Rosie Wyles
I am thrilled to be joining this intensive five-year research project as one of its two research fellows. I am excited to have this opportunity to stretch myself intellectually in a new collaborative research-centred initiative with philosophical texts at its epicentre. It is a great joy to be returning to the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham which was a formative influence during my doctoral studies. Undertaking the close reading of Aristotle’s texts within an institution with an outstanding tradition in ancient literary and philosophical studies is, for me, a utopian prospect.
My contribution to the project will be the exploration of Aristotle’s vocabulary of emotion and cognition. I have long been aware in my studies of ancient Greek drama that Aristotle’s reference to tragedy’s generation of pity and fear (Poetics 6, 1449b, 24-28) deserved closer scrutiny, not least in his wider oeuvre. While there has of course been important work in this area, a comprehensive analysis of the scope envisaged here has not yet been undertaken.[1] The proper understanding of the deployment of those terms in Poetics depends on the assessment of them within the context of Aristotle’s entire corpus, its nature as (in part) a response to previous writings, especially Plato, and with reference to patterns of stylistic preferences (in terms of vocabulary selection). Furthermore, it is essential that Poetics is not viewed as the starting point in this study, nor are pity and fear explored in isolation but as two terms within a range of vocabulary.
My investigation of the semantic nuances of Aristotle’s vocabulary of emotion and cognition embarks at Rhetoric 2.2-11. The monograph will systematically review key terms, with their opposites when appropriate, including but not limited to orgē/praotēs, philia/misos, phobos/tharsos, aischunē/anaischuntia, eleos, phthonos, zēlos and lupē. The diachronic approach to the analysis of these terms is prompted by the important observation of Amélie Rorty in her seminal work on pathē; she acknowledges that ‘Like nearly all terms that Aristotle inherited, transformed and located within the frame of a technical philosophical vocabulary, pathos has its origins in relatively diffuse common usage.’[2] The terms under scrutiny have a past, a present in Aristotle and a future beyond him.
The analysis of Aristotle’s manipulation and creation of specific meanings for these terms, and the implications of this for their future semantic nuances, resonate with my previous research on fifth-century dramatic texts. Both my monographs are engaged in considering the creation of meaning in a system of stage language and scrutinize the dynamics of meaning creation as well as its impacts/legacies.[3] This, together with the close literary analysis of texts from both the fifth and fourth century BCE (including Thucydides, Herodotus, Xenophon and the orators as well as Plato and Aristotle in my most recent monograph), lays a foundation for my current research. My semantic analysis of Aristotle, however, will be shaped by the palimpsest metaphor rather than the figurative notion of ‘theatrical ghosts’.[4] Aristotle’s ‘re-writing’ of his chosen terms of emotion and cognition will be explored through the key concepts of: inheritance, transformation, and legacy. The monograph will systematically review the key terms by examining their previous dominant literary usage, their treatment by Aristotle, and his impact on the use of the terms both by Peripatetics and more widely.
This research is defined by considering Aristotle above all as a literary author. The definitions of emotions found in Aristotle’s works have facilitated fresh interpretations of Greek literature.[5] Yet the importance of earlier Greek literary texts to Aristotle’s selection and manipulation of terms merits equal attention. This work seeks to interrogate this literary dialectic and to appreciate passages on emotion as products of stylistic preferences. This approach will cut across disciplinary boundaries by scrutinising a diverse range of Aristotle’s works (the exploration of pathos, for example, includes the consideration of animal treatises alongside those on metaphysics, physics, physiognomy, meteorology, ethics, poetics, and politics). The resulting monograph seeks to be transformative, by highlighting Aristotle’s legacy in terms both of ideas and of language, demonstrating his role as a bridge between periods in literary history. I am grateful that the project allows the pursuit of this ambitious research within a collaborative research team and with the support of an expert advisory board – I look forward to benefiting from the fruitful exchange of ideas with both.
[1] See, above all, P. Destrée, M Heath and D.L. Munteanu (eds) (2020) The Poetics in its Aristotelian Context. London.
[2] A.O. Rorty (1984) ‘Aristotle on the Metaphysical Status of "Pathe"’ Rev.Metaphys.37, 521-546, at 523.
[3] R. Wyles (2011) Costume in Greek Tragedy (London) and (2020) Theatre Props and Civic Identity in Athens, 458-405 BC (London).
[4] On ‘theatrical ghosts’ see M. Carlson (1994) ‘Invisible presences - performance intertextuality' Theatre Research International 19, 111-17.
[5] D. Konstan (2006). The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature. UTP.
