Part I: The Method
An Ideal Definition of Art
I consider a poet to be an artist. I consider a poem to be a work of art. There is a certain method of thinking which an artist uses as he composes a work of art. It is this same method which a beholder employs as he appreciates the work of art. By composition, I mean, in a crude sense, putting together. I use the word appreciation in an unusual sense. In saying that the beholder appreciates the work of art, I mean that the beholder goes through a process of thought which is the reverse of that process through which the artist went as he composed. In a crude sense, I mean that the beholder takes apart.
How does the beholder appreciate? He begins by asking certain questions of the text. These questions grow out of one basic precept which the beholder adheres to on faith, as he approaches any work of art. This is the precept that the artist creates nothing without purpose.These questions, which the beholder asks, are questions which the artist intended him to find. The beholder finds answers in the text which the artist intended him to find. When the beholder has answered all his questions, what does he have? A philosophy is what he has. The same philosophy which the artist held and intended to convey.
As the artist is composing, he is enjoying the activity of invention. As the beholder appreciates, he is enjoying the activity of discovery. The sensations of these two activities are difficult to distinguish, and I am inclined to believe that the difference between the activities themselves is only a matter of direction. Invention and discovery are the most pleasurable and important activities of the mind, which is itself in tun the highest faculty of the body. Most men have a need to exercise the faculties of their minds. This need may be satisfied through discovery in art. The sensation of discovery in science is what art imitates.
Discovering interpretation in art gives a feeling of satisfaction which is an imitation of the sensation of discovering order in nature in the form of a physical law or a geometric proposition. The truths of physics and geometry are less available to most people because it requires long and difficult study to be in a position to participate in such fields. Few may participate in Science or Mathematics, and yet many have need for insight and discovery, the need to learn. Examining a text in this fashion is similar to astronomers examining the terrain of Mars in an effort to decide if the complex of lines is an effect of nature, or a system of canals constructed by intelligent beings.
There is an argument which states that the mind has such a drive to find meaning and significance that people given a page of nonsense or gibberish to interpret will fabricate some interpretation for it rather than say that it is meaningless. Many artists of questionable merit have supposed this argument true and have tried to take advantage of that fact. I consider these activities of invention and discovery to be the only important objects or ends in art. The work which the artist composes is merely a vehicle for the exercise of invention and is subordinate to the activity itself. The work which the beholder appreciates is merely a catalyst or agent which excites the activity of discovery in him. These activities and their accompanying sensations are what make art something distinct from both things which are merely pretty and excite the lower faculties but have no content or import for the mind and also from things which have nothing but content for the mind, or, to but it crudely, bare knowledge.
That there is a method of thought which is exercised at least on the part of the beholder.
I have admitted that my definition of art is an ideal definition, that is, in no sense conformable in it s entirety with our experience of reality. And yet, various aspects of the definition are obviously pertinent to our experience with poetry and prose. Although the argument for the validity of those things which I assert about the artist is a vain one to pursue, since the thoughts and motives of the greatest artists are inaccessible to us, it is certainly obvious that people behave as though they believed such things about the artist to be true, when they are confronted with a work of poetry or prose. People habitually make assertions and judgments about works of art which they can only arrive at by means of that certain process of thought which I alluded to above, and which they legitimately maintain only by assuming that the artist shares this same process of thought and creates nothing independent or in excess of this process. And yet no one ever tries to be explicit or exact about this method of thought which is so often employed.
That this method of thought is natural and common among people
An example may be found in Plato's Ion, which , not in content but in form, is a paradigm for this method of thought.
(543,d) Herein lies the reason why the Deity has bereft them of their senses, and uses them as ministers, along with soothsayers and godly seers; it is in order that we listeners may know that it is not they who utter these precious revelations while their mind is not within them, but that it is the God himself who speaks, and through them becomes articulate to us. The most convincing evidence of this statement is offered by Tynnichus of Chalcis. He never composed a single poem worth recalling, save the song of praise which everyone repeats, well nigh the finest of all lyrical poems, and absolutely what he called it, an "Invention of the Muses". By this example above all, it seems to me, the God would show us, lest we doubt, that these lovely poems are not of man or human workmanship, but are divine and from the Gods, and that the poets are nothing but interpreters of the Gods, each one possessed by the Divinity to whom he is in bondage. And to prove this, the Deity on purpose sang the loveliest of all lyrics through the most miserable poet.
What Socrates is saying is, in effect, this: The fact that the most miserable poet composed the most beautiful poem is of too high a degree of organization to be accidental or insignificant. The attendant circumstances surrounding the composition of poetry, i.e., the frenzied emotional state of the poet, and the poet's inability to intelligently discuss his creation, together with this highly significant fact about Tynnichus, create too reasonable a ground for us not to conclude that the idea of poetry coming , not through art, but thou rh dine inspiration, is intentional on the part of some agent. I am calling attention in this passage, not to questions of divine inspiration, but only to the form of the reasoning which constituted the method of thought in art.
