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Conceptual FrameworkProclus's motives, then, are complex—he must save both Homer and Plato from any loss of prestige or credibility—but at the same time these motives place him securely in that group of allegorizers whose primary motive for their interpretive efforts is defensive. Indeed, the starting point of Heraclitus, "Homer was totally impious unless he was in some [71] ― 184 ― respect allegorizing,"[72] is close in spirit to Proclus's undertaking, though the two otherwise have little in common. Proclus's discussion of the matter is far richer and more complex than that of Heraclitus, and basically defensive though its allegory is, it also, by implication, brings the prestige of Homeric precedent to late Neoplatonic demonology and angelology. There are two basic lines of argument open to those who would defend Homer against Socrates: it is possible to claim either that Socrates failed to realize what Homer means, or that he failed to understand how Homer means. A defense falling into the first category might be exclusively concerned with the elucidation of meaning, whether by allegorical or by other means; a defense of the second sort will focus its attention rather on the impact of the work of art, the reader's or listener's experience of it, its structure of meaning, and, finally, its ability to influence the reader's life and that of his community. Ultimately, any argument defending Homer against Socrates must return to these moral criteria, for they are the ones Socrates emphasized in his condemnation of Homer. No single surviving defense of Homer falls exclusively in one category or the other, but Heraclitus's work lies primarily in the first. The second approach would appear to have been taken by Aristotle. Plato had claimed (Rep. 10.606a-b) that the natural desire to weep and lament over our own misfortunes is reinforced by the poets, who show the heroes doing so, and so this natural but undesirable impulse becomes irresistibly strong when we ourselves are confronted by difficulties. Proclus himself provides evidence[73] that Aristotle responded to Plato on this very point, indicating that the catharsis doctrine of Aristotle was directed specifically against this claim on Plato's part that poetry, by exciting the emotions, harms the spectator.[74] Proclus does not take Aristotle's side against Plato, but he does question Socrates' understanding of the nature, impact, and meaning of Homer's poetry. That portion of the argument centered around moral issues (the question of whether Homer portrays the heroes as greedy and the impact of such description on the audience, for example) will not occupy us here, because no important efforts of interpretation are involved: one passage, understood in the most obvious sense
, is simply played off against another until the weight of evidence mustered by Proclus tips the scale in Homer's favor. Further, Proclus argues in a [72] [73] In Rep . 1.49.13. [74] Cf. Stefan Weinstock, "Die platonische Homerkritik und seine Nachwirkung," p. 130. ― 185 ― cogent and convincing way that Socrates' attack on the poets was motivated by specific historical circumstances, and hence that the goals and intentions of Plato (and of Socrates) must be taken into account in evaluating it.[75] Finally, in a manner distantly reminiscent of Plutarch,[76] he argues that there are many passages demonstrating Plato's respect for the greatness and even the divinity of Homer, which may be taken to outweigh the evidence of the aberrant critique in the Republic . The theories of interpretation lying behind Proclus's defense of Homer have recently been explored in two important studies,[77] and a brief summary of Proclus's key concepts will be sufficient for the present analysis. Proclus insists from the start of his discussion of Homer that a myth (and we may include much of what we call literature in this category— certainly, at any rate, the Iliad and Odyssey ) is far more complex than a casual hearing or reading would indicate. The surface or, in the case of a narrative poem, the apparent sense of the story
is repeatedly called a "screen"
