Chapter 23 twelve

Before naming another spectator, let us pause here for a moment to recall the earlier impressions of the contradictions and absurdities in the nature of Aeschylus' tragedies.Let us consider our own amazement at the chorus and protagonists of such tragedies, which we find as incongruous with our habits as with our traditions—until we rediscover that which is the essence of Greek tragedy. The very duality of its origin and essence is the expression of the two intertwined artistic instincts, Apollonian and Dionysian. To exclude from tragedy the primordial and all-powerful Dionysian element, to base tragedy entirely and re-founded on non-Dionysian arts, manners, and world-views—this is the idea of ​​Euripides, now exposed to the light of day. intention.

Euripides himself raised the question of the value and significance of this tendency to his contemporaries in a mythological play in his later years, with unusual emphatic emphasis.In general, is the Dionysian factor allowed?Don't forcefully eradicate it from Greek soil?Certainly, the poet tells us, if it can be done; but Dionysus is so powerful that even the wisest adversaries—like Pentheus in The Dionysian Companion—are inadvertently charmed by him Then, with this confusion, he ran towards his own doom.The judgment of the two old men, Cadmus and Tiresias, seems to be the judgment of the old poet: the consideration of the great wise should not violate the ancient folk traditions and the long-standing worship of Dionysus. A diplomatic and prudent cooperation to such a miraculous power.At this point, however, Dionysus may finally be annoyed by such a half-hearted cooperation, and finally turn the diplomat (in this case Cadmus) into a dragon.Here is what a poet tells us, who fought Dionysus with heroic strength throughout his long life, only to end his career by glorifying his adversary and committing suicide, like a man stunned only to escape the terrible unbearable The sky was spinning, and he jumped off the tower.This tragedy is a protest against the viability of his tendencies; but after all it has been carried out!A miracle happens: when the poet gets rid of his tendency, the tendency has triumphed.Dionysus has been driven out of the tragic scene, even by a magic power that speaks through the mouth of Euripides.In a sense, Euripides is also a mask. The god who speaks through his mouth is not Dionysus or Apollo, but a brand-new spiritual creature named Socrates.This is the new opposition, the Dionysian spirit and the Socratic spirit, and the works of art of Greek tragedy are destroyed by the Socratic spirit.Now, Euripides may try to comfort us with his repentance, but without success.What good is it to us to admit that the magnificent temple is reduced to rubble, and the vandals beat their breasts and feet, to admit that it is the best of all temples?Who will be satisfied with the poor compensation that Euripides was transformed into a dragon by the judges of art of all ages as punishment?

Now, let's examine the Socratic tendency by which Euripides struggled and overcame the tragedy of Aeschylus. We must now ask, what was the purpose of Euripides' intention to base the theater on a purely non-Dionysian basis, in its most ideal execution?What other form does theater have, if it is not conceived in the bosom of music, born of the intricacies of Dionysus?Only dramatized epics.In this realm of Apollonian art, of course, the effect of tragedy cannot be achieved.The problem here is not the content of the events being described.I would rather argue that Goethe, in his Nausicaa, could not have made the suicide of the idyllic figure (which was destined to fill the fifth act) tragically moving.So powerful is the epic and the Apollonian factor that even the most terrible things become illusions before our eyes by the joy of appearances and the relief gained through appearances.The poet who dramatizes the epic, like the reciter of the epic, seldom fully merges with his image: he is always impassive, coldly contemplating the image before him.The actor in this dramatized epic is in the last analysis the chanter; the majesty of the inner dream hangs over all his gestures, so that he is never quite an actor.

What, then, is the ideal relation of Euripides' drama to Apollonian drama?Like the relation of the young bard to the serious bard of the older generation, in Plato's Jon the young man describes his disposition thus: "When I read the deeds of pity, I Eyes filled with tears; horror recited, horrified, heart fluttering." Here we no longer see the epic intoxication of appearance, the apathetic calm of the real actor, the real actor When peak performance is reached, it's all about the look and the joy of looking.Euripides is a heart-pounding, creepy actor; he makes plans as a Socratic thinker and executes them as an emotional actor.He is not a pure artist, neither in formulating his plans nor in executing them.So the plays of Euripides are something both hot and cold, both freezing and burning.On the one hand, it does all it can to get rid of the Dionysian factor, and on the other hand, it fails to achieve the epic Apollonian effect.In order to be generally effective, therefore, new means of stimulation are now required which no longer belong to the two only artistic impulses, the Apollinian and the Dionysian.It is cold and paradoxical thinking—in place of Apollonian intuition—and fiery emotion—in place of Dionysian excitement, thoughts and emotions so perfectly forged that they must never enter the atmosphere of art.