The epic poets seem to be explicitly inviting the reader to exercise this method of thought upon their works by including so many examples of the method, such as the following:
(Odyssey, Book XIX) Wherefore listen, and read me this dream of mine. I have twenty geese on the place, wild geese from the river, who have learned to eat my corn: and I love watching them. But a great hock-billed eagle swooped from the mountain, seized them neck by neck and killed them all. Their bodies littered the house in tumbled heaps, while he swung aloft agin into God's air. All this I tell you was a dream, of course, but in it I wept and sobbed bitterly, and the goodly-haired achaean women thronged about me while I bewailed by geese which the eagle had killed. But suddenly he swooped back to perch on a projecting black beam of the house and bring forth a human voice that dried my tears: 'Daughter of icarius, be comforted,' it said. 'This is no dream but a picture of stark reality, wholly to be fulfilled. The geese are your suitors; and I, lately the eagle, am your husband come again, to launch foul death upon them all." WIth this in my ears, I awoke from my sleep, to be aware of the geese waddling through the place or guzzling their food from the trough, just as ever.
Odysseus replied to her, "Lady,this dream cannot be twisted to read otherwise than as Odysseus himself promised its fulfillment. Destruction is foredoomed for each and every suitor. None will escape the fatal issue."
But wise Penelope responded, "Stranger, dreams are tricksy things and hard to unravel. By no means all in them comes true for us. Twin are the gates to the impalpable land of dreams, these made from horn and those of ivory. Dreams that pass by the pale carven ivory are irony, cheats with a burden of vain hope: but every dream which comes to man through the gates of horn forecasts the future truth. I fear my odd dream was not such a one, welcome though the event would be to me and my son."
Again, what is being said is this. The level of organization in the events of the dream is of too high a degree for the dream to be accidental or unintentional, and, within the context of odysseus' ab sense and the suitor's presence, constitutes an overpowering argument for the intentional portentous significance on the part of some agent.
By a high level of organization, I mean that Penelope did not dream just of an eagle landing, which might mean the arrival of Odysseus or telemachus, or of geese dying, which might mean plague or famine or any number of other things, nor did she dream of the milkmaid dropping twenty eggs, which would yield a rather strained interpretation in the context of the Odyssey.
Of course, we do not generally trust to such a method of thinking in matters of the physical world as in the example of Penelope. But in the world of the poet's creation such a method of thought is the only tool we have to find the physical, ethical, and supernatural laws which are made of nothing other than the poet's own intention. In the world which the poet creates, there is no reliable future portent other than the poet's implicit manifestations of his intention.
I may now make a general statement of my meaning. This method of thought which ends in a judgment is natural and common among men. It relies on two criteria. One is organization, especially that which is too carefully arranged to be accidental or unintentional. This first criterion is necessary in order to recognize a point of question in the text. The other is the context, or such a set of circumstances as are adequate to establish that the interpretation of this point was intended by the author and is necessary to an understanding of the work. The existence of an appropriate context together with the existence of a point of question whose interpretation would complete the meaning of the work in that context constitute a special kind of judgment upon the significance of that point of question.
The argument which this method employs is the same kind of argument which science employs in order to believe things which it cannot see. stanislao cannizzaro gives a perfect example of this kind of argument in his Sketch of a Course of Chemical Philosophy.
(Alembic Club Reprint No. 13, pg. 11) "Compare," I say to them/his students/, "The various quantities of the same element contained in the molecule of the free substance and in those of all its different compounds, and you will not be able to escape the following law; The different quantities of the same element contained in different molecules are all whole multiples of one and the same quantity, which, always being entire, has the right to be called an atom."
Compare certain repetitive images, whose interpretive significance you have tentatively asserted, with the context of the work itself and if you cannot escape from using this interpretive significance to explain the reason for the presence of these images, then that interpretive significance has the right to be called intentional on the part of the author.
That the relationship between the beholder and the work of art is a dialectical one.
Now that I have presented what I mean by art, and the manner in which art is appreciated, I will consider what effect these definitions have upon the relationship between the reader and the work of art. That is, what is the work of art to the beholder? I will try to do this by means of an analogy. Look at this drawing (facing page). What do you see? You see a farm landscape, a man and his dog, and a huge fly looming in the air. All these things are explicitly represented in the drawing. Now inspect the drawing closely. Examine individual lines one at a time from different perspectives and in relationship with other different groups of lines. Are you beginning to suspect that you are seeing some unusual things? A giraffe or a hippopotamus perhaps? But no, that is silly. It would be a great fault on the artist's part if he had so little control of his lines that they conspired against him behind his back, forming all sorts of ludicrous animals to mock his ability and mar his pretty drawing. Ant yet, how can we assert that a giraffe or a hippopotamus is actually depicted unless we somehow have a knowledge of or take into account the artist's intent. If the giraffe or hippopotamus is unintentional on the part of the artist, then we must attribute these figures to accident or chance. They are not significant as figures of animals in themselves and if they are considered at all , they must be considered as flaws and imperfections in the artist's work.
