René Girard, Aristotle, and the rebirth of tragedy

323 Pages·2006·3.86 MB·English

by  Morrissey. Christopher Stewart

MIRROR OF PRINCES:
RENE GIRARD, ARISTOTLE,
AND THE REBIRTH OF TRAGEDY
Christopher S. Morrissey
M.A. (Classics), University of British Columbia, 1999
B.A. (Ancient Greek), University of British Columbia, 1995
B .Sc. (General), University of Manitoba, 1988
DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
In the
Faculty of Arts and Social Science
under
Special Arrangements
O Christopher S. Morrissey 2005
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
Fall 2005
All rights reserved. This work may not be
reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy
or other means, without permission of the author.
APPROVAL
Name: Christopher Stewart Morrissey
Degree: Doctor of Philosophy
Title of Thesis: Mirror of Princes: Rene Girard, Aristotle, and the Rebirth of
Tragedy
Examining Committee:
Dr. Stephen Duguid, Chair
Dr. David C. Mirhady, Senior Supervisor
Associate Professor, Humanities
Dr. Ian Angus, Supervisor
Professor, Humanities
- - - - -
Dr. Paul Budra, Supervisor
Associate Professor, English
Dr. Anthony J. Podlecki, Supervisor
Professor Emeritus, Classical, Near Eastern & Religious Studies,
University of British Columbia
Dr. Christine Jones, Examiner
Lecturer, Humanities
Dr. Eric Gans, External Examiner
Professor, French & Francophone Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
Date Approved: NOV6 / 2 6
.VOJ
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
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Abstract
RenC Girard is a theorist who finds evidence in literature and drama for his
anthropological hypothesis of human origin and the role of scapegoating in human affairs. The
originary scene of human evolution is described by the generative anthropology of Eric Gans in a
way that refines Girard. Generative anthropology also permits an evolutionary model of esthetic
form founded on the originary scene that can account for Aristotle's insights into both esthetic
and political affairs.
As a comparison of Girard's postmodern analysis with the classical analysis of Aristotle's
Poetics suggests, there are constants in esthetic evolution. A fivefold pattern of narrative
universals can be abstracted from Aristotle and Girard as a model for tracking evolutionary
progress and cultural rebirth.
This model for esthetic history may also be developed to account for political form as
evolved in particular cultures and mirrored in their drama (Aeschylus' Athens and Shakespeare's
England). Girard's political model is impractically apocalyptic because it demands the end of the
allegedly one and only earthly regime ("scapegoating"). But Aristotle's many mixed regime types
in the Politics afford a better evolutionary model for how regime change is mirrored in esthetic
form to commemorate real transitions between historical epochs. Such cultural change is initiated
by the deliberate "firstness" of statesmanlike prudence.
As generative anthropology suggests, the classical and neoclassical esthetics are distinct
eras in the evolution of human experience. This evolution is visible in the transitions
commemorated in Aeschylus' Oresteia and Shakespeare's Henriad.
In the classical esthetic, the separation of office from person, which establishes a secure
basis for territorial loyalty, is signified in Aeschy1u.s' Oresteia. This is what Athena's Eumenides
represent in the new context of the Areopagus, as society evolves from Orestes, who represented
requisite divine justice in the context of Agamemnon's murder.
In the neoclassical esthetic, the binding of territorial loyalty to the corporate personality
of the human sovereign who rules by consent is signified in Shakespeare's Henriad. This is what
Henry V represents in the new context of Agincourt, as society evolves from Henry IV, who
represented requisite human ceremony in the context of Richard 11's deposition.
Dedication
B.V.M.
0 Sapientia,
quae ex ore Altissimiprodisti,
attingens a$ne usque adjhem,
fortiter suaviter disponensque omnia:
veni docendum nos viam prudentiae.
0 Wisdom,
which camest out of the mouth of the most High,
and reachest from one end to another,
mightily and sweetly ordering all things:
Come and teach us the way of prudence.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my senior supervisor David C. Mirhady for being both friend and mentor.
Thank you to my committee, Anthony J. Podlecki, Ian Angus, and Paul Budra, which has
supported and encouraged me in my intellectual endeavours and this work in particular. Thank
you also to Robert B. Todd for my early philological training and ongoing support. I am indebted
to the scholarship of the following authors, each of whom wrote a book or an article that caused
me to change my thoughts on an important issue at some point while I was writing this
dissertation: Benedict M. Ashley, John N. Deely, Eric L. Gans, Rene Girard, Victor Davis
Hanson, Donald Kagan, Anthony Kenny, Carnes Lord, Harvey C. Mansfield, Jacques Maritain,
Ralph McInerny, Joseph Ratzinger, Anthony Rizzi, James V. Schall, Raymund Schwager, Roger
Scruton, Vincent E. Smith, William A. Wallace, and James A. Weisheipl. I am also thankful for
stimulating conversations with Pablo Bandera, Andrew Bartlett, Gerald Boersma, Ryan Chace,
Pat Gillespie, Tom Hamel, John Horsman, Robert Stackpole, and Richard van Oort.
Early versions of portions of this dissertation were delivered as papers at various
meetings of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion and of the Classical Association of the
Canadian West. An earlier version of part of Chapter Two appeared in Anthropoetics. I extend
my thanks to the many who gave me feedback on these trial versions.
Table of Contents
..
........................................................................................................................
Approval u
...
........................................................................................................................
Abstract
111
......................................................................................................................
Dedication v
.......................................................................................................
Acknowledgements vi
..
........................................................................................................
Table of Contents vu
................................................................................................................
List of Tables ix
.................................................................................
Glossary including Abbreviations x
.....................................................................
General Introduction: Mirror of Princes 1
What is the Rebirth of Tragedy? ................................................................................... 1
.....................................................................................
Chapter One: Tragic Content 13
Introduction: The Scapegoat as Protagonistlcontent ................................................... 13
Girard and Aristotle ................................................................................................... 17
Girard's Three Main Hypotheses ............................................................................ 17
Aristotle's Four Explanatory Causes ...................................................................... 23
