HISTORY OF AESTHETICS

Vol.1
ANCIENT AESTHETICS
 WLADYSLAW TATARK IEWICZ

HISTORY OF AESTHETICS

Vol. I

ANCIENT AESTHETICS

edited by

J. HARRELL

1970

MOUTON
THE HAGUE • PARIS

PWN—POLISH SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHERS

WARSZAWA
 Copyright © 1970
by
Paiistwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe
(PWN—Polish Scientific Publishers)
Warszawa

No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm,
or any other means, without written permission from the publishers

This is a translation from the original Polish

Historia Estetyki • Estetyka Starozytna
published in 1962 by "Ossolineum", Warszawa
translated by Adam and Ann Czerniawski

Printed in Poland
(DRP)
 CONTENTS

TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii

INTRODUCTION 1

Ancient Aesthetics 11

I . AESTHETICS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD 12

1. The Archaic Period 12

2. The Origins of Poetry 15
a. Choreia 15
b. Music 17
c. Poetry ( 20
3. The Origins of the Plastic Arts 22
4. The Common Aesthetic Assumptions of the Greeks 25
5. The Aesthetics of the Early Poets 30
A. Texts from Homer, Hesiod and Early Lyric Poets 34

I I . AESTHETICS OF THE CLASSICAL PERIOD 41

1. The Classical Period 41

2. Literature 45
3. The Plastic Arts 48
B. Texts from the Classical Poets and Artists 75
4. Aesthetics and Philosophy 78
5. Pythagorean Aesthetics 80
C. Texts from the Pythagoreans and Heraclitus 85
6. The Aesthetics of Democritus 89
D. Texts from Democritus 93
7. The Aesthetics of the Sophists and of Socrates 95
E. Texts from the Sophists and about Socrates 104
8. Assessment of Pre-Platonic Aesthetics Ill
9. The Aesthetics of Plato 112
F. Texts from Plato 127
10. The Aesthetics of Aristotle 138
G. Texts from Aristotle 155
11. The End of the Classical Period 166
vi CONTENTS

I I I . HELLENISTIC AESTHETICS 168

1. The Hellenistic Period 168
2. Aesthetics in Hellenistic Philosophy 171
3. The Aesthetics of the Epicureans 174
H. Texts from the Epicureans 178
4. The Aesthetics of the Sceptics 180
I. Texts from the Sceptics 184
5. The Aesthetics of the Stoics 185
J. Texts from the Stoics 194
6. The Aesthetics of Cicero and the Eclectics 200
K. Texts from Cicero 206
7. The Aesthetics of Music 215
a. Hellenistic Music 215
b. Musical Theory 217
L. Texts on the Aesthetics of Music 226
8. Aesthetics of Poetry 231
a. Hellenistic Poetry 231
b. Poetics 235
M. Texts on the Aesthetics of Poetry 247
9. The Aesthetics of Rhetoric 259
10. The Aesthetics of the Plastic Arts 265
a. The Plastic Arts in Hellenistic Times 265
b. Theory of Architecture 270
N. Texts on the Aesthetics of Architecture 279
c. The Theory of Painting and Sculpture 284
O. Texts on the Aesthetics of the Plastic Arts 297
11. Classification of the Arts 307
P. Texts on the Classification of the Arts 314
12. The Aesthetics of Plotinus 318
R. Texts from Plotinus 325
13. An Assessment of Ancient Aesthetics 331
NAME INDEX 341
SUBJECT INDEX 349
 TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1 and 2. Proportions of ancient temples 50

3. Orders in Greek architecture: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian 52
4. Geometrical plan of Roman theatres 53
5. Height and spacing of columns in Greek temples based on Pythagorean
triangles 54
6. Rules followed by ancient architects in describing the helix 54
7. Rules for drawing the grooves in ancient columns 55
8. Circles and triangles as the guides for the Pantheon's proportions (based
on O. Schubert) 56
9. Arrangement of acoustic vessels in ancient theatres 57
10. Homo quadratus (from the 1521 edition of Vitruvius) 58
11. A and B. Proportions of Greek vases (based on J. Hambidge and L. D.
Caskey) 60
12. Varieties of Greek temples: pycnostylos, systylos, diastylos and areostylos 61
13. Diagram of the Parthenon's crowning (based on L. Niemojewski) . . 62
14. Modification by Greek architects of the thickness of columns depending on
light or shade 64
15. Tilting of outer columns to counteract optical deformations 65
16. Reduction by ancient architects of the diameter of columns standing in
shadow 66
17. Allowing for deformations of perspective in the shaping of temple archi-
traves 67
18. Deforming the shapes of temples to achieve a proper optical effect (based
on A. Choisy) 70
19. Proportions of Apollo Belvedere and Venus de Milo in correspondence
to the golden section (based on A. Zholtovski) 73