,[78] serving simultaneously to reveal one kind of information and to conceal another. Though this observation has not gone unnoticed,[79] the problem of the implications of Proclus's metaphor when actually applied to the experience of a work of art seems to have been largely ignored. Proclus is telling his reader that what one encounters in a work of art is a complex surface, combining a more or less coherent imitation of reality as we experience it in our everyday lives with certain cryptic signals referring to a further level of meaning that lies beyond that surface and is not immediately apparent. We might be inclined to say that this is the essential condition of all allegory: the work of art presents a surface like that of the roman ô clef , and only the reader armed with the key, the table of equivalents, will be able to sort out the entire meaning of the work. Allegory, [75] In Rep . 1.202-3. [76] [77] Coulter, Literary Microcosm , and Sheppard, Studies . The emphasis of Coulter's important study is on theory rather than practice, and on the advances in literary theory that can be securely attributed to the later Neoplatonists. Sheppard's more recent work offers a few corrections of Coulter, but in general her more detailed examination of the two central essays of Proclus complements the earlier work. [78] In Rep . 1.44.24, 66.7, 73.15, 74.19, 159.25; 2.248.27. [79] See, for example, Festugière's comment in his translation of the commentary, vol. 1, p. 89, n. 3. ― 186 ― understood in this way, easily becomes an esthetic exercise of little interest. The procedures of the mode are all too simple and monotonous—or, more damning yet, too subjective and arbitrary. The point that needs to be made, however, is that this understanding of allegory is relevant neither to Proclus's discussion of the complex, screenlike surface of the Homeric poems nor to the actual experience of most genuinely allegorical works of art. One modern critic who has attempted, though not in a classical context, to return to the concept of allegory and to understand its meaning in terms of the audience's experience of the work of art is Jean-Claude Margolin. He emphasizes the element of mystery involved in the experience of allegorical art, the enigmatic surface that appears constantly to be referring to something beyond itself. He argues, in fact, that the ability to match up each element in the allegorical work with its referent (as in the example of the roman ô clef ) may be a hindrance to the full experience of "ce plaisir délicat de l'allégorisme, fait de dépaysement, de goût de l'inconnu, du sentiment de participer plus ou moins à la creation, de l'incitation ô la rêverie." [80] It is important to realize that it is qualities such as these that Proclus is insisting upon in his systematic discussion of the Iliad and Odyssey . This surface, which is a
, simultaneously revealing and masking its truths, is an invitation to participation in the creation of the meaning of the work—the challenge of an esthetic experience that goes far beyond the passive mode of perception of the senses, and involves us actively as spectators and participants in the articulation of meaning. However far this may be from our own ideas regarding Homeric style,[81] we are dealing here with qualities essential to the esthetic experience for many thinkers of the Middle Ages.[82] The demands Proclus made upon [80] Jean-Claude Margolin, "Aspects du surréalisme au xvi siècle," p. 520. Cf. also Gay Clifford, The Transformations of Allegory , pp. 36-53, for a discussion of "the reader as participant" in allegorical literature. [81] For most modern critics, the Iliad and Odyssey have seemed to lie at the far extreme of esthetic experience from what Margolin describes in discussing Renaissance allegory and what Proclus, I believe, saw in the poems. See Erich Auerbach, Mimesis , ch. 1, for a compelling and antithetically opposed analysis of Homeric style. [82] Dante's letter to Can Grande on the polysemous structure of the poetic statement is the canonical medieval statement on the matter, but perhaps more instructive is the experience of major works of medieval or early Renaissance allegorical visual art, such as the famous unicorn tapestries of the Cloisters or those of the Musée de Cluny. ― 187 ― the text of Homer were symptomatic of the revolution in taste characterizing the transition from ancient to medieval. Proclus's insistence on the absence of the very qualities of clarity, directness, and explicitness Erich Auerbach appreciated in Homer (and which we are inclined to think Pericles' contemporaries might have appreciated as well) is evidence not of his insensitivity to literature but rather of his desire to communicate the greatness of Homer in contemporary terms. That insistence is most obviously motivated by the desire to make Homer appear to be saying something quite different from what he might superficially appear to mean, but I suggest that it had another side as well: the Homeric poems required a commentator able to demonstrate their enduring greatness not only on the level of philosophical insight, but also on the level of esthetics. Proclus is attempting to bridge not only the gap between the philosophical or theological demands of the archaic period and those of the fifth century after Christ, but also the gap between archaic or classical demands on art and those of his own time.[83] That allegory (whether taken to mean simple irony or sarcasm or more complex structures of meaning) and the stylistic ideal of clarity were at odds with one another is an idea expressed repeatedly in ancient writings on rhetoric.[84] An anonymous author, possibly to be identified as the Stoic Cornutus,[85] includes