Now that we have clearly seen that Euripides was completely unsuccessful in trying to base drama solely on the Apollonian foundation, and that his non-Dionysian tendencies were instead lost in a naturalistic, non-artistic tendency, we can now It is close to the essence of aesthetic Socraticism. Its highest principle can be roughly expressed as "understanding and then beauty", which echoes Socrates' "knowledge is virtue".With this canon in hand, Euripides weighs every element of the drama—language, character, dramatic structure, chorus music; and corrects them according to this principle.In comparison with the tragedies of Sophocles, what we usually regard as poetic defects and regressions in Euripides is mostly the product of that deep critical process and bold understanding.We may cite the prologue of Euripides as a clear example of the consequences of this rationalist approach.Nothing defies our stagecraft more than Euripides' prologue.At the beginning of a play, a character always enters the scene and tells himself about the story, what has happened so far, and even what will happen as the play develops. This is, in the eyes of a modern playwright, a rash for the effect of suspense. Giving up is totally unforgivable.Now that we know everything about what's going to happen, who wants to wait patiently for it to happen? — Here even a prophetic dream always coincides with a subsequent fact, without any exciting contrast.Euripides, however, had completely different considerations.The effect of tragedy is never by epic suspense, by the tantalizing uncertainty of what is and what is to come;Everything is for passion, not plot, and whatever is not for passion should be rejected.However, what most seriously prevents an spectator from enjoying such a scene with interest is his ignorance of a moment, a hole in the fabric of the antecedent of the action; What is the antecedent of this conflict of inclinations and intentions, it is impossible for him to concentrate on the suffering and behavior of the protagonist, and it is impossible to hold his breath and share the suffering with him.The tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles place in the first few scenes, as if involuntarily, in the hands of the spectator, with the most ingenious artifice.This is a brushstroke that shows great skill, as if covering up the inevitable form, and making it appear as an accidental thing.Still, Euripides believed, he found that in the first few scenes the audience was so anxiously seeking clues to the antecedents of the action that they lost sight of the beauty of the poem and the passion of the text.So, he arranged the prologue before the main text, and said it through the mouth of a reliable character.Often it is a god who appears, who seems obliged to reassure the audience of the plot and dispel all doubts about the veracity of the myth.This is just as Descartes can only prove the authenticity of the empirical world by appealing to the honesty and innocence of God.Euripides again employs this divine honesty in the epilogue of his play, in order to arrange for the audience the fate of his hero.Such was the mission of the notorious deux ex machina.Between the premonition and prospect of the epic lies the dramatic and lyrical present, the real "drama".

Euripides, as poet, is thus above all the echo of his self-consciousness; and it is this which has given him such a prominent place in the history of Greek art.In view of his critical creative activity, he must have often ventured to think that he should have adapted to the theater the opening words of Anaxagoras: "In the beginning all things were chaos, then reason came and established order." Anaxagoras Ra placed himself among the philosophers with his claim of "reason" (Nous), as the first sober man is among the noisy drunkards, and Euripides was able to understand him and other tragedies according to a similar scheme. The poet's relationship.As long as "reason", the sole ruler and ruler of all things, is excluded from artistic creation activities, all things will always be in a chaotic state of primitive chaos.So Euripides had to make a decision, he had to be the first "sober" to condemn the "drunk" poets.Sophocles says that Aeschylus did the right thing, albeit inadvertently, which Euripides certainly disagrees with.In his view, on the contrary, Aeschylus did the wrong thing precisely because he did it unintentionally.Even the divine Plato, speaking of the poet's creative power, speaks of it mostly ironically, since it is not a conscious understanding, comparing it with the gift of the seer and the interpreter of dreams; it seems that the poet is losing consciousness and Before reason, one cannot compose poetry.Euripides, like Plato, tries to point out to the world the antithesis of the "irrational" poet; as I have already said, his aesthetic principle "understanding then beauty" is the parallel principle of Socrates' "knowledge is virtue".Thus, we can think of Euripides as the poet of aesthetic Socratism.Socrates, however, is a second spectator who does not understand and therefore respects the old tragedy; Euripides, allied with him, dares to be the herald of a new artistic creation.Since in this new art old tragedies are destroyed, aesthetic Socratism is a murderous principle.So far as this struggle is directed against the Dionysian element of ancient art, we recognize Socrates as the enemy of Dionysus, as the new Orpheus who rebelled against Dionysus, although he must have been the Dionysian handmaiden of the Athenian court. He tore them to pieces, but he drove away this incomparably powerful god: when Dionysus escaped from Licurgos, king of Idonis, he also hid in the depths of the sea, that is, in a place that was gradually sweeping the world. Among the mystical floods of the world's mystery cults.