The problem of the drawing leads us to the most generalized expression of the problems of interpretation and understanding in art; subjective and objective judgments. Look at this drawing:
There are two possible ways of interpreting this drawing. If you focus your attention to the right, it appears to be a rabbit. If you focus your attention to the left, it appears to be a bird with a gaping beak. These first two interpretations are based upon subjective judgment. A third interpretation is that the drawing consists of a dot enclosed in a continuous line, which is smooth to the right of the dot, and angular to the left. This is an objective judgment which precludes the use of imagination. Objective judgment plays no significant role in art. The question we must ask when we are faced with the opportunity for a subjective judgment is "Does this make sense in the context of this work?"
Look at the first drawing again. If you knew that the artist was
aware of the presence of these figures, the giraffe and the
hippopotamus, you would realize that the purpose of the drawing and
the intention of the artist is not beauty or mimetic proficiency so
much as this subtle insinuation of one thing by something entirely
different and unsuspected. And, of course, this is exactly what this
drawing is, a puzzle which conceals dozens of images. When you first
look at the drawing, all you see is a picturesque farm landscape. But
as you study it over several minutes, you begin to see that the leaves
of the trees, the ripples on the pond water, and the clouds in the sky,
conceal the shapes of animals and peoples' faces. Once you have
found all the concealed images, you are no longer capable of seeing
the simple farm landscape again as you first beheld it. It moves as
you continue to behold it. You strain to see all the hidden figures, but
you can only see them all together for a moment before a tree or
cloud intrudes again upon your vision. You try to see the farm and
landscape again as you first saw it, but you can behold it only for a
moment before a face or an animal peers out at you through the
meadows. The drawing is no longer static, but dynamic.
The kinds of works of art
Now that I have tried to sketch the relationship between the
beholder and the work of art, I find that a difficult question arises.
How many different kinds of works are there under the method as I
have presented it? I describe a situation in which on the one hand, an
artist puts together a work in which he places certain questions and
answers, the asking and answering of which constitutes some sort of
philosophy, and on the other hand, a beholder takes apart that work
of art by finding all the questions, answering them, and discovering
the philosophy of the artist. Let us say that such a work of art actually
exists. I do not think it would be difficult to create such a work. If one
were to make his images extremely overt, his answers simple, and his
philosophy homely, I am certain that the process of taking apart
would be equal to the process of putting together. Consider this work
of art in terms of the definition of love in Plato's Symposium.
According to this definition, the beholder will not love the work of
art because, having taken it apart and understood it, he posses it.
The beholder may certainly still be drawn to the work for its beauty or
wisdom. He will certainly be more drawn to such a work than to a
second kind, a poorly composed work in which the questions are
obscure and the answers ambiguous and frustrating. But imagine a
third kind of work. In order to describe this work, it must be conceded
that there are two kinds of written works, the explicit and the implicit,
and that two kinds of ambiguities can arise for the reader in a written
work, paradoxes and contradictions. The last page of a written work
may embody the ends towards which the work is directed or it may be
an end only in the sense that it is the last page. When the latter is the
case, the reader must consider the book as a whole in order to try to
decide what ends are pointed to or arrived at in the text. In an overtly
explicit work, such as a treatise, the task of deciding upon ends which
are pointed to or arrived at and of drawing conclusions about their
value or validity may be a simple one or it may not, depending on the
subtleties of the writer and of his subject In an overt work of art, such
as a poem, these ends may lie entirely within the implicit and
connotative framework which the artist has constructed. Where
connotative ambiguities are present in an explicit work, they may be
considered stumbling blocks to understanding and may be criticized in
their capacity as ambiguities or may even be considered
contradictions, and the writer will be judged by some to have failed in
his purpose. When these same sorts of connotative ambiguities are
present in the work of a truly great artist, they are almost never
though of as contradictions by intelligent readers. For a great artist is
the most sensitive of all men to such ambiguities and uses them in an
exquisite manner to elicit a dialogue between the reader and the text
itself. Ambiguities in such a context are not contradictions, but
paradoxes. Some paradoxes are not only very beautiful to
contemplate, but also are very fruitful in that this dialogue which they
excite demands the kind of careful thought and attention which is
prerequisite to the understanding of some problems. Such a use of
paradoxes is perhaps the only effective manner of approaching those
matters which are most difficult because they are themselves
inherent paradoxes which cannot be legitimately resolved but are
most fruitfully spoken "about', the end of such speech being the
elucidation of the paradoxical nature of the matter and an
understanding of the implications in such a paradox. In order to teach
the reader about the paradoxical nature of the problem, the
writer imitates the of the problem through the distortion of it brought
to life in the of the text. The various aspects of the problems which
the reader discovers in the course of his dialectical experience with
the text leads him to an understanding of the of the problem itself,
which is the author's true subject and intent.
