We see a progression of thought from Plato to his most famous student, Aristotle, to the famous rhetorician Quintillian: whether authorship is the “Bacchic transport,” imitation of real life, or imitation of good authors.
Plato, in Ion, speaks of the Muse as similar to a magnet that first inspires poets who then can inspire rhapsodes to recite their work and enthuse an audience (enthuse and inspire both etymologically implying possession by the god): a chain of emotional transference, with a strong focus on cathartic response. Poetry is a religious experience.
For Aristotle, the poet seeks to imitate real life in his work, in degrees of similarity (better than real life, worse than real life, or like real life): the focus is on the lifelikeness of the story itself, not, indeed, the affective quality.
Quintillian directs the orator to study and imitate all the best human authors; he does discuss the emotional reaction to a great oration, but prefers reading orations in order to study them most coolly and rationally.
These three thinkers approach authorship from different perspectives. Plato’s concept of divine inspiration by the Muse sidesteps the question of intellectual copyright altogether: it belongs (if to anyone) to the gods, and is shared with certain humans, who then transmit it in their turn. Aristotle’s approach deals with the mechanics of imitation: medium, manner, and objects. This is not a question of plagiarism: Aristotle points out that Sophocles and Homer are imitators of the same kind (tragedy), and on a broader scale like Aristophanes (imitation of persons). Quintillian takes it further by specifically prescribing study and imitation of the best authors.
So, for Plato, the “author” receives a divine gift; no other receives exactly the same, as Ion can speak eloquently of Homer but “dozes off” when other poets are mentioned. An author has a specialty. This suggests that plagiarism is actually not possible, although that is complicated by Plato’s chain, which is a web of sharing freely the gifts of the gods, mass possession the goal. If the entire audience is moved and affected by the recital of the rhapsode, the transference of this emotion has transmitted the gift of the gods (at least temporarily). Does this or doesn’t it complicate Plato’s concept of divine inspiration (i.e., how dangerous is the Muse that had to be cast out of the Republic – the power to sway mobs by emotion rather than reason)?
Aristotle sees authors as discrete units. They may imitate the manner of Homer in using a narrator, or imitate the genre (tragedy, drama), but that kind of imitation would hardly be considered plagiarism by anyone today. Authorship for Aristotle means the production of realistic (or more or less “realistic”) character, emotion, movement – in short, the lived human experience. Authors work differently, some depicting men as nobler than in real life, others as viler.
Imitation does not mean an exact copy, however; as Quintillian points out (like jb, I think this is one of the central points here), you should not imitate only one author, for all copies are inherently inferior to the originals (recalling the concept of ideal forms). Like Cicero, who, “after he devoted himself wholly to imitate the Greeks . . . embodied in his style the energy of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the sweetness of Isocrates,” so you can draw from many sources yet create your own utter newness, cf. Joyce’s Ulysses.
Note
If you want to look a little further, here’s a blog on the subject of authorship in antiquity which I found thought-provoking:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/kenne329/antiquity/cat_greek.html
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3 comments:
This is a helpful summary of this week's readings. Thanks.
This idea of authorship is very interesting, but all I can think about while reading these articles is what would Plato or Aristotle think if they were writing for profit?
Maybe that's why P and A focus more on the individuality of the experience -- because it's poetry -- and that's why Q focuses on getting something original out of studies of the best -- because it's oratory. Jb's commented on genre, and that struck me too. Poetry recited by rhapsodes in public, or orations performed for political, public occasions, are inherently public, inherently shared. It's not a question of plagiarism in these genres. Their conception of authorship is so openly public already, it couldn't be plagiarized. (does that make any sense?!)
Yes, that makes sense. And I agree with Jb's comments, too. Although I think, using the chain analogy, that each link of the chain is of equal importance and that, when the source or inspiration for a great work is identifiable, it does receive its due.
The file sharing idea works both ways. I agree it expands a listener's music library: I have many mp3s on my iPod that wouldn't be there if I had to pay for them. But who is going to fund studio time for new artists if there's no potential for return? (I suppose this response should have been posted in Jb's blog.)
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