Figures 1-7, 9, 12-17 are based on drawings made at the Department of the
History of Architecture, Warsaw Polytechnic Institute, under the guidance of Profes-
sor P. Bieganski.
 INTRODUCTION

The study of aesthetics proceeds along many lines, containing both the theory of
beauty and the theory of art, investigating both the theory of aesthetic objects and
of aesthetic experiences, employing both description and prescription, both analysis
and explanation.
1. THE STUDY OF BEAUTY AND THE STUDY OF ART. Aesthetics has been traditionally
defined as the study of beauty. However some aestheticians, convinced that the
notion of beauty is indeterminate and vague and therefore not suitable for inves-
tigation, have turned rather to an investigation of arts, defining aesthetics as a study
of art. Others preferred to deal with both beauty and art; they separated these two
fields of aesthetics, but investigated them both.
Each of these two concepts—of beauty and of art—undoubtedly has a different
range. Beauty is not confined to art, while art is not solely the pursuit of beauty.
In some periods of history, little or no connection was seen between beauty and
art. The ancients studied beauty and studied art, but treated the two separately,
seeing no reason to associate them.
But so many ideas about beauty have evolved from the study of art, and so many
ideas about art from the study of beauty, that for modern thinkers it is impossible
to dissociate the two fields. Antiquity has treated them separately, but later periods
have brought them together, being interested primarily in artistic beauty and the
aesthetic aspect of art. These two spheres—beauty and art—have the tendency
to converge—this is in fact characteristic of the history of aesthetics. An aesthetician
may interest himself in either beauty or art, but aesthetics as an entity is a twofold
study, embracing both the study of beauty and the study of art. This is the first
duality of aesthetics.
2 . OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE AESTHETICS. Aesthetics is the study of aesthetic
objects; it does however include the study of subjective aesthetic experiences. The
examination of objective beauty and works of art has gradually led to subjective
problems. There is probably not a single thing which someone somewhere has
not regarded as beautiful nor anything whose beauty has not been denied. Everything
or nothing may be beautiful, depending on the attitude one adopts. Thus, many
aestheticians have reached the conclusion that the principle of their discipline is
2 INTRODUCTION