Now we are ready to imagine a third kind of work. Imagine a
work of art constructed around some inherently paradoxical aspect of
reality, whether it be physical nature or human nature. Since we are
dealing with a paradox, it must have at least two possible
alternatives, both equally likely and valid when viewed apart and yet
mutually contradictory when viewed together. According to the
method, the artist places certain questions in his work. Since he is
dealing with a paradoxical matter of a dual nature, he must place in
his work the questions and corresponding answers of both aspects of
the paradox. This will cause violent argument and dissension within
the reader as he tries to answer his questions. According to the
method, the reader is depending upon the probability or likelihood
that a character, object, or relationship has some level of meaning
aside from a surface one. He is led to ask questions by two elements
of the work; striking motifs - that is, continual recurrence of an
unusual object or action throughout the text - and description, detail,
analogy, simile, or metaphor which would seem excessive, odd, or out
of place unless the artist intended some greater significance. When,
through the entire work, motifs and metaphors grow into a suggestive
framework which has too high and fine a level of organization to be
accidental, the reader assumes it to be deliberate and questions the
text to discover, if he may, the artist's true intent. But the artist is
imitating the paradoxical nature of the problem in the text. This
imitation appears in the text as a framework with ambivalent
properties and in the reader as a passionate struggle in his dialectical
experience. Because the connotations of the work are constructed
about eternally unresolvable problems, different conflicting
interpretations are equally possible and valid. Camps of contention
arise. The reader feels that great meaning, understanding, and
insight lie just within his grasp. He is enticed to the work again and
again. Only his desire is like the hunger and thirst of tantalus,
something is just out of reach but eternally unattainable. His task is
the task of sysiphus, simple and definable and seemingly within his
abilities, and xxx eternally falling short of completion. In the Platonic
sense, this kind of work or art is loved, for there is great possibility for
understanding (for nothing is loved which is though impossible of
attainment), and yet it can never be possessed. The question
remains, which of these three kinds of works is greatest? I believe the
answer to that depends upon the tastes and patience of the individual
being asked. But I think it is clear that the third kind of work is most
lasting.
* The drawing facing the sixth page contains an elk, peacock,
shark, butterfly, lion, tiger, rabbit, book, coat, boot, hare, rake, barrel,
catapillar, pigeon, yardstick, snail, match, turtle, owl, rhinoceros,
antelope, watch, skull, cat, cow, giraffe, priest, mummy, humpty
dumpty, squirrel, five fish, two indians, twelve faces, three mice,
eleven dogs, three eagles, five letters, five ducks two camels, three
elephants, seven men, two monkeys, two cymbals, four birds, four
bears, four goats, eight frogs, two seals, three beavers, nine sheep,
three ladies, five horses, five pigs, two chickens, four alligators, two
boys, two babies, and two combs.
PART II: The Practical Application
Having outlined the method, I will now illustrate its practical
application by a consideration of three epic poems; The Iliad and the
Odyssey of Homer and the Aenead of Vergil. These choices will prove
felicitous in demonstrating the method in two ways. First, the poet
vergil, being a careful student of Homer's works, chose certain
aspects of the Iliad and the Odyssey to use in the development of his
Aenead. These aspects, which Vergil chose, involve images,
questions, and answers in the manner in which I have spoken. In
showing that Vergil's use of these images is compatible with Homer's
use of them, I hope that I will be able to lay firmer grounds for
believing that the method of thought commonly employed by the
beholder is also shared by the great artist as well. Secondly, Plato,
also being a careful student of Homer, came to a certain
understanding of the Iliad and the Odyssey. This understanding can
easily be demonstrated by examining Plato's use of Homer in his
Dialogues. I will try to demonstrate that two of Homer's most able
students arrived at essentially the same understanding of his work
and made similar use of that understanding in their own works as
well. I hope that this demonstration will provide a persuasive
argument in favor of the method as a meaningful way to approach a
work of art.
Examining these three epics, I find certain significant details
whose presence leads me to question why the poet placed them in
the text. These details are not essential parts of the plot. Their
absence would not change the poems at all in the judgment of many
people. And yet for me these details are the heart of the poem which
gives it life and makes it art. These details could be questioned in any
order within the epics. Some details discovered earlier by the reader
may later lead him to the discovery of other significant details in
consequent readings. The details are the essential lines which sketch
or determine the wisdom of the poem.
Iliad:
1. (Bk. I, 135) agamemnon: "Either the great-hearted achaians
shall give me a new prize chosen according to my desire to atone for
the girl lost, or else if they will not give me one I myself shall take her,
your achilles' own prize, or that of Ajax, or that of Odysseus, going
myself in person; and he whom I visit will be bitter."
