Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 00:05:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re:  BHA: Aristotle the joker


But still Michael there is more to the formal structure of a thing than 
plot.  You could come up with the examples quicker than I.  I think 
always of the impression Ionesco's Lesson made on me (reading it, as I 
recall, to reinforce your point).  If you could take away the plot and 
leave the tempo and acceleration, etc. stand, you could reconstruct the 
plot from them.  In fact, as I understand it there was a school of 
French poetry (after the war?) that did that.  There was nothing left 
but the symbolism of sound.  No plot.  I mean I think I do get your 
point about that which is distinctive about a tragedy -- we wouldn't 
say a sonnet, for example, was distinguished by its plot -- but still, 
that can't be to the exclusion of the rest.

And, Colin, the vehicle is produced, as is the tragedy or Fordism, but 
metal is reproduced or transformed, ain't it so.  It's just stuff (the 
material cause) in a new form.

Howard
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 > From owner-bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU  Mon Jan 26 06:48:34 1998
 > X-Authentication-Warning: jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU: domo set sender to owner-bhaskar-AT-localhost using -f
 > From: MSPRINKER-AT-ccmail.sunysb.edu
 > Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 08:47:21 -0500 (EST)
 > Subject: BHA: Aristotle the joker
 > To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
 > Sender: owner-bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
 > Reply-To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
 >
 >
 >                State University of New York at Stony Brook
 >                        Stony Brook, NY 11794-3355
 >
 >                                             Michael Sprinker
 >                                             Professor of English & Comp Lit
 >                                             Comparative Studies
 >                                             516 632-9634
 >                                             26-Jan-1998 08:42am EST
 > FROM:  MSPRINKER
 > TO:    Remote Addressee                     ( _bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu )
 >  
 > Subject: Aristotle the joker
 >
 > Tobin, et al.,
 >
 > Go back and re-read those opening chapters of the Poetics.
 > The history of the emergence of tragedy, of its differentiation
 > from other imitative arts, of how it came be distinct from
 > both epic and comedy, and so forth is rather more complex
 > than you allow.  The origins of tragedy in the dithyrambic
 > chorus is a Nietzschean genalogy, not Aristotle's.
 >
 > I gather you're into spectacle and music--fair enough, but
 > Aristotle has a point:  these are the least significant
 > aspects of the tragic action.  Plots matter more than
 > presentation, a point Brecht appreciated, incidentally.
 >
 > Cheers,
 >
 > Michael Sprinker
 > Local devotee of the Poetics (and old Aristotle generally)
 >
 >
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