neither beauty nor art, but the aesthetic experience, the aesthetic response to things—
and that this is the proper concern of aesthetics. Some have even adopted the view
that aesthetics is exclusively a study of aesthetic experience and can be a science
only if it is psychological in approach. This is, however, too radical a solution:
in aesthetics there is a place for both: for the study of the problems of subjective
experience and of objective problems. Thus aesthetics has two lines of enquiry,
this duality being as unavoidable as the first one concerning beauty and art.
This dual character of aesthetics may also be expressed through contrast between
beauty conditioned by nature and beauty conditioned by man. Man is involved in
aesthetics in several ways: he creates beauty and art, he evaluates them, he partici-
pates as an artist, as a receiver, and as a critic.
3. PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL AESTHETICS. Man's participation in art is
a participation of the individual as well as of social groups. Aesthetics is, therefore,
partly a study of the psychology of beauty and art, and partly of the sociology of
beauty and art. This is the third duality of aesthetics.
4 . DESCRIPTIVE AND PRESCRIPTIVE AESTHETICS. Many books in the field of aesthetics
do no more than establish and generalize facts. They describe the properties of
things which we consider beautiful, describe experiences which those beautiful
things provoke in us. But other books on aesthetics go beyond establishing facts:
they include recommendations on how to produce good art and real beauty, and
on how to evaluate them properly. In other words: apart from descriptions aesthetics
deals also with prescriptions. It is not exclusively an empirical, descriptive, psycho-
logical, social or historical science: its other aspects have a normative character.
The French aesthetics of the seventeenth century was chiefly normative, the British
aesthetics of the eighteenth century was descriptive. This is the fourth duality of
aesthetics.
As they would be in other disciplines, prescriptions in aesthetics may be based
on empirical investigations. In this case they are simple conclusions from descriptions.
But they are not always so based. They are derived in part not from established
facts but from postulates and standards of taste which are favoured at a particular
moment. In this case the duality between descriptive and prescriptive aesthetics
is at its most extreme.
5. PROPER AESTHETIC THEORY AND AESTHETIC POLITICS. This duality of aesthetics
is akin to another one: to the duality of theory and politics. Establishment of facts
serves the theory of art, while recommendations serve the politics of art. The theory
tends to give an universal view of art and beauty, while politics defends one of many
possible conceptions of art. When Democritus demonstrated that perspective alters
the shapes and colours of things and that we therefore see shapes and colours not
quite as they are, he contributed to the theory of art; but when Plato demanded
that the artist, ignoring perspective, should present shapes and colours as they are
and not as we see them, he was indulging in politics of art. In still other words, the
propositions of aesthetics are partly an expression of knowledge and partly of taste.
 INTRODUCTION 3
6. AESTHETIC FACTS AND AESTHETIC EXPLANATION. Aesthetics, like every other
discipline, attempts first of all to establish the properties of the objects of its studies;
it investigates the properties of beauty and of art. But it also attempts to explain
these properties, to say why beauty acts in certain way and why art has adopted
certain forms and not others. There may be different kinds of explanation: aesthetics
explains the impact of beauty psychologically and sometimes physiologically, it
explains art-forms historically and sometimes sociologically. When Aristotle said
that the beauty of things depends on their size, he was establishing a fact. But he
offered an explanation of the fact when he said that things can be admired only if
they are seen comfortably all at once, and too big things cannot be seen in this way.
When he stated that art is imitation, Aristotle was (rightly or wrongly) establishing
a fact, but he was explaining it when he said that man is naturally inclined to imitate.
On the whole, ancient aesthetics was more concerned with establishing facts, while
modern aesthetics lays greater stress on their explanation. This is the sixth duality
that pervades aesthetics: the duality of establishing and explaining the facts and
laws of beauty and art.
7. PHILOSOPHICAL AND PARTICULAR AESTHETICS. The most celebrated aesthetic
theories have been inventions of philosophers: of Plato and Aristotle, Hume and
Burke, Kant and Hegel, Croce and Dewey. But others are the work of artists, for
instance of Leonardo, or the work of scientists, for instance that of Vitruvius or
Vitelo. The Italian Renaissance possessed two great aestheticians: Ficino was
a philosopher, Alberti an artist and a scholar.
All kinds of aesthetics may be empirical as well as aprioristic. There is, however,
in philosophy a tendency towards apriority; and hundred years ago Fechner opposed
philosophical aesthetics from above and scientific aesthetics from below (von oben
und von unteri). The historian is bound to be concerned with both.
8. AESTHETICS OF THE ARTS AND AESTHETICS OF LITERATURE. Aesthetics takes
its material from the various arts; it is aesthetics of poetry, of painting, of music
etc. These arts differ among themselves and their aesthetic theory moves along
different lines. Actual contrasts divide fine arts, which appeal directly to the senses,
from poetry, which is based on linguistic signs; and it is only natural that aesthetic
theories and ideas differ from each other, because some are based on literature,
some on fine arts, some emphasize sensuous images, and others intellectual symbols.
A complete aesthetic theory must embrace both: sensuous and intellectual beauty,
direct and symbolical art. It must be aesthetics of fine arts as well as aesthetics of
literature.
Let us sum up. Every aesthetician moves in accordance with his predilections,
along one of these several lines. He may 1. take more interest in beauty or more
interest in art, 2. in aesthetic objects or in subjective aesthetic experiences, 3. he may
provide either descriptions or prescriptions, 4. he may work in the field of psychology
or sociology of beauty, 5. he may pursue the theory or the politics of art, 6. he may
either establish facts or explain and interpret them, 7. he may base his views on
4 INTRODUCTION

literature or on fine arts. The aesthetician may choose between those lines of his
discipline; but the historian wishing to present the development of his subject
has to pursue all these lines.
The historian will find that aesthetic ideas and interests have very much changed
during centuries. The gradual convergence of the ideas of art and beauty, the gradual
transformation of the study of objective beauty into a study of subjective experience
of it, the introduction of psychological and sociological investigations, the aban-
donment of prescriptions for descriptions are significant phenomena of the history
of aesthetics.
II