2. (Bk. II, 800-875)
(Bk. VI, lines 400-520)
4. (Bk VIII, 220-225) "He (Agamemnon) went on his way beside
the Achaians' ships and their shelters holding up in his heavy hand the
great colored mantle, and stood beside the black huge-hollowed ship
of Odysseus, which lay in the midmost, so that he could call
out to both sides, either toward the shelters of telamonian
Ajax, or toward Achilles, since these two had drawn
their balanced ships up at the utter ends, sure of the
strength of their hands and their courage.
(Bk. XI,5-10) "She (Hate) took her place on the huge-hollowed
black ship of Odysseus which lay in the middle, so that she
could cry out to both flanks, either as far as the shelters of
Telamonian Ajax or to those of Achilles; since these
had hauled their balanced ships up at ends, certain of their
manhood and their hand's strength."
5. (Bk. XXII, 143-153) " So Achilles went straight for him in fury,
but Hector fled away under the trojan wall and moved his knees
rapidly. They raced along by the watching point and the windy fig tree
always away from under the wall and along the wagon-way and came
to the two sweet-running well springs. There there are double springs
of water that jet up, the springs of whirling skamandros. One of these
runs hot water and the steam on all sides of it rises as if
from a fire that was burning inside it. But the other in the
summer-time runs water that is like hail or chill snow or ice
that forms from water."
Aenead
6. The title "Aenead"
7. (Bk. I,1) "Of arms and the man I sing..."
8. (Bk. IV, 274-277) Mercury delivering a message from zeus to
Aeneas: "Consider your growing ascanius, the hope of your
heir iulus, for whom the kingdom of italy and the Roman land
are destined."
9. (Bk. VI,295-310) "There in the center (of Hades) a huge and
shady elm spreads out its aged arms in branches; here false
dreams, they say, reside and cling beneath all of its leaves, and
many shapes beside of strange wild beasts; Centaurs in their
stalls, Two-formed Scyllas, hundredfold Briareus,
the beast of Lerna, hissing and horrible, Chimaera
armed with flames, the Gorgons, Harpies, the shadow-shape
of Geryon, with three bodies. Shaking in sudden
fear, Aeneas snatched his sword and turned its edge toward their
approach, and, if his wiser comrade (Sibyl) had not warned him that
they were tenuous incorporeal spirits flitting in hollow semblances of
forms, he would have rushed and with vain steel slashed shadows."
10. (Bk. VI, 905-910) "There are twin gates of sleep. One is of
horn, they say, where an easy exit is gi en to shades which are
true; the other is white and perfect, of gleaming ivory. Through it
the Ghosts of the Underworld send false dreams to light.
Anchises, his words completed, went with his son and the Sibyl and
sent them out through the ivory gate.
I ask this question: Why did the poets speak in this manner in
each of these passages? Any of these passages by itself, with the
exception of the tenth, would be unlikely to raise much question in
the reader's mind upon the first hearing of the poem. And yet, when
these ten passages are taken together and considered in light of the
context in which the Iliad and the Aenead is set,
they indicate a pattern which is too carefully organized and made use
of in itself, and too necessary for understanding the action and
outcome of the three epics to be considered accidental or
unintentional on the part of the authors.
Finding a tentative interpretation:
What is it that we are told by the first five passages? The first and
fourth passages establish a special kind of relationship between
Achilles, Odysseus, and Ajax. The heros Ajax and Achilles are
presented as extremes of some kind, while the hero Odysseus
represents a mean between those two extremes. Or if one thought in
terms of a balance, then Odysseus might be called the fulcrum of a
balance with Ajax and Achilles at opposite ends of the balance's arm.
We also know that Ajax is closest to Troy. His ship is the first which
the Trojans encounter as they attack, and Hector is the first Trojan to
be thrown upon the ship in the attack. These facts orient this
relationship between the Achaen heros with respect to Troy and the
Achaean hero Ajax with respect to the Trojan hero Hector. Homer is
often willing to explicitly weigh one hero against another upon Zeus'
Fate Balance.
(Bk. VIII, 70) "But when the sun god stood bestriding the middle
heaven, the father balanced his golden scales, and in them he set two
fateful portions of death, which lays men prostrate, for Trojans,
breakers of horses, and bronze-armored Achaeans, and balanced it by
the middle, The Achaeans' death-day was heaviest. There the fates
of the Achaeans settled down toward the bountiful earth, while those
of the Trojans were lifted into the wide sky."
(Bk. XXII,210) "But when for the fourth time they had come
around to the well springs then the Father balanced his golden scales,
and in them he set two fateful portions of death, which lays men
prostrate, one for Achilles, and one for Hector, breaker of horses, and
balanced it by the middle,..."
and Vergil also,
(Bk.XII, 730) "Jupiter himself lifted up the two scales with their
balance made even, imposing a different fate on each of the pair
(Turnus and Aeneas), which one the struggle would doom and which
side destruction would cause to descend with its weight."
Even Plato seems to have considered the possibility of some kind
of relationship between homeric Heroes in the dialogue Lesser
hippias.
