Love Song for the Life of the Mind: An Essay on the Purpose of Comedy

Contents

Contents Preface ix A Note on Key Words and References xix Works and Editions of Aristotle xxiii Acknowledgments xxv Propylaia 1 1. The Problem of the Iphigenia and the Purposes of Tragedy 13 Backstage and the Wings: Of Poetics and Poetics 13 The Problem of Aristotle’s Evaluation of Iphigenia 25 Some Attempted Solutions: The Fallacy of Aristotelian Formalism 27 Of Strong and Painful Passions 40 Catharsis 56 Thaumaturgy: Hecuba 68 The Problem and the Play 68 Catharsis and the Movement of Emotion 70 Catharsis of the Excessive and the Deficient 71 Catharsis and the Virtuous 80 Mise en abyme: The Hecuba of Hamlet 82 Catharsis and Intellectual Clarification 83 Other Concomitants of Catharsis 86 Conclusions on Some Recent Criticism of Hecuba 90 The Case of the Iphigenia 97 Resolving the Contradiction between Poetics 13 and 14 103 2. The Purpose of Comedy 108 Formal, Material, and Efficient Causes 108 Mise en abyme: The Socrates and Phaedrus of Phaedrus 111 The Problem of Comedy’s Final Cause 121 Comic Catharsis 140 The Example of a Falling Comedy: Hippias Major 157 What Art Is Not For 170 viii 3. The Exemplary Comic Fiction: Resolution, Catharsis, 178 and Culture in As You Like It Resolution and Catharsis 178 Comic Catharsis and Culture 196 Emblematic Appendix on the Character of Audrey 205 The Freedom of Aesthetic Judgment, or “Much Virtue in ‘If’” 214 4. A Love Song for the Life of the Mind: Arcadia 236 Happiness, Politics, and Art 236 Eudaimonia and Politics: The Errors of Inclusivism 238 Art and Eudaimonia: The Mimesis of Joy 256 Arcadia: A Love Song for the Life of the Mind 261 Plot 261 Characters 264 The Comedy as Love Song 268 Epilogue: “Still awake and drinking”: Symposium 223c, d 284 Selected Bibliography 307 Index  317 Contents ...