in a list of modes of expression that contribute to "lack of clarity"
, and the same attitude can be found in the De elocutione's fascinating discussion of the use of "allegories" in the mysteries: "Therefore the mysteries are spoken in allegories as well, for the sake of shock and fear, as if from darkness and night. For allegory is like darkness and night."[86] [83] [84] Cf. Richard Hahn, Die Allegorie in der antiken Rhetorik , pp. 29-31, who provides the examples I have incorporated into the text. [85] Hahn, Allegorie , p. 29 and n. 31, gives the arguments regarding the identification of the author. The text is in Rhetores Graeci I, pars ii, pp. 352-98. [86] ― 188 ― This fundamental ambiguity of the literary artifact, its polysemous structure, constitutes its major point of resemblance to the world it mirrors, itself conceived of as a screen simultaneously representing and hiding a truth that is eternal, whereas all things in the world as we know it are transitory. Sallustius, again, puts the matter concisely in a passage with which Proclus could easily have agreed: "The cosmos as well may be described as a myth, for bodies and things are manifest in it, but souls and minds lie hidden."[87] For those who took Plato's critique of mimetic art in book so of the Republic seriously,[88] the imitative function of the artist was severely discredited. Aristotle,[89] and the author of the essay On the Sublime[90] were, of course, able to use the term
fruitfully and suggestively, but in Proclus's vocabulary it is reserved (along with the complex
and not to true things
.[91] It is confined to the fragmented experience of this world and has no reference to the transcendent, unified experience of the other. Proclus divides poetry
into three major divisions, each corresponding to a level of the soul.[92] The model of the "lives"
or "conditions"
of the soul that Proclus offers here is somewhat dif- [87] [88] Plato Rep . 10.600e, 603a-608b. Cf. Plato Soph . 265b. [89] [90] Ps.-Long. De sublim . 22. [91] In Rep . 1.162-63. [92] In Rep . 1.177-99. ― 189 ― ferent from the model of the perceptive faculties in the Timaeus commentary, discussed above. The three "lives" differ from the levels of experience (and discourse) of the Timaeus model in that Proclus is concerned here with the relationship of soul to the other hypostases, and not with its internal complexities and the intricacies of everyday perception. The conception of the three hypostases behind this exposition is, in fact, more suggestive of the Plotinian model[93] than of the more complex one Proclus developed. The three "lives" seem to be (a) virtual communion, if not with the One, then with those gods that are the immediate effects of the One,[94] (b) experience on the level of
, and (c) experience on the level of soul (comprehending the further subdivisions discussed in the Timaeus commentary). The highest and most perfect "life" of the soul is on the level of the gods: the soul utterly abandons its own identity, transcends its individual
and attaches "its light to the transcendent light and the most unified element of its own being and life to the One beyond all being and life."[95] Poetry that corresponds to this condition is characterized by the absolute fusion of subject and object. It is divine madness
, which is a greater thing even than reasonableness
and fills the soul with symmetry. Throughout this description of the varieties of poetry, the emphasis is clearly on the quality of experience of the poet . The artifact produced is secondary: the art is conceived as a performance art that communicates the poet's quality of experience directly to the audience and makes them participants in it. Proclus demonstrates the presence of all of his three kinds of poetry in the Iliad and Odyssey , claiming that each of a series of bards mentioned in the poems represents a given level of poetry and citing passages of Homer to illustrate each type. The examples of the first type are rather surprising. They include two of the most superficially offensive passages, the song of Ares and Aphrodite (presented in the Odyssey [8.266-366] as the song of the Phaeacian bard Demodocus, whom, according to Proclus, Homer created as a self-portrait and as a symbol of the highest, inspired poetry),[96] and the [93] Cf. Plot. Enn . 5.1, and for a synthetic description see Wallis, Neoplatonism , pp. 47-61. [94] Cf. Rosán, Philosophy of Proclus, p . 131. [95] [96] In Rep . 1.193.26-194.11. ― 190 ― episode of the deception of Zeus (Il . 14.153-351).[97] In these passages, Proclus exclaims, "I would say that he is clearly in a state of inspiration, and that he composed these myths through being possessed by the Muses."[98] The significant point is that the passages are taken to represent a reality far removed from their apparent meaning. The lack of resemblance between the action described—the fiction—and the truth behind its "screen" is accepted as a criterion of value. These passages represent no mere mimetic art; they far transcend imitation and communicate their truths not by making images