The historian of aesthetics has not only to study the evolution of various kinds
of aesthetics, but he has himself to apply various methods and points of view. In
studying older ideas about aesthetics it is not enough to take into account only
those which have been expressed under the name of aesthetics, or have belonged
to the definite aesthetic discipline or have applied the terms "beauty" and "art".
It is not sufficient to rely solely on explicit written or printed propositions. The
historian will also have to draw on the taste he observes of a given period and refer
to the works of arts it has produced. He will rely not only on theory, but also on
practice, on works of sculpture and music, poetry and oratory.
A. If the history of aesthetics were to be limited to what has appeared under
the name of aesthetics, it would have to start very late, for it was Alexander Baum-
garten who in 1750 first used the term. The same problems were however discussed
much earlier under other names. The term "aesthetics" is not important and even
after it was coined not everybody adhered to it. Kant's great work on aesthetics
though completed after Baumgarten's, was not called "aesthetics" but "critique
of judgment", while the term "aesthetics" Kant employed for quite a different
purpose, namely to denote a part of the theory of knowledge, the theory of space
and time.
B. If the history of aesthetics were treated as the history of a particular discipline,
it would not begin until the eighteenth century (Batteux, Système des beaux arts,
1747), and would cover merely two centuries. But beauty has been studied much
earlier within other disciplines. In many instances the problems of beauty were
merged with philosophy in general, as in the case of Plato. Even Aristotle did not
deal with aesthetics as a separate discipline despite the fact that he has contributed
a great deal to it.
C. The history of aesthetics would be very superficial in its method of selecting
materials, if it were to include only thoughts uttered in treatises devoted specifically to
beauty. The Pythagoreans, who exerted such a strong influence on the development
of aesthetics, probably did not compose treatises of this kind ; anyway, no such
treatise is known. Plato admittedly did write a treatise on beauty, but he expounded
his main ideas about it in other works. Aristotle did not write treatises on this subject.
 INTRODUCTION 5
Augustine wrote one, but he lost it. Thomas Aquinas not only did not write a treatise
about beauty, he did not devote even a single chapter to it in any of his works;
yet he said more on the subject in scattered remarks than others have said in books
devoted entirely to the subject.
Thus, in its choice of material, the history of aesthetics cannot be guided by any
exterior criterion, such as a particular name, or a particular area of study. It has
to include all ideas which have a bearing on aesthetic problems and which use aesthetic
concepts, even if they appear under different names and within other sciences.
If this course is adopted it will become clear that aesthetic investigation began
in Europe over two thousand years before a special name was found for it and a sepa-
rate area of study. Already in those early days problems were posed and resolved
in a way similar to that done later under the name of "aesthetics".
1. THE HISTORY OF AESTHETIC IDEAS AND THE HISTORY OF TERMS. The historian,
if he wants to describe the development of human ideas about beauty, cannot confine
himself to the term "beauty", because such ideas have appeared also under other
names. Particularly in ancient aesthetics more was said about harmony, symmetria
and eurhythmy than about beauty. Conversely, the term "beauty" was used to mean
something different from what we now understand by the word: in the ancient
world it signified moral rather than aesthetic virtues.
Similarly, the term "art" signified in those days all kinds of skilled production
and was by no means confined to fine arts. It is therefore necessary for a history
of aesthetics to consider also those theories in which beauty is not called beauty and
art is not called art. This creates an eighth duality: the history of aesthetics is not
only a history of ideas of beauty and art, but also a history of the terms "beauty"
and "art". The development of aesthetics consisted not only in the evolution of
ideas, but also in the evolution of terminology, and the two evolutions were not
concurrent.
2. HISTORY OF EXPLICIT AND OF IMPLICIT AESTHETICS. If the historian of aesthetics
were to draw his information solely from learned aestheticians, he would fail to
present a full record of what in the past was thought about beauty and art. He must
also seek information among artists and must take into account the thoughts which
have found expression not in learned books, but in the prevailing opinion and in
the vox populi. Many aesthetic ideas have not immediately found verbal expression,
but have first been embodied in works of art, have been expressed not in words,
but in shape, colour and sound. Some works of art allow us to deduce aesthetic
theses which without being explicitly stated are nevertheless revealed through them as
the point of departure and the basis of these works. The history of aesthetics, when
understood in its broadest sense, is composed not only of explicit aesthetic statements
made by aestheticians, but also of those that are implicit in the prevailing taste or
in the works of art. It should embrace not only aesthetic theory, but also the artistic
practice which reveals that aesthetic theory. The historian may simply read some
of the aesthetic ideas of the past in manuscripts and books, others however he must
6 INTRODUCTION

