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version seven. http://demongin.org |
Variations on a Theme
On the special relationship between Aristotelean concept of tragedy and the normal-versus-normative debate in linguistics.
Saturday, 2004-12-11 | Classic Gin, Language, Philosophy
I. FEAR AND PITY (necessarily in that order)
When Aristotle asked 'What is the poet to aim at, and what is he to avoid, in constructing plots? and What are the conditions on which the tragic effect depends?' he was asking a loaded question that can accept only one answer--such is the mentality of the Greeks.
In the construction of a plot what a poet does well to aim at and what he does well to avoid have everything to do with the genre in which he is working. Comedy, for example, is a purely intellectual (i.e. not emotional) genre that suffers a great deal when the audience begins to identify with the characters. Accordingly, when the poet writes a comedy he ought to avoid moments of pathos; if an audience begins to feel that a character might have an interiority that is not totally unlike their own, the deal is queered and his comedy becomes a drama. Similarly, our comic poet ought to aim at convincing his audience that his characters are totally unlike actual people; perhaps that they are capable of constructing elaborate conceits and witty puns on the spot or that they are capable of bizarre leaps of logic and failures of discernment that a normal person (with normal cognitive abilities) would never be capable of.
The first part of Aristotle's question is loaded because plots to him aren't plots, but means to a given end. The construction of a plot is not some sort of exercise of the poet's faculty, but his ability to arrive at a predetermined end according to a traditional path; deviation from the path confuses the audience and, even if they recognize the end, they are lost and do not know how to react to the plot if it is unfamiliar. When Aristotle asks what should be aimed at or avoided in the construction of a plot, he is asking what genre the poet plans to create a work of.
We are concerned primarily with tragedy. Accordingly, the end we seek is one where our audience beholds misery, misfortune and malevolence and feels fear and pity; fear for the well-being of the characters and pity for their lamentable fortunes.
Knowing what we know about the construction of plots then, namely that the plot is decided once we have decided upon the audience response we seek, we can tell that our plot must be one that inspires fear and pity in precisely that order. Moreover, we can tell that the best tragic plot is the one that is able to inspire and then sustain fear in an audience and leave them pitying the characters.
What we have been saying is very important. Aristotle doesn't make the point (but I think he meant to) that the best tragedy is primarily the kind that keeps the audience in fear for an extended period of time, hits them with the spectacle--Oedipus gouges out his eyes--and gives them a few lines to think about the horror of what they have just seen and to lament the fates of the characters they have just spent the last hour or two being afraid for. The tragic poet slowly works the fear into a lather, turns on the cold water of spectacle, turns it abruptly off and then throws a towel at his audience; 'wipe your cooter,' he jeers.
Tragedy is about fear that ends in pity, not merely a mixture of fear and pity.
II. PHILOLOGY (con't)
It has recently come to my attention that Latin is not a language that can boast many onomatopoeic words. Think of as many Latin words as you can that imitate the sounds or actions that they make reference to: go!
It wasn't that many, was it? I only came up with ululatus and barbarus (which I think is Greek in origin, but maybe not). This dearth of onomatopoeic words, when compared to the spate of
onomatopoeia that we enjoy in English tells us something about the two languages.
We can conclude, on the basis of this short experiment, that Latin as a language is normative where English is normal. Whereas Latin seems a more pure language, a language in which words are merely phonemic/morphemic tokens that are invested with significance when uttered and heard, English is more of a accommodating or living language, one that seeks to mimic reality as closely as it can, ignoring the generally undisputed fact that words have no intrinsic meaning and are merely the products of individual intention. Put another way, Latin is normative because its words merely prescribe a norm and make no attempt to account for the meaninglessness of sound without intention and English is normal because its words attempt to conform to the world as it is encountered, laboring under the delusion that intentionless sound somehow has meaning.
It's funny, isn't it? Maybe the widespread problems we have with abusive language in this country are the unique consequence of the normal (and not normative) trend we have observed in this, our English language; maybe this trend towards normal etymology prevents people from recognizing that words are essentially meaningless and disregarding pejorative or abusive language. Latin speakers surely didn't have this problem.
Oh wait, Catullus...
