Chapter 25 fourteen

Now imagine that Socrates' broad eye, turned to tragedy, never shone with the ecstasy of the artist's inspiration—and let us imagine how it could not contemplate the Dionysian abyss with joy—in what Plato says What must actually be glimpsed in the "sublime and celebrated" tragic art?It seemed an irrational thing with cause and effect and effect without cause; moreover, the whole was so colorful and intricate that it must be incompatible with a calm temperament, but it was a dangerous kindling for sentimental hearts.We know that the only variety of poetry Socrates could understand, and must understand with a sort of smiling compromise, was Aesop's fables, in the fable "The Bee and the Hen," in which good old Gellert It is also with this attitude that the hymns are sung for poetry:

But, for Socrates, tragic art never "tells the truth," let alone appeals to "people of little intellect," not even to philosophers: this is a double reason for rejecting tragedy.Like Plato, he considered tragedy to be one of the arts of flattery, which only described entertainment and not useful things, so he asked his disciples to abstain from and strictly prohibit this non-philosophical temptation.As a result, Plato, the young tragic poet, first burned his manuscripts in order to be able to be a student of Socrates.But when irresistible genius rises against the commandments of Socrates, its force, together with the pressure of great character, is always so great as to lift poetry to new and previously unknown positions.

Plato just mentioned is an example of this.He was no less capable of condemning tragedy and art in general than the mere cynicism of his master, but, out of artistic impulse, he was compelled to create an art form which had an intrinsic kinship with the previous art form which he rejected relation.Plato's chief charge against ancient art—that it is an imitation of illusion, and thus belongs to a lower sphere than the world of experience—is especially not to be used against this new work of art, so we see that Plato strives to go beyond reality, to describe the ideas underlying that pseudo-reality.By this, however, the thinker Plato detoured to the very place where he had always been home as a poet, and where Sophocles, and all ancient art, solemnly protested against his censure.If tragedy absorbs into itself all earlier artistic genres, this also applies in a special sense to Plato's dialogue, which is produced by mixing all established styles and forms, moving between narrative, lyric and dramatic, prose Between poetry and poetry, thus breaking the strict ancient law of unified language form.The Cynic writers went further along this road, and in their colorful styles, oscillating between prose and verse forms, they also reached the literary figure of "Mad Socrates" and tried to play this role in their lives.Plato's dialogues are like a boat, save the wrecked old Poetry and all her children; they huddled in this tiny place, tremblingly obeying the helmsman Socrates, and now they sail into a new world, dream scenes along the way It is never tire of watching.Plato has indeed bequeathed to all generations the archetype of a new art form, the novel; it may be seen as an infinitely improved Aesop's fable, in which poetry occupies the same place for dialectical philosophy as it did for many centuries to come. Dialectical philosophy occupies a similar position to theology, that of ancilla (handmaid).This is the new situation that Plato, under the pressure of the demonic Socrates, imposes on poetry.

Here, philosophical thought grows higher than art, forcing art to cling to the backbone of dialectics.The Apollonian tendencies are reduced to puppets in logical formulaism, as we see a parallel in Euripides, and the Dionysian tendencies transposed into naturalistic passions.Socrates, the dialectical protagonist of Plato's plays, reminds us of the same nature of Euripides' protagonist, who must justify his actions with reasons and refutations, often at the risk of losing our tragic sympathy.For who can ignore the element of optimism in the essence of dialectics?It must celebrate its triumph in every synthesis, and it can breathe only in clarity and self-awareness.This element of optimism once invaded tragedy, gradually spread to cover its Dionysian world, and inevitably forced tragedy to self-destruct—and finally jumped into the civil drama and died.We only need to clearly imagine the conclusion of Socrates' proposition: "Knowledge is virtue; evil only comes from ignorance; the virtuous is the happy"-the demise of tragedy is already included in these three basic formulas of optimism.For now the moral protagonist must be a dialectician, now there must be a necessary and obvious connection between virtue and knowledge, faith and morality, now Aeschylus' transcendent just solution has been reduced to the shallowness of "poetic justice" And the principle of arrogance, with its customary deus ex machina (mechanical seance).

What is the state of the chorus, and of the whole Dionysian music of tragedy in general, in the face of this new stage world of Socratic optimism?As something accidental, as a very dim memory of the origin of tragedy, we have seen after all that the chorus can only be understood as the origin of tragedy and of tragic elements in general.Already in Sophocles there is shown confusion in handling the chorus—an important sign that in him the Dionysian basis of tragedy has begun to unravel.He no longer had the courage to entrust the main part of the effect to the chorus, but limited its scope so that it now appeared to be on an equal footing with the actor, as if lifted from the orchestra to the stage, so that its character was of course So devastated that even Aristotle could have agreed to deal with the chorus in this way.This transfer of the position of the chorus, which Sophocles at last advocated by his practice, and, it is said, in a treatise, was the first step towards the ruin of the chorus, by Euripides, Agathon, and the new Comedy, the stages of destruction follow surprisingly quickly.The dialectic of optimism raises its syllogistic whip and drives music out of tragedy.That is to say, it destroys the essence of tragedy, which can only be interpreted as the revelation and visualization of the Dionysian state, the symbolic representation of music, the Dionysian intoxicated dream.

Thus we think that even before Socrates there was an anti-Dionysian tendency at work, but in him it acquired a particularly severe expression.Therefore, we have to face up to a question: what does a phenomenon like Socrates really mean?In light of Plato's dialogues, we do not understand this phenomenon as a merely destructive negative force.The direct effect of Socrates' inclination is undoubtedly the disintegration of the Dionysian tragedy, but Socrates' profound life experience forces us to ask whether there must be only an antagonistic relationship between Socraticism and art. Whether the birth of "bottom" is fundamentally contradictory.

Even in the face of art, the imperious logician sometimes feels a lack, an emptiness, an incomplete reproach, a duty perhaps delayed.He told his friends in prison that he often dreamed of the same person and said the same sentence to him: "Socrates, engage in music!" He comforted himself until his deathbed: his philosophical thinking is the most important thing. Advanced Musical Arts.He couldn't believe that a god would remind him to engage in that "ordinary mass music".But in prison he finally agreed, in order to have a clear conscience, to also engage in music that he despised.With this in mind, he composed a hymn to Apollo and wrote some of Aesop's fables in verse.It was a voice like a ghost impelling him to practice music; he had an Apollinian sense that, like a savage king, he did not understand the noble divine figure, and because he did not understand he was offended. The danger of a god.The command of the gods in Socrates' dream is the only sign to doubt the limits of logical nature. He must ask himself: Maybe what I don't understand is not necessarily incomprehensible?Perhaps there is also a kingdom of wisdom that logicians are forbidden to enter?Perhaps art is a necessary correlative and supplement to knowledge?