glean from works of art, fashions and customs. This is yet another duality in aes-
thetics and its history, the duality of aesthetic truths conveyed explicitly in books
and those contained implicitly in taste or works of art.
Progress in aesthetics has to a large extent been achieved by philosophers but it
has also been achieved by psychologists and sociologists. Artists and poets, connois-
seurs and critics too have revealed a number of truths about beauty and art. Their
particular observations about poetry or music, painting or architecture have led
to the discovery of general truths about art and beauty.
So far histories of aesthetics have confined themselves almost exlusively to the
ideas of philosophers-aestheticians and to theories explicitly formulated. In any
discussion of antiquity the ideas of Plato and Aristotle have been considered.
But what about Pliny or Philostratus? They have their place not only in the
history of artistic criticism but also in that of aesthetics. And Phidias ? He belongs
not only to the history of sculpture, but also to the history of aesthetics. And the
Athenian attitude toward art ? It too belongs to the history of taste and aesthetics.
When Phidias gave to a statue which was to be placed on a high column a dispro-
portionately large head and the Athenians objected to this, both he and they were
expressing an opinion on an aesthetic problem, raised also by Plato : whether art
should take account of the laws of human perception and alter nature to suit them.
The Athenians' opinion was similar to Plato's, while Phidias expressed the opposite
view. It is only natural that their opinions should be placed alongside Plato's and
be included in the history of aesthetics with his.
3. THE EXPOSITORY AND THE EXPLANATORY HISTORY. Among aesthetic ideas born
in past ages, some are quite natural and self-explanatory. The historian may do
nothing more than state when and where they have appeared. On the contrary,
others can be made clear only when the conditions are known which gave rise to
them: i.e., the psychology of the artists, philosophers and connoisseurs who voiced
them, contemporary views on art, and the social structure and taste of their time.
An eleventh duality of the history of aesthetics appears.
(a) Some aesthetic ideas have arisen through the direct influence of social, eco-
nomic and political conditions. They have depended upon the régime within which
the exponents of these ideas lived and upon the social groups to which they belonged.
Life in Imperial Rome tended to produce conceptions of beauty and art different
from those of Athenian democracy and different again from those evolved in
medieval monasteries, (b) Other ideas have depended only indirectly on social
and political conditions, being more influenced by ideologies and philosophical
theories. The aesthetics of the idealist Plato bore little resemblance to the rela-
tivistic aesthetics of the Sophists, though they lived in the same social and political
conditions, (c) Aesthetic ideas have also been influenced by the contemporary art.
Artists have on occasion relied on aestheticians, but the reverse is also true; theory
has sometimes influenced artistic practice, but practice has also influenced aes-
thetic theory.
 INTRODUCTION 7

The historian of aesthetics must take account of this interdependence; when

presenting the development of aesthetic ideas, he must time and again refer to the
history of political systems, of philosophy, of art. This task is as necessary as it is dif-
ficult because political, artistic and philosophical influences on aesthetic theory have
not only been various, but tangled often abscure and unexpected. Plato's evaluation
of art, for example, was modelled on a political system. This system was not
that of Athens, however, where he was born and spent his life, but of distant Spar-
ta. His conception of beauty was dependent on philosophy, but (especially in later
years) not so much on his own philosophy of Ideas, as on the Pythagorean
philosophy of numbers. His ideal of art was based not on Greek art of his own
times, but rather on the art of the archaic era.
4 . T H E HISTORY OF AESTHETIC DISCOVERIES AND THE HISTORY OF PREVAILING IDEAS.
The historian of aesthetics is concerned primarily with the origin and development
of notions about beauty and art, with the formation of theories of beauty, of art,
artistic creation and artistic experience. His aim is to establish where, when, in
what circumstances and through whom those notions and theories have arisen.
He tries do discover who first defined the notions of beauty and art, who first dis-
tinguished between aesthetic and moral beauty, between art and craft, who first
introduced the precise concepts of art, of creative imagination, and of aesthetic sense.
There is yet another question which the historian of aesthetics must consider
important: which of the notions and theories discovered by aestheticians have found
favour and response, which have been accepted and have dominated people's minds.
It is significant that Greek thinkers and the Greeks in general for a long time did
not regard poetry as an art, that they did not see any resemblance or connection
between sculpture and music, that in the arts they laid greater stress on rules than
on the free activity of the artist.
Because of this (twelfth) duality in the historian's interests, the history of aes-
thetics moves along two lines. It is, on the one hand, a history of discoveries and
progress in aesthetic thought and, on the other, a history of its reception, which
investigates aesthetic notions and theories which have been accepted by the majority
of people and have prevailed for centuries.
Aesthetics has moved along many lines and the historian must follow all of them.

