> First, it needs to be said that I was not a good choice to review this book. Readers
               of Aristotle's Poetics generally fall into two categories (though some happily belong
               to both): those who care about tragedy and those who care about Aristotle. Belfiore
               belongs to the second. The strengths of her work lie in the links she makes between
               the Poetics and other works of Aristotle, and the section I found most convincing was
               the account of catharsis in the biological works. On the other hand, I was
               disappointed both by her own readings of tragedy and by those of her Aristotle.</p>
            <p> She argues that Aristotle elsewhere treats catharsis as mainly an allopathic
               process, in which drugs, for instance, are able to remove unhealthy residues from the
               body because they are opposite in certain respects instance. So she claims that
               tragedy, through pity and fear, purifies the soul of antisocial emotions such as
               anger and pride, leaving it in a state of moderation and <foreign xml:lang="GRC"
                  >A)ID/WS</foreign>. This has the great advantage that it does seem to work well
               within the broader Aristotelian context and it makes good, clear intuitive sense.
               Tragic catharsis in her view works (very roughly) as follows. There is a first stage
               in which tragedy brings shameful desires to consciousness and makes the audience
               aware that its shameful desires contradict its better feelings. Then it provides a
               shock of excessive fear as the spectators realize that the suffering they see could
               come to them, and this fear drives out all desires. This fear generates pity, while
               judgment impedes the usual response of flight or intervention. Then, through the
               recognition that the suffering represented is broadly characteristic of human
               experience and the resulting pleasure of imitation, these excessive responses are
               removed, and with them the shameless desires. </p>
            <p> This account (like every other attempt to explain what Aristotle means by catharsis)
               presents a number of problems. Its opening stages are modeled on the Platonic
               elenchus and on her own understanding of tragic experience; I don't see much basis in
               Aristotle for it, and it seems contrived in order to connect shameful desires with
               tragic fear. </p>
            <p> However, I am fairly certain that this interpretation cannot be right simply on the
               Greek. I may have been prejudiced against the whole volume because right from the
               start I saw difficulties in an allopathic interpretation of the words <foreign
                  xml:lang="GRC">DI' E)LE/OU KAI\ FO/BOU PERAI/NOUSA TH\N TW=N TOIOU/TWN PAQHMA/TWN
                  KA/QARSIN</foreign>, and then I had to wait until almost the end for her
               explanation. Belfiore points out that had Aristotle meant that it is pity and fear
               that tragedy removes, he would have used <foreign xml:lang="GRC">TOU/TWN</foreign>,
               and she acknowledges that the case for an allopathic understanding of the passage
               would have been much stronger had he said <foreign xml:lang="GRC">E(TE/RWN</foreign>.
               But she suggests that <foreign xml:lang="GRC">TOIOU/TWN</foreign> refers to all
               emotions on the scale to which pity and fear belong; all emotions involved in the
               tragic process. I don't buy this. A Greek might use <foreign xml:lang="GRC"
                  >TOIOU/TWN</foreign> in contrasting one group of emotions which, whatever their
               differences among themselves, were being contrasted with another group. But if
               catharsis is an allopathic process the difference between hot and cold emotions,
               between pity and anger, is not being ignored in favor of a contrast with non-tragic
               emotions; it is central. Belfiore's interpretation requires that "such emotions" not
               only go beyond pity and fear, but exclude them, and this seems to me impossible
               Greek. </p>
            <p> She discusses <bibl>Iliad 24</bibl> at some length as an example of catharsis, and
               although I find her account somewhat reductive, I am willing to accept it as
               partially accurate: Achilles is purged of his excessive anger and lack of shame
               through his pity and fear in response to Priam's appeal. Still, he is not really
               purged of his tendency to anger; he himself warns Priam that if the old man annoys
               him he might kill him. Surely if catharsis is to be seriously useful, it must do more
               than calm immediate outbursts; people do not usually go into the theater in states of
               rage. So one needs to consider how the experience of the reader or spectator is
               related to that of the character. There is no doubt that in everyday life excessive
               anger can be reduced by pity, where that pity is directed at those against whom we
               have been angry. But in tragedy our pity is directed at characters with whom we have
               not been angry. Nor is Iliad 24, for all its tragic mood, in any way typical of a
               tragic plot. </p>
            <p> In one respect she seems to me to misrepresent Aristotle, namely in her treatment of
               shame. For her, Aristotle's insistence on the importance of <foreign xml:lang="grc"
                  >φίλοι</foreign> as those who inflict and suffer great harm has to do with the
               intense shame caused by such actions. Yet Aristotle actually never discusses shame in
               the Poetics, and Belfiore does not really look closely at how tragedies, especially
