Western classical culture: recollecting forgotten points

K S Sivakumaran

As we all know western culture has its roots in ancient Greek and Roman Classical Civilizations. It would be interesting to know something about ancient literature of the world because even in contemporary literature allusions to past events are made.Even to know those, we must learn to understand at least the basic aspects of western culture.

To start with, let us find out a few literary theories of the past. Plato and Aristotle were poet philosophers, if we could call them. In the long tradition of Socrates through Plato, Aristotle was important also because of his literary theories. These theories are subject to revision now and yet their importance was helpful in our learning process.

His poetics could be treated as the first work in Greece as a treatise on literature. This was written in the fourth century before christ (B.C.). To modern readers his work may look scanty. At the time of his writing the poetics, the golden age of Greek creative literature has almost come to an end. After almost five centuries of written literature in Greece do we find a formal treatise on literature. However the writers then were aware of the principles of writing although they did not analyze them.

As most students know the written Greek literature begins with the epics of Homer. But before him there was a long tradition of Epic Poetry. Homer’s great epic poetry culminated with his works, The Iliad and Odyssey. Homer was inspired. His twin epics begin with an invocation begging the Muses for inspiration. He believed in power that guided his action. He took inspiration very seriously. He believed even facts came from the Muses.

Homer

The Iliad and The Odyssey

A critic wrote that with the beginning of the Heroic Age the social function of the poetry and the social position of the poetry changed completely. The secular and individualistic outlook of the war-like upper classes gives poetry a new content and assigns a new task to the poet. He now abandons his anonymity and his priestly aloofness and poetry loses its ritual and collective character”

Let us get back to gather some gleanings from Aristotle. His conception of 'Tragedy' in poetics was really the Greek ideal of drama through the ages. That is to say that all poetry or art is representative of life. In other words it was not merely a literal copying of physical objects but also a new use of the material presented by senses.

Aristotle’s intention in the poetics was to analyze the essence of poetry and distinguish its various species: epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, dithyrambic poetry, flute-playing and lyre-playing. They were representatives of life, but they were distinguished from each other by their means and their objects.

What were the means? rhythm, language and tune. But not all the arts involve all three, nor are the means used in the same way.

In this context we must recall what Aristotle’s predecessor Plato had said: Art corrupts the mind and since it presents copies of reality (physical objects being considered as mere copies of the universal idea or kind)

While Aristotle believed that universals or characteristics are to be found only in things, Plato thought that universals had some sort of separate existence.

* More on Aristotle’s ideas: Comic characters make mistakes or in some way ugly, but not so seriously as to awaken pity or fear.

* Epic poetry differs from tragedy.

* Tragedy- a representation of a heroic action by means of language and spectacle so as to arouse pity and fear and this bring about a catharsis of those emotions.

* Critics have explained that the relief or catharsis of the emotions of pity and fear is the most characteristic feature of the Aristotelian conception of tragedy.

In the reversal of fortunes of the Hero he is responsible fort his downfall. The resolution of the conflict results from the hero’s tragic flaw.

The tragedy achieves a purging of the emotions in the audience.

The audience feels pity in observing the tragic hero’s misadventures because he is vulnerable from unrecognized fault and then fear results from the realization that the hero is much like us.

In short poetics is on the art of poetry, kinds of poetry, characteristic functions, types of plot-structures, number of its constituent parts, nature of its constituent parts and other matters.

We shall gather more aspects of ancient Greek Culture in the coming weeks.

[email protected]