Hippias: "For I say that Homer made Achilles the bravest man of
those who went to Troy, and nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the
wiliest."
The second and third passages make a special distinction
between the different names which immortals and mortals give to the
same objects. I will denote this binomial nomenclature with the term
"dual names" for the sake of convenience, representing such names
in a hyphenated form, e.g. Xanthos-Scamandros,
Scamandrius-Astyanax, Paris Alexandros, Iulus-Ascanius. "The Hill of
the Thicket" in the second passage is our first introduction to a dual
name. A few lines above this passage, Hector is introduced, a few
lines below, Aeneas. Less than fifty lines beyond this passage, at the
end of Book II, a figure named Askanios is mentioned in passing. The
book ends speaking about the Xanthos river. In the third passage we
are first introduced to Hector's family. We find that his son has a dual
name not between the immortals and the mortals, but between his
father and the people of Troy. Hector calls his son Scamandrius, after
the river outside Tory, but the people of Troy call him Astu-anax, Lord
of the City. In this same passage we see Hector with his brother. His
brother is denoted by the ancient name Paris, meaning fighter, and its
greek translation Alexander, which may mean either "fighter" or "one
who shuns or detests". Paris' two names have neither the distinction
of godly and mortal nor the distinction of paternal and popular, but
are apparently arbitrary. Plato has made note of this phenomena of
dual names in his dialogue Cratylus.
(371d-392e) Hermogenes: "Why Socrates, what does Homer say
about names, and where?
Socrates: "In many passages; but chiefly and most admirably in
these in which he distinguishes between the names by which gods
and men call the same things. Do you not think he gives in those
passages great and wonderful information about the correctness of
names? For clearly the gods call things by the names that are
naturally right. Do you not think so?
Do you not know that he says about the river in Troyland which
had the single combat with Hephaestus, "whom the gods call Xanthus,
but men call Scamander"?
Well, do you not think this is a grand thing to know, that the name
of that river is rightly Xanthus, rather than Scamander?
It is, I think, more within human power to investigate the names
Scamandrius and Astyanax, and understand what kind of correctness
he ascribes to these, which he says are the names of Hector's son.
Which of the names of the boy do you imagine Homer thought
was more correct, Astyanax or Scamandrius?
Look at it in this way: suppose you were asked, "Do the wise or
the unwise give names more correctly?"
And do you think the women or the men of a city, regarded as a
class in general, are the wiser?
And do you not know that Homer says the child of Hector was
called Astyanax by the men of Troy; so he must have been called
Scamandrius by the women, since the men called him Astyanax?
And Homer too thought the Trojan men were wiser than the
women?
Then he thought Astyanax was more rightly the boy's name that
Scamandrius?
Let us, then, consider the reason for this. Does he not himself
indicate the reason most admirably? For he says- "He alone defended
their city and long walls." Therefore, as it seems, it is right to call the
son of the defender Astyanax (Lord of the City), ruler of that which his
father, as Homer says, defended.
The Dialogue Cratylus debates whether there is any naturalness
to names in the world of reality. I debate whether names denote
natures in the world of the poet's creation. Socrates is wrong in
saying that Hector's child was called Astyanax by the men of Troy and
Scamandrius by the women. Hector gave the proper name
Scamandrius to his son. The people of Troy called the boy Astyanax
out of tribute to Hector as the defender of their city. My question is
not which name is more proper by what is the distinction which the
poet intended the two names to convey. Astyanax is obvious in its
meaning, Lord of the City. The significance of the name Scamandrius
is a more difficult question. It is the Xanthos-Scamander which battled
with Achilles and was beaten by Hephaistos, swearing an oath never
again to defend Troy from its fate. It was also the river
Xanthos-Scamandros which protected the still living bodies of Trojans
in its deep-eddying swirls, preserving them from Achilles' wrath. I
would like to say that the difference between Astyanax and
Scamandrius is the difference between fighting and fleeing or, more
specifically, between making a hopeless stand against an
undefeatable opponent and sailing away from a burning city in order
to found a new one. But this statement would be premature. I must
wait until this conclusion is inescapable.
The fifth passage intimates that there are some kind of opposites
or extremes present either in the scene of Hector's defeat, in the
Scamandros river, or in whatever the Scamandros river represents:
Opposites in the same manner that hot and cold are opposites,
extremes in the same sense that the hottest spring in winter and the
coldest spring in summer are extremes.
What are we told by the second five passages? Vergil patterns his
work after the Odyssey rather than after the Iliad.
This is surprising when we consider that Vergil draws most of his
material from the Iliad. The Odyssey is named for its hero Odysseus,
who after a journey which "exhausts the sum of all miseries" arrives
at the hope of "coming to a land of happy people and dying a serene
old age". The Iliad is named after the city which Achilles seals his fate
to conquer, Ilium, a name which immortalizes the glory of Achilles for
all generations to come. Vergil named his work after the hero Aeneas
who, fleeing burning Troy, suffers a long journey and dies secure in
the knowledge that his son and descendants will build a nation which
will enjoy "no limit of time or possession endless power, and peace."
