From pericles@temple.edu Sun May 6 04:42:57 2001 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f46Bgu0106338 for ; Sun, 6 May 2001 04:42:56 -0700 Received: from typhoon.ocis.temple.edu (root@typhoon.ocis.temple.edu [155.247.166.103]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f46BgtX03155 for ; Sun, 6 May 2001 04:42:55 -0700 Received: from temple.edu (ppp-216-158-5-111.cust.oldcity.dca.net [216.158.5.111]) by typhoon.ocis.temple.edu (8.11.0/8.11.0) with ESMTP id f46Bgfb15770 for ; Sun, 6 May 2001 07:42:41 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <3AF53954.3D13DB5F@temple.edu> Date: Sun, 06 May 2001 07:45:24 -0400 From: Dan Tompkins Reply-To: pericles@temple.edu X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 (Macintosh; U; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: classics@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Knox in Box (not so long) References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For a good person to pass from good fortune to bad would be miaron, disgusting. That paraphrase of Aristotle to my mind indicates that we don't even need to invoke Knox. Aristotle posed against Oedipus raises all sorts of problems. And the other intervening character we need to consider is Aristotle's teacher, who'd denigrated tragedy. if we view Aristotle as trying to restore its reputation, we can see both why he developed the approach encapsulated in the above paraphrase, and why that approach was doomed, if not to failure, at least to constant challenge. But I've been missing much of this discussion. Has Peradotto weighed in? Dan "James M. Pfundstein" wrote: > At 3:59 PM -0700 5/5/01, David Lupher wrote: > > >Of course, one is under no obligation (pace JMP re. BMWK) to > >square one's interpretation of a Greek tragedy with the views > >of Aristotle. > > Actually I think that Knox _is_ under under some obligation to > account for Aristotle's view of Oedipus. If Sophocles were signalling > the kind of things that Knox insists, you would expect Aristotle > (close to Sophocles in time, culture and residence) to pick up on it. > God knows I would not claim Aristotle is infallible, but he's an > intelligent and accurate observer, and his Oedipus is utterly > inconsonant with Knox's broadly drawn one. If Knox is right and > Aristotle is wrong, Knox has some burden to show the latter before he > can expect us to believe the former. > > I'm certainly against the reductive simplicity DL rightly opposes. It > is precisely because Knox robs Oedipus' character of its real moral > complexity that his interpretation bugs me. > > JMP("Postscriptor") -- Daniel P. Tompkins Director, Intellectual Heritage Program Temple University 214 Anderson Hall, 1114 West Berks Street Philadelphia, PA 19122-6090 215/204 4900; 215/204-2359 (fax) pericles@temple.edu Check our website: courses.temple.edu/ih New Jersey: Arrive On Vacation, Leave On Probation .