Ill

1. T H E ORIGIN OF AESTHETIC HISTORY. When does the history of aesthetics begin?

If we are to understand the term in its widest sense, so that it embraces the "implicit"
aesthetics, then its origins are lost in the mists of time and can only be settled arbi-
trarily. At some point the historian must break the evolution and state: this is where
I begin. The present history proceeds in this way. By deliberately limiting its task,
it begins the history of aesthetics in Europe, or more specifically, in Greece. It does
not deny that outside Europe, to the East, and particularly in Egypt, there probably
8 INTRODUCTION

existed not only implicit, but also an explicitly stated aesthetics. This belonged,
however, to a different historical cycle.
Although the present history does not include non-European aesthetics, it never-
theless draws attention to the relationship and the interdependence between non-
European and European aesthetics. The first of these contacts appears at the
very outset.
2. EGYPT AND GREECE. Diodorus Siculus wrote* that the Egyptians claimed the
Greek sculptors as their pupils. By way of example they cited the two brothers who
worked as sculptors in the early period and made a statue of Apollo for the island
of Samos. As was often the case with Egyptian sculptors, the brothers divided
their work between them. One of them completed his portion on Samos and the
other completed his at Ephesus, and yet the two portions fitted together so exactly
that they appeared to be the work of a single artist. Such a result was only possible
where a certain method of work was adopted. Egyptian artists had a rigorously
defined system of lines and proportions which they applied unvaryingly. They would
divide the human body into 21 portions and would execute each member of the
body in accordance with that module. Diodorus called this method kataskeue,
which means "construction" or "fabrication".
Now Diodorus states that this method, very common in Egypt, "is not employed
at all in Greece". The first Greek sculptors, like the creators of the Samian Apollo,
had made use of the Egyptian method, but it is significant that their successors
abandoned it. They abandoned not the measurements and canons, but the rigid
systems. By doing this they not only introduced a different method, but a different
conception of art.
The peoples of the ancient East, particularly the Egyptians, possessed an idea
of perfect art and proportion, according to which they fixed their canons in archi-
tecture and sculpture, f They did not possess that kind of understanding of art
which today we consider simpler and more natural. To judge by the surviving exam-
ples, they did not attach great importance to the representation of reality, to the
expression of feelings or to giving pleasure to spectators. They linked their art with
religion and the next world rather than with the world about them. They sought
to embody in their works the essence of things rather than their appearance. They
gave priority to schematized and geometric forms in preference to the organic forms
of the world about them. The interpretation of the latter was left to the Greeks
once they had broken with the East and set forth on an independent path which
began a new era.

* Diodorus Siculus, I, 98.

t C. R. Lepsius, Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien (1897). J. Lange, Billedkunstens Frem-
stilling ar menneskeskikkelsen i den oeldste Periode. W. Schäffer, Von ägyptischer Kunst (1930).
E. Panofsky, "Die Entwicklung der Proportionslehre", Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft, IV
(1921), p. 188. E. Iversen, Canon and Proportions in Egyptian Art (London, 1955). E. C. Keilland,
Geometry in Egyptian Art (London, 1955). K. Michalowski, Kanon w architekturze egipskiej (1956).
 INTRODUCTION 9

Greek aesthetics w a s first embodied in Greek art before it received any

verbal expression. The first writers to give such verbal expression to it were the
p o e t s H o m e r and H e s i o d , w h o wrote o n function a n d value o f poetry. It was only
later, in the fourth, or possibly the fifth century B.C., that this subject was taken
u p by scholars, chiefly t h o s e o f the Pythagorean school.
3. PERIODS IN AESTHETIC HISTORY. E u r o p e a n aesthetics has e v o l v e d from the time
o f the ancient Greeks a n d is still evolving. This evolution has been continuous, but
n o t without crises, halts, retreats and turning-points. O n e o f the m o s t violent turn-
ing-points occurred after the fall o f the R o m a n Empire, a n d another during the
Renaissance. These t w o turning-points, which were the turning-points in the history
o f European culture as a w h o l e , enable us to divide its history into three periods:
t h e ancient, the medieval and the modern. This is a well established chronological
division that has s t o o d the test o f time.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GENERAL HISTORIES OF AESTHETICS