or imitations
of them, but by making symbols (
or
). Perhaps the most striking and original point in Proclus's poetics is this: "Symbols are not imitations of that which they symbolize."[99] On the contrary, symbols may be just the opposite of that which they symbolize. That which is disgraceful may stand for that which is good, that which is contrary to nature
for that which is natural
, and so forth. This highest level of art—the one Proclus claims is most characteristic of the Iliad and Odyssey[100] —is not mimetic at all. Its mode of representation of reality is far more complex than simple imitation, or representation by resemblance.[101] Anne Sheppard quite rightly emphasizes the intimate connection between the
of Proclus's critical vocabulary and the
of theurgy, which Proclus took very seriously.[102] Proclus's symbols are related to their referents on higher levels of reality in a relationship conceived of as a real and necessary part of the [97] The fact that these episodes provided subject matter for comic-erotic pantomimes may have contributed to Proclus's feeling that they needed emphatic defense. Cf. Ernst Wrist, "Pantomimus," col. 848, who indicates references by both Lucian and, significantly, Augustine to mimes of Ares and Aphrodite. [98][99] [100] In Rep . 1.195. 13- 196.13. [101] In Rep . 1.198.18-24. [102] See Sheppard, Studies , pp. 146-51. She explores the double tradition behind this vocabulary in Proclus, stemming first from its use in the philosophical tradition (where it had already become a dead metaphor in Chrysippus) and secondly from theurgy itself, now taken seriously and practiced as an adjunct to philosophy. ― 191 ― structure of that reality: they participate in the chain of emanation from those higher ranks of beings. The second "life" of the soul is the one that Plotinian Neoplatonism would associate with the level of
, the second, intermediate hypostasis.[103] It is characterized by the soul's turning within itself, departing from "the inspired life"
of the highest level and setting
and wisdom
as the first principles of its activity. Again on this level there is a fusion, this time of "knower and known"(
[103] In Rep . 1.177.23-178.2. [104][105][106] [107] Sheppard, Studies , pp. 182-87. [108][109] ― 192 ― The lowest "life" of the soul, the third, is dominated by the lowest "powers"
and "makes use of imaginings and irrational sense-perceptions."[110] To this sphere, one assumes, belong our everyday experience and our participation in the material universe. The poetry corresponding to this condition of the soul is mimetic poetry, "mingled with opinions and imaginings."[111] It has the properties of amplifying the emotions to huge proportions, of shocking the audience and manipulating the dispositions of their souls, and of projecting a false image of reality. "It is a shadow painting of things that are, and not a clear perception."[112] Its goal is modifying the consciousness of the audience, and it appeals to the emotions. It is further subdivided into a category described as "image making" or accurately mimetic poetry
, which, though it creates only imitations
, at least strives toward precision in its imitation of its objects, and produces copies in every way like their models, and a contrasting mode described as "illusionistic" poetry
, which cultivates the appearance of reality but abandons the goal of exact reproduction of the model. Proclus refers here to a passage in the Sophist (235d-236a) where the contrast is developed in terms of sculpture.[113] Plato is relating the esthetic to the moral with the peculiar insistence that is one of his most irreconcilable attitudes from the standpoint of modern thought. Proclus, too, believes intensely in the inter-relatedness of the esthetic and the moral, and he builds on Plato's distinction between sculpture that reproduces the exact proportions of the model and that which, for example, enlarges the head to make it appear to be of natural size when viewed from far below. This latter procedure is analogous to that of the "illusionistic" sort of poetry, which utterly abandons "right opinion"
