Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:38:51 -0500 (EST)
Subject: BHA: The Poetics



               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
                                            27-Jan-1998 11:29am EST
FROM:  MSPRINKER
TO:    Remote Addressee                     ( _bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu )
 
Subject: The Poetics

Tobin,

Aristotle doesn't say the the experience of seeing a tragedy
performed is "the same" (your word) as hearing the plot
recited, only that the tragic effect can be achieved by
the latter without performance.

There's no question that performance is an important aspect
of dramatic form, but according to Aristotle, all those
performative aspects that you cite (and the ones he recognized)
are subordinate to the plot.  He thought things like the
deus ex machina were flaws in proper tragedy.

It's not that tragedy has no relation to dithyramb, but that
tragedy did not emerge directly from the dithyrambic chorus,
as you seemed to suggest in your passing remark.  The origins
of tragedy were complex, according to Aristotle, and that's
all that I insisted.

I know diddly-squat about Sanskrit drama, hence, cannot comment
on what you say about it.  But Aristotle was talking about
specific cultural forms available in Greek antiquity, and
so he can hardly be fault for failing to include a discussion
of different dramatic forms with which he was unfamiliar.

The one thing that I would resist in Aristotle's analysis of
Greek drama and epos is his conviction (for so I take it)
that tragedy, once it reaches its mature form (the Oedipus
being the prime example) undergoes no further development, that, in
effect, tragedy is a natural kind.  This seems dubious to me.
I'm more inclined to take Raymond Williams's line in Modern
Tragedy and think about tragic form changing from one epoch
and social formation another.  On that account, it could be that
there is such a thing as Sanskrit tragedy.

Cheers,

Michael


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