R. Zimmermann, Geschichte der Ästhetik als philosophischer Wissenschaft (1858).—M. Schasler,

Kritische Geschichte der Ästhetik (1872).—B. Bosanquet, A History of Aesthetics (3rd ed. 1910)
(all three date from the last century and do not take account of more recent views and specialized
studies).—B. Croce, Estetica come scienza dell'espressione, e linquistica generale (3rd ed., 1908)
(ancient and medieval aesthetics treated briefly and superficially).—E. F. Carritt, Philosophies of
Beauty (1931) (an anthology).—A. Baeumler, Ästhetik in: Handbuch der Philosophie, I (1954) (un-
finished).—K. Gilbert and H. Kuhn, A History of Aesthetics (1939).—E. De Bruyne, Geschiedenis
van de Aesthetics, 5 vols. (1951-3) (up to the Renaissance).—M. C. Beardsley, Asthetics from
Classical Greece to the Present (1966).
General histories of philosophy, even the most exhaustive ones, have little or no information
on aesthetics. The most recent work giving the fullest picture of our present state of knowledge is
the Italian symposium Momenti e problemi di storia dell'estetica (Milan, 1959) (so far 2 vols., from
antiquity to romanticism).
Among monographs on specialized problems relevant throughout history the following are
particularly important: F. P. Chambers, Cycles of Taste (1928).—History of Taste (1932).—E. Cassi-
rer, Eidos und Eidolon (1924).—E. Panofsky, Idea (1924).—P. O. Kristeller, "The Modern System
of the Arts", Journal of the History of Ideas (1951).—H. Read, Icon and Idea (1954).
A history of the aesthetics of music: R. Schafke, Geschichte der Musikästhetik in Umrissen
(1934).—Also certain histories of music as such take account of the history of the aesthetics of
music: J. Combarieu, Histoire de la musique, I (1924).—A. Einstein, A Short History of Music
(2nd ed. 1953).
A history of the aesthetics of poetry: G. Saintsbury, History of Criticism and Literary Taste,
3 vols. (1902).
A history of the aesthetics of the plastic arts is L. Venturi, Storia della critica d'arte (1945).—An
older, unfinished work is A. Dresdner's Die Kunstkritik, vol. I (1915).—J. Schlosser's Die Kunstlitte-
ratur (1924) is in principle confined to modern times but includes an introduction about writings
on art in the Middle Ages.

STUDIES OF ANCIENT AESTHETICS

E. Müller, Geschichte der Theorie der Kunst bei den Alten, 2 vols. (1834-7) (still valuable).—J. Wal-
ter, Geschichte der Äesthetik im Altertum (1893) (more of a monograph on the three chief Greek
aestheticians than a true history).—K. Svoboda,. Kyvo/' anticki estetiky (1926) (a brief outline).—
10 INTRODUCTION