and projects a false and deceptive image of its subject matter.[114] A bard mentioned quite casually in the Odyssey (3.267-68) is produced to symbolize the accurately mimetic mode, and Proclus offers as examples of this sort of art passages in the Homeric poems where Homer "imitates the heroes fighting, or taking counsel or [110][111][112] [113] In Rep . 1.189. [114] In Rep . 1.189.5-190.2. ― 193 ― talking, according to their various characters, some reasonably, some bravely, some ambitiously."[115] Given this description of the accurately mimetic element in Homer, it is difficult to understand how Proclus can go on to claim that it is not this mode, but rather the inspired one, that is most characteristic of Homer.[116] One is inclined, on the one hand, to wonder just how extensive Proclus's direct experience of Homer was. Did he, in fact, have the kind of perspective on the relative importance of the various sorts of poetry contained in the Iliad and Odyssey that can only come from direct reading of the poems from beginning to end? The question is not easily answered. As early as the second century after Christ, Homer was read in the schools in the form of a fairly standard set of selections, and few authors of the time show evidence of a direct knowledge of either poem in its entirety.[117] To pick an example closer to Proclus, Macrobius, a generation earlier, quotes Homer abundantly in the Saturnalia , but the evidence is quite convincing that he had never read the Iliad or Odyssey .[118] However, neither the rhetoricians of the second sophistic nor Macrobius were scholars in the sense that Proclus was. His ability to quote obscure passages that would not have appeared in the anthologies and his knowledge of detail seem evidence at least of access to a complete text.[119] Per- [115] [116] In Rep 1.195.13-196.13. [117] Kindstrand, Homer in der zweiten Sophistik , pp. 1-110, examines the evidence for direct experience of Homer on the part of Dio Chrysostom, Aelius Aristides, and Maximus of Tyre. [118] See Flamant, Macrobe et le néoplatonisme latin , pp. 300-304. Macrobius is discussed in ch. 6D below. [119] The exhaustive Index auctorum prepared for Festugière's translation of the Republic commentary indicates quotations or references involving thirty-seven of the forty-eight books of Homer, the vast majority of them in the section of the commentary devoted to the defense of Homer. Many of these come directly from the Republic or from other dialogues of Plato, however, and so tell us little about Proclus's independent knowledge of the poems. In order to give a somewhat more general picture of Proclus's use of Homer, the references to the books of the Iliad and Odyssey in four of the major works of Proclus are presented graphically in Appendix 3. Various factors bias the sample—most obviously the importance of Plato as intermediate source in three of the four works—but outside the Republic commentary most references are independent, and collectively they indicate a general knowledge of Homer, with marked preference for the Iliad over the Odyssey and for certain sections over others, with only six books receiving no use at all, quite possibly by chance. ― 194 ― haps we should give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he viewed the "inspired" poetry of Homer as the most important and characteristic element not because his perspective was warped by an uneven experience of the text but because he was basing his observations on the quality he perceived in Homer and not on a line count. Proclus observes repeatedly that this first class of mimetic poetry, which respects the true proportions of the model, is harmless and may serve as a vehicle for discourse of higher sorts. Plato himself, after all, is a mimetic writer, a creator of dialogues in which characters are seen interacting and presenting their opinions and ideas.[120] When Proclus discusses the differences between Homer and Plato, he presents Homer as "inspired" and "ecstatic," an author who offers a direct revelation and is in contact with absolute truth.[121] Plato is seen as coming later to the same information and treating it differently, "establishing it solidly by the irrefutable methods of systematic thought."[122] The matter is the same, then, and both treatments rely heavily on mimesis, but one comes from an ecstatic visionary and the other from a systematic philosopher whose demonstrations can be expected to be rigorous. The model is reflected in the discussion of Plato's development of ideas adapted from Homer (In Rep . 1.171-72). There is a last subcategory in Proclus's classification of the kinds of poetry: the "illusionistic"
class of mimetic poetry, which will effectively become the scapegoat for all the other sorts. Again, a casually mentioned singer is brought forth as exemplifying this lowly mode.[123] Examples are predictably difficult to find in the works of Homer, but Proclus concedes that Odyssey 3.1, where the sun is said to rise out of a pond,[124] is poetry of this sort. The offense against