Vergil gives us good reason to compare Aeneas with Odysseus as well
as to contrast the two.
It would be a rare person, who, reading the first page of the
Aenead, would anticipate basin his entire understanding of the work
upon the first three words. It is one thing to say that "arms and man"
will be the subject of a poem, which is what the first line of the
Aenead seems to be saying on the surface. But it is something very
different to make the necessity and vainglory of combat and the
prudence and cowardliness of the reservation of self and family into
two extreme alternatives between which an individual stands and
must choose. And yet these alternatives are established in the
Aenead in a very poignant manner.
We see that Aeneas' son, just as Hector's son, bears a dual name,
Iulus-Ascanius. In a message from Zeus he is referred to as the
growing Ascanius but as the heir Iulus. I believe that Zeus is the only
figure in the poem who would know the correct usage for these two
names. I would like to say that the distinction between Iulus and
Ascanius is the same as the distinction between Astyanax and
Scamandrius, but again I must wait until this conclusion is
inescapable.
In the ninth passage we learn that the false dreams of Hades are
all creatures of a dual or manifold nature: Briareus, three monsters
with a hundred hands; beast of Lerna, a Hydra with nine heads;
Chimaera, a lion in front, a serpent in back; Gorgons, winged creatures
with snakes for hair; Harpies, flying creatures with hooked beaks and
claws; Geryon, a monster with three bodies. Without the aid of Sibyl
or some external agent, Aeneas is unable to distinguish these false
dreams from reality.
The import of the tenth passage is the most difficult question of
all. Why does Anchises send Aeneas and Sibyl through the gate of
false dreams? One answer is that they were not true shades but living
beings. Another answer is that dreams which come after midnight
were considered to be true while dreams before midnight were
considered to be false. This would establish the time of day in which
they left Hades. But I believe that it is most meaningful to answer
this question in the light of the ninth passage. Aeneas and Sibyl left
through the ivory gate because they, like the false dreams beneath
the spreading elm, have a manifold nature. The sibyl is at times quiet,
at times frenzied as she is ridden by Apollo, howling truths mingled
with obscurities and falsehoods. Aeneas is forever between the arms
and the man, his own soul a mixture of gentleness and blinding rage.
These images provide us with two propositions. That there is a
balance among men implies that theres is a difference among men.
That an individual has two natures may imply that he has two forces
within him, that he has two alternatives from which to choose, or that
he serves in two different capacities. The test of these images is
whether these propositions are valid in the context of the work. A
detailed interpretation of these three epics would detract from the
purpose of this paper. I leave the question of the validity of these
images open to the reader. I hope the reader will make good use of
this question.
It is evident from the Dialogues that Plato shares with
Vergil an understanding of these propositions in Homer. The Republic
treats the problem of leading the good life. Plato's conception of the
kind o of education which leads to the good life and his choice of
Odysseus as the one fortunate soul in the Myth of er embody Plato's
understanding of Homer.
Plato expressed this understanding of Homer in one way in the
Theatetus,
and in another way, in The Statesmen
If speed and swiftness are excessive and unseasonable and if the
voice is harsh to the point of being violent, we speak of all these as
'excessive' and even 'maniacal'. Unseasonable heaviness, slowness,
or softness we call 'cowardly' or 'indolent'. One can generalize further.
The very classes 'energy' and 'moderation' are ranged in mutual
exclusiveness and in opposition to each other; it is not simply a case
of conflict between these particular manifestations of them. They
never meet in the activities of life without causing conflicts, and if we
pursue the matter further, by studying people whose characters come
to be dominated by either of them, we shall find inevitable conflict
between them and people of the opposite type.
Men react to situations in one way or another according to the
affinities of their own dispositions. They favor some forms of action
as being akin to their own character, and they recoil from acts arising
from opposite tendencies as being foreign to themselves. Thus men
come into violent conflict with one another on many issues.
Considered as a conflict of temperaments, this is a mere trifle, but
when the conflict arises over matters of high public importance it
becomes the most inimical of all plagues which can threaten the life
of a community."
The following diagram represents the understanding of Homer
which Plato and Vergil shared and the uses which they made of their
understanding.
(Diagram will be inserted when I gain access to a scanner)
What knowledge do these epic poems convey?
In every way of life there are alternatives. There are different
goods which may be desired and possessed by men. We learn these
things as we come to know the heros of the epic. No one good in
itself is goodness, nor does the satisfaction of the desire for ay one
good constitute happiness for a man. No excess is good. Certain
different kinds of goods together do constitute goodness. The
possession of certain of these goods in an appropriate measure does
constitute happiness for a man. Which of these goods and what
measure of them constitute happiness depends upon the kind of man
who is to possess them. No power must be excessively increased, no
weakness left unduly deficient. The choice of goods rests upon
self-knowledge. The standard of measure is in the balance of
conflicting goods which must be achieved. The result of such
measure is a stable marriage of opposites. We learn these things
from the actions of the heroes and their outcomes. We conclude that
it is meaningful for men to speak of a happiness in life but that there
may be a different kind of happiness in life for different kinds of men.