               Aristotle's favorite tragedies, handle kin-murder. The emphasis, it seems to me, is
               more on the terrible pollution such killings cause than on the shame that they bring,
               and in any case a great deal of thought is needed about how a spectator is to connect
               the extravagant horrors of many tragedies with the ordinary excesses of life. If
               Aristotle's views are to be interpreted in the light of conventional Greek morality,
               the relation between tragic experience and that morality has to be treated with more
               complexity than it is here. Belfiore brings up the element of voyeurism in tragic
               spectacle (it is the first stage, in which tragedy reveals our shameless desires),
               but doesn't give it much attention. But what are the shameless desires of which
               tragedy makes us aware? Surely not a desire to commit incest[mdash]Oedipus himself
               had no such desire[mdash]but the desire to watch. How does this all fit?</p>
            <p> Belfiore is strongest in reading the Poetics in the light of the rest of the corpus,
               especially the biological works. She certainly makes it impossible to believe that
               catharsis is a straightforward homeopathic process in which we are purged of
               excessive pity and fear. Though I was not convinced, and I doubt that others will be,
               this is a thoughtful and careful book which should render us all a good deal more
               thoughtful and careful in reading this extraordinarily difficult text.</p>
         </div>
         <div type="notes">
            <head>NOTES</head>
            <note xml:id="NT1">
               <bibl>John F. D'Amico, Theory and Practice in Renaissance Textual Criticism: Beatus
                  Rhenanus Between Conjecture and History, Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.</bibl>
               [I'm not sure we can do this, can we? most of the notes in reviews are narrative]
            </note>
            <note xml:id="NT2">
               <bibl>Eugene F. Rice, Jr., Saint Jerome in the Renaissance, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
                  UP, 1985. </bibl>
            </note>
         </div>
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	<div>
	<head>BMCR 04.01.01, Ruth Scodel on Elizabeth S. Belfiore, Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion</head>
	<biblStruct>
	<monogr>
	<idno type="ISBN">ISBN 9780691068992</idno>
	<idno type="worldcat">http://worldcat.org/1234</idno>
	<title>Tragic Pleasures: Aristotle on Plot and Emotion</title>
	<author>
	<name ref="http://viaf.org/12334">Elizabeth S. Belfiore</name>
	</author>
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	<pubPlace>Princeton</pubPlace>
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	<date>1992</date>
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	<div>
	<p> First, it needs to be said that I was not a good choice to review this book. Readers
	of Aristotle's Poetics generally fall into two categories (though some happily belong
	to both): those who care about tragedy and those who care about Aristotle. Belfiore
	belongs to the second. The strengths of her work lie in the links she makes between
	the Poetics and other works of Aristotle, and the section I found most convincing was
	the account of catharsis in the biological works. On the other hand, I was
	disappointed both by her own readings of tragedy and by those of her Aristotle.</p>
	<p> She argues that Aristotle elsewhere treats catharsis as mainly an allopathic
	process, in which drugs, for instance, are able to remove unhealthy residues from the
	body because they are opposite in certain respects instance. So she claims that
	tragedy, through pity and fear, purifies the soul of antisocial emotions such as
	anger and pride, leaving it in a state of moderation and <foreign xml:lang="GRC"
	>A)ID/WS</foreign>. This has the great advantage that it does seem to work well
	within the broader Aristotelian context and it makes good, clear intuitive sense.
	Tragic catharsis in her view works (very roughly) as follows. There is a first stage
	in which tragedy brings shameful desires to consciousness and makes the audience
	aware that its shameful desires contradict its better feelings. Then it provides a
	shock of excessive fear as the spectators realize that the suffering they see could
	come to them, and this fear drives out all desires. This fear generates pity, while
	judgment impedes the usual response of flight or intervention. Then, through the
	recognition that the suffering represented is broadly characteristic of human
	experience and the resulting pleasure of imitation, these excessive responses are
	removed, and with them the shameless desires. </p>
	<p> This account (like every other attempt to explain what Aristotle means by catharsis)
	presents a number of problems. Its opening stages are modeled on the Platonic
	elenchus and on her own understanding of tragic experience; I don't see much basis in
	Aristotle for it, and it seems contrived in order to connect shameful desires with
	tragic fear. </p>
	<p> However, I am fairly certain that this interpretation cannot be right simply on the
	Greek. I may have been prejudiced against the whole volume because right from the
	start I saw difficulties in an allopathic interpretation of the words <foreign
	xml:lang="GRC">DI' E)LE/OU KAI\ FO/BOU PERAI/NOUSA TH\N TW=N TOIOU/TWN PAQHMA/TWN
	KA/QARSIN</foreign>, and then I had to wait until almost the end for her
	explanation. Belfiore points out that had Aristotle meant that it is pity and fear
	that tragedy removes, he would have used <foreign xml:lang="GRC">TOU/TWN</foreign>,
	and she acknowledges that the case for an allopathic understanding of the passage
	would have been much stronger had he said <foreign xml:lang="GRC">E(TE/RWN</foreign>.