[120] In Rep . 1.163-64. [121][122] [123] Thamyris, at Il . 2.595 (in the catalog of ships). [124] ― 195 ― seems to come from the fact that the sun does not really come up out of the pond (as we all know) but only appears to, while Homer says it actually does.[125] Here again, there is a peculiar mixture of insight and apparent obtuseness. Proclus's description of inspired poetry is quite beautiful, and his development of the Platonic concept that there is a divine
in poets that surpasses
and puts them in touch with the highest reality is decidedly an anticipation of the Romantic conception of the imagination.[126] Yet When he reaches "illusionistic" mimetic poetry, his observations descend to the trivial. He appears, from our perspective, to be splitting hairs. This disproportion may be viewed, however, as a function of Proclus's larger goals, which are neither unsympathetic nor trivial. He is attempting to evolve a concept of poetry free of the stigma of mimesis, a poetry that springs from, and somehow communicates, the highest level of human experience. In this context, the "lower" sort of poetry, which makes no such claims, is treated somewhat less satisfactorily, but we can hardly hold this against Proclus. Along with the makers of myths, the poets, Proclus gives some attention to the interpreters, and it should be stressed that the two categories are quite close in his mind. We have seen that the word
can be applied to interpreters, though it more often applies to the mythic poets themselves. An interpreter's activities can likewise merit the description "very inspired,"[127] often applied to poets of the first class. In contrast, one of Proclus's prime examples of one who failed to understand the structure of meaning in myth is Stesichorus. The context of his observation is the discussion of a passage in the Phaedrus (243a) where Socrates seems to be saying that Stesichorus was superior to Homer.[128] Stesichorus, Socrates claims, found the remedy for his blindness, [125] In Rep . 1.192.21-28. [126] Trouillard explores these foreshadowings (see n. 19 above). [127] [128] In Rep . 1.173-77. ― 196 ― "being an accomplished artist," or "inspired by the Muses"
. On the contrary, Proclus replies, Homer was never guilty in the first place, and therefore never needed purification. Stesichorus's actual mistake was that he failed to understand the nature of myth: he took the story of Helen to be a true story like any other[129] and wrote the offending poem "in that mode"
. Homer, on the other hand, acted "according to another and more perfect condition of the soul."[130] He did not confuse
and
. The implication is that his account, properly interpreted, is no offense against gods or demigods. Furthermore, Proclus takes Homer's blindness to be an image, a symbol dreamed up "by those who tell stories about such things,"[131] to communicate the truth of Homer's transcendence of the senses and his supra-sensory "vision." The ancient lives of the poets, then, are myth structures like their poems. Proclus would seem to be among the first to point this out. Proclus goes on to maintain that Socrates, like Stesichorus, is deceived as regards the way in which myths represent the truth. In saying that Homer shared Stesichorus's guilt and his punishment, Socrates is making use only of the superficial meaning of the story,[132] whereas in fact, Proclus argues, that surface is only a "screen," behind which another, very different, truth lies awaiting its exegete. There is a danger, then, in making use of myths: one must understand the way they mean in order to use them properly. Early in the essay, Proclus has spoken of those who make the mistake of seeing blasphemies in the traditional stories.[133] Their mistake is that just mentioned: they go only to the surface and are deceived by it (through their own fault, of course, since ignorance of the law—here, the structures of meaning of myth—is no excuse). [129][130][131][132] [133] In Rep . 1.74-76. ― 197 ― Myths may further be divided according to the users for whom they are intended. Some may be considered properly "educational"
and appropriate for the young, whereas others are "more divinely inspired"
and appropriate, therefore, only for those who are ready for instruction into higher realms of experience.[134] The first group is later called "more philosophical"
and the second characterized as "appropriate to hieratic custom"
Proclus has, in fact, already answered an important charge in the Socratic indictment by pleading guilty on Homer's behalf. The myths of the Iliad and Odyssey are not appropriate for children—Socrates is right. Proclus goes no further, but he might have added that nearly a thousand years of Greek educational thought and practice were on trial as well. Greek educators, he would say, however, must take the blame themselves: their use of the Homeric poems is in fact another misuse, and the responsibility is theirs, not Homer's. Date: 2015-12-17; view: 686
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