Is this knowledge any different from the sort of knowledge we
acquire from long years of experience with life and human nature? Is
this not the most important knowledge for any man, how to live his
life well from day to day? Is this knowledge of any different quality
whether it is found through experience with men or through
experience with works of art created by men who have an intimate
knowledge of human nature and its imitation? Is the manner by
which we discover this knowledge any different in life than in a work
of art; that is, by taking the bare lines which are presented to you, as
you meet different people and experience successes and failures,
pleasures and pains, and continually viewing them from different
perspectives and in relationship to other groups of lines in order to
discover the most meaningful interpretations and, perhaps, a
method?
END OF ESSAY
(203,e) diotema: He (Love), is neither mortal nor immortal, for in the
space of a day, he will be now, when all goes well with him, alive and
blooming, and now dying, to be born again by virtue of his father's
nature, while what he gains will always ebb away as fast. So, Love is
never altogether in or out of need, and stands, moreover, midway
between ignorance and wisdom. You must understand that none of
the Gods are seekers after truth. They do not long for wisdom,
because they are wise.
(line 801) "Hector, on you beyond all I urge this..."
(line 813)"This men call the Hill of the Thicket, but the immortal
gods have named it the burial mound of dancing Myrina.
(line 830) "The strong son of Anchises was leader of the
Dardanians, aeneas..."
(line 862) "Phorkys and godlike askanios were lord of the
phrygians from askania..."
(line 875)"... and the whirling waters of xanthos." (Bk XX, 73)
"Against hephaistos stood the river who is called Xanthos by the gods,
but by mortals scamandros.
(line 400-402) "...Hector's son, the admired, beautiful as a star
shining, whom Hector called scamandrios, but all of the others
astyanax - lord of the city; since Hector alone saved ilion."
(line 504) "But Paris in turn did not linger long in his high house."
(line 516) "It was alexandros the godlike who first spoke to him:"
(Bk. X, 618c-e) "And there, dear Glaucon, it appears, is the supreme
hazard for a man. And this is the chief reason why it should be our
main concern that each of us, neglecting all other studies, would seek
after and study this thing - if in any way he may be able to learn of
and discover the man who will give him the ability and the knowledge
to distinguish the life that is good from that which is bad, and always
and everywhere to choose the best that the conditions allow, and,
taking into account all the things of which we have spoken and
estimating the effect on the goodness of his life of their conjunction
or their severance, to know how beauty commingled with poverty or
wealth and combined with what hait of soul operates for good or for
evil, and what are the effects of high and low birth and private station
and office and strength and weakness and quickness of apprehension
and dullness and all similar natural and acquired habits of the soul,
when blended and combined with one another, so that with
consideration of all these things he will be able to make a reasoned
choice between the better and the worse life, with his eyes fixed on
the nature of his soul, naming the worse life that which will tend to
make it more unjust and the better that which will make it more just."
(Bk. X,620,c-d) "And it fell out that the soul of Odysseus drew the last
lot of all and came to make it's choice, and, from memory of its
former toils having flung away ambition, went about for a long time in
quest of the life of an ordinary citizen who minded his own business,
and with difficulty found it lying in some corner disregarded by the
others, and upon seeing hit said that it would have done the same
had it drawn the first lot, and chose it gladly."
(Theatetus, 144b) Theodorus: "The combination of a rare quickness of
intelligence with exceptional gentleness and of an incomparably virile
spirit with both, is a thing that I should hardly have believed could
exist, and I have never seen it before. In general, people who have
such keen and ready wits and such good memories as he are also
quick-tempered and passionate; they dart about like ships without
ballast, and their temperament is rather enthusiastic than strong,
whereas the steadier sort are somewhat dull when they come to face
study, and they forget everything."
(Statesman, 306-308) Stranger: "To say that 'one kind of
goodness clashes with another kind of goodness' is to preach a
doctrine which is an easy target for the disputatious who appeal to
commonly accepted ideas. This pair of virtues (courage and
moderation) are in a certain sense enemies from old, ranged in
opposition to each other in many realms of life. Let us see the
principle at work wherever those mutually opposite qualities are
manifested. We admire speed and intensity and vivacity in many
forms of action and under all kinds of circumstances. But whether the
swiftness of mind or body or the vibrant power of the voice is being
praised, we always find ourselves using one word to praise it - the
word is 'vigorous'. We constantly admire quietness and moderation,
in processes of restrained thinking, in gentle deeds, in a smooth deep
voice, in steady balance in movement, or in suitable restraint in
artistic representation. Whenever we express such approval do we
not use the expression 'controlled' to describe all these excellences
rather than the word 'vigorous'?"