	But she suggests that <foreign xml:lang="GRC">TOIOU/TWN</foreign> refers to all
	emotions on the scale to which pity and fear belong; all emotions involved in the
	tragic process. I don't buy this. A Greek might use <foreign xml:lang="GRC"
	>TOIOU/TWN</foreign> in contrasting one group of emotions which, whatever their
	differences among themselves, were being contrasted with another group. But if
	catharsis is an allopathic process the difference between hot and cold emotions,
	between pity and anger, is not being ignored in favor of a contrast with non-tragic
	emotions; it is central. Belfiore's interpretation requires that "such emotions" not
	only go beyond pity and fear, but exclude them, and this seems to me impossible
	Greek. </p>
	<p> She discusses <bibl>Iliad 24</bibl> at some length as an example of catharsis, and
	although I find her account somewhat reductive, I am willing to accept it as
	partially accurate: Achilles is purged of his excessive anger and lack of shame
	through his pity and fear in response to Priam's appeal. Still, he is not really
	purged of his tendency to anger; he himself warns Priam that if the old man annoys
	him he might kill him. Surely if catharsis is to be seriously useful, it must do more
	than calm immediate outbursts; people do not usually go into the theater in states of
	rage. So one needs to consider how the experience of the reader or spectator is
	related to that of the character. There is no doubt that in everyday life excessive
	anger can be reduced by pity, where that pity is directed at those against whom we
	have been angry. But in tragedy our pity is directed at characters with whom we have
	not been angry. Nor is Iliad 24, for all its tragic mood, in any way typical of a
	tragic plot. </p>
	<p> In one respect she seems to me to misrepresent Aristotle, namely in her treatment of
	shame. For her, Aristotle's insistence on the importance of <foreign xml:lang="grc"
	>φίλοι</foreign> as those who inflict and suffer great harm has to do with the
	intense shame caused by such actions. Yet Aristotle actually never discusses shame in
	the Poetics, and Belfiore does not really look closely at how tragedies, especially
	Aristotle's favorite tragedies, handle kin-murder. The emphasis, it seems to me, is
	more on the terrible pollution such killings cause than on the shame that they bring,
	and in any case a great deal of thought is needed about how a spectator is to connect
	the extravagant horrors of many tragedies with the ordinary excesses of life. If
	Aristotle's views are to be interpreted in the light of conventional Greek morality,
	the relation between tragic experience and that morality has to be treated with more
	complexity than it is here. Belfiore brings up the element of voyeurism in tragic
	spectacle (it is the first stage, in which tragedy reveals our shameless desires),
	but doesn't give it much attention. But what are the shameless desires of which
	tragedy makes us aware? Surely not a desire to commit incest[mdash]Oedipus himself
	had no such desire[mdash]but the desire to watch. How does this all fit?</p>
	<p> Belfiore is strongest in reading the Poetics in the light of the rest of the corpus,
	especially the biological works. She certainly makes it impossible to believe that
	catharsis is a straightforward homeopathic process in which we are purged of
	excessive pity and fear. Though I was not convinced, and I doubt that others will be,
	this is a thoughtful and careful book which should render us all a good deal more
	thoughtful and careful in reading this extraordinarily difficult text.</p>
	</div>
	<div type="notes">
	<head>NOTES</head>
	<note xml:id="NT1">
	<bibl>John F. D'Amico, Theory and Practice in Renaissance Textual Criticism: Beatus
	Rhenanus Between Conjecture and History, Berkeley: U of California P, 1988.</bibl>
	[I'm not sure we can do this, can we? most of the notes in reviews are narrative]
	</note>
	<note xml:id="NT2">
	<bibl>Eugene F. Rice, Jr., Saint Jerome in the Renaissance, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
	UP, 1985. </bibl>
	</note>
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