Girard's Five Mythic Clues .................................................................................... 30
Aristotle's Fivefold Analysis of Tragedy's Semiosis .............................................. 34
Girard's Cultural Poetics ............................................................................................ 38
Mythic Content: A Plague of Disorder (Metabasis) ................................................ 38
Mythic Form (Simple): Violent Expulsion (Pathos) ............................................... 41
Mythic Form (Complex I): Signs of Victimage (Anagn6risis) ................................ 43
Mythic Form (Complex 11): Reversing (Dis)order (Peripeteia) ............................... 46
Cultural Form-of-the-Content: Crime, Blame, Error (Hamartia) .............................4 8
Summary: An Empirioschematic Evolutionary Model for Esthetics ........................ 53
Mimetic Theory and Aristotelian Metaphysics ........................................................... 56
The Origin of Human' Difference ............................................................................ 56
The Immaterial Intellect on the Originary Scene ..................................................... 68
Summary: The Metaphysics of Politics in the Evolutionary Model ......................... 87
......................................................................................
Chapter Two: Esthetic Form 93
Introduction: Evolution of the Classical Esthetic ........................................................ 93
Aristotle's Best Tragedy ............................................................................................ 94
Form and Content: Unhappy or Happy (Poetics 13-14) ..........................................9 6
High Culture: Pathetic or Ethical Form (Poetics 17- 18) ........................................1 04
Single Metabasis Story Content as Best (Poetics 13) ............................................1 11
Ethical Story Form as Best (Poetics 14) ............................................................... 117
Resentment (Cultural Form-of-the-Content) ......................................................... 120
The Evolution of Cultural Form ............................................................................... 127
vii
.................................................................................
Chapter Three: Political Form 129
Introduction: Scapegoating and Regime Change ...................................................... 129
Aristotle's Best Regime ........................................................................................ 136
Aristotle on Political Form ................................................................................... 138
Aristotle's Mixed Regimes ................................................................................... 142
The Semiotics of Cultural Catharsis .................................................................... 154
Anthroposemiosis and Aristotle's Perfect Virtue .................................................. 159
The Evolution of Political Form .......................................................................... 167
Summary: A Latitude for Statesmanship .................................................................. 176
.............................................
Chapter Four: Cultural Form in Aeschylus' Oresteia 184
Introduction: Classical Form and Content .............................................................. 184
Esthetic Form: The Perfect Simple Plot (From Vengeance to Justice) ...................... 194
Unified Content. Many Metabases ...................................................................... 194
Simple Form. Illusorily Complex ......................................................................... 201
Political Form: Athenian Statecraft in Aeschylus' Oresteia ...................................... 206
Regime Change in the Oresteia ............................................................................ 209
The Revolution of 462: The Guardians of the Law (Nomophylakes) ..................... 220
Conclusion: Orestes the Prince ................................................................................. 226
.........................................
Chapter Five: Cultural Form in Shakespeare's Henriad 229
Introduction: Neoclassical Form and Content .......................................................... 229
Esthetic Form in Shakespeare: Excursus on the Problem Play .................................. 241
Aristotle and Theatrical Mimesis ..........................................................................2 45
Scapegoats and Catharsis ..................................................................................... 257
The Neoclassical Doubling of Form and Content .................................................. 262
The Neoclassical Esthetic: The Problem of Christianity. ....................................... 269
Esthetic Form in Shakespeare: The History Play ...................................................... 273
Political Form: English Statecraft in Shakespeare's Henriad ................................. 276
Regime Change in the Henriad ............................................................................ 276
The Revolution of 1399: "This Sceptred Isle" ......................................................2 82
Conclusion: Hal the Prince .....................................................................................2 88
........................................
General Conclusion: The Achievements of Statecraft 290
.................................................................................................................
Appendices 293
...........................................................................................................
Bibliography 295
viii
List of Tables
Table 1: Empirioschematic Analysis of the Originary Scene ....................................... 89
Table 2: Empirioschematic Analysis of Oedipus Tyrannus ......................................... 97
Table 3: Empirioschematic Analysis of Iphigenia among the Taurians ..................... 100
Table 4: Empirioschematic Analysis of Andromache ................................................ 108
Table 5: Poetics 13's Classification of Tragic Content (Single Metabasis) ................ 115
Table 6: Poetics 14's Classification of Tragic Form (Simple and Complex Plots) ..... 119
Table 7: Politics 3's Quantitative Analysis of Political Form .................................... 140
Table 8: Politics 3-4's Empirioschematic Analysis of Mixed Regimes ...................... 143
Table 9: Vertical Balance in Regime Mixing ......................................................... 148
Table 10: Horizontal Balance in Regime Mixing ......................................................... 148
Table 11: Balance Point [x] for the Well-Mixed Middle Regime ................................. 149
Table 12: Aristotle's Best Regimes ......................................................................... 149
Table 13: The Generic Regimes and the Specific Mixtures (Emphasis of the
Mixture in Italics) ........................................................................................ 183
Table 14: Esthetic Form and Content in the Oresteia .................................................. 196
Table 15: Political Form in the Oresteia ...................................................................... 211
Table 16: Political Form in the Henriad ..................................................................... 279