W. Tatarkiewicz, "Art and Poetry, a Contribution to the History of Ancient Aesthetics", Studia
Philosophica, Leopoli, II (1937).—C. Mezzantini, "L'estetica nel pensiero classico", Grande Anto-
logia Filosofica, I, 2 (1954).—E. Utitz, Bemerkungen zur altgriechischen Kunsttheorie (1959).—A.
Plebe, "Origini e problemi dell'estetica antica", Momenti e problemi di storia dell'estetica, I (1959).—
C. Carpenter, The Aesthetic Basis of Greek Art (1959, 1st ed. 1921).—J. G. Warry, Greek Aesthetic
Theory (1962).—E. Grassi, Theorie des Schönen in der Antike (1962).—J. Krueger, Griechische
Ästhetik (1965) (an anthology).
On Plato's aesthetics: F. Jaffré, Der Bergiff der techne bei Plato (1922).—E. Cassirer, Eidos
und Eidolon (1924).—G. M. A. Grube, "Plato's Theory of Beauty", Monist (1927).—P. M. Schuhl,
Platon et l'art de son temps (1933).—L. Stefanini, Il problema estetico in Platone (1935).—W. J. Ver-
denius, Mimesis: Plato's Doctrine of Artistic Imitation and its Meaning to Us (Leiden, 1949).—
C. Murely, "Plato and the Arts", Classical Bulletin (1950).—E. Huber-Abrahamowicz, Das Problem
der Kunst bei Plato (Winterthur, 1954).—A. Plebe, Plato, antologia di antica letteraria (1955).—
B. Schweitzer, Platon und die bildende Kunst der Griechen (1953).—R. C. Lodge, Plato's Theory
of Art (1963).—Important earlier books: E. Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, II Theil, 1 Abt., IV
Aufl. (1889).—G. Finsler, Piaton und die aristotelische Poetik (1900).—E. Frank, Plato und die soge-
nannten Pythagoreer (1923).
On Aristotle's aesthetics: G. Teichmüller, Aristotelische Forschungen, II: Aristoteles' Philosophie
der Kunst (1869).—J. Bernays, Zwei Abhandlungen über die aristotelische Theorie des Dramas (1880).—
Ch. Bénard, L'esthétique d'Aristote (1887).—J. Bywater, Aristotle on the Art of Poetry (1909).—
S. H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Arts (1923).—L. Cooper, The Poetics of Aris-
totle, its Meaning and Influence (1924).—K. Svoboda, L'esthétique d'Aristote (1927).—L. Cooper
and A. Gudeman, Bibliography of the Poetics of Aristotle (1928).—E. Bignami, La poetica di Aris-
totele e il concetto dell'arte presso gli antichi (1932).—D. de Montmoulin, La poétique d'Aristote
(Neufchatel, 1951).—R. Ingarden, "A Marginal Commentary on Aristotle's Poetics", Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism (1953).—H. House, Aristotle's Poetics (1956).—G. F. Else, Aristotle's
Poetics : the Argument (1957).
 ANCIENT AESTHETICS

The history of ancient aesthetics, which forms the origins and foundation of Euro-
pean aesthetics, covers nearly a thousand years. It begins in the fifth century B.C.
(or even perhaps in the sixth) with a period that was still evolving as late as the
third century A.D.
Ancient aesthetics was largely the work of the Greeks. At first it was exclusively
their achievement, but later it was shared with other nations: we have in view this
change when we say that aesthetics was at first "Hellenic" and then "Hellenistic".
Because of this we can divide ancient aesthetics into two periods, Hellenic and
Hellenistic, with the division occurring in the third century B.C.
Hellenic aesthetics may in turn be subdivided into two consecutive phases: the
archaic period and the classical period. The archaic period of Greek aesthetics
covered the sixth and the beginning of the fifth century B.C., while the classical
period lasted from the late fifth and throughout the fourth century. If we combine
the two divisions we obtain three periods in ancient aesthetics: the archaic, the
classical and the Hellenistic.
The archaic period was still far from possessing a full aesthetic theory. It only
produced disconnected reflections and ideas which were mostly concerned with
particulars and dealt only with poetry rather than with art and beauty in general.
One can treat this period as the prehistory of ancient aesthetics, its history being
covered by the two later periods. But, even thus reduced, this history spans eight
centuries.
 [. AESTHETICS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

1. The Archaic Period

1. ETHNIC CONDITIONS. When the Greeks first began to reflect on aesthetics their
culture was no longer young but already had a long and complex history. As long
ago as 2000 B.C. culture and art (called Minoan after the legendary king Minos)
were flourishing in Crete. Then between the years 1600 and 1260 B.C. a new and
different culture was created by the "proto-Hellenes" who arrived in Greece from
the North. Their new culture and art, which combined features of the southern
Minoan culture with the characteristics of a northern culture, had its centre in My-
cenae on the Peloponese and is therefore known as Mycenaean. Its most splendid
period was around the year 1400 B.C., but already in the thirteenth and twelfth
centuries it had begun to decline as a result of its inability to defend itself against
tribes coming from the North. These were the Dorian tribes, which until then had
occupied lands to the north of Greece, but which under pressure from the Illyrians,
who were moving from the Danube basin, had begun to move south. They con-
quered and destroyed the rich city of Mycenae and established their own rule and
culture.
The period of Greek history from the Dorian conquest in the twelfth century
to the fifth is known as "archaic". It embraces two distinct phases. During the first
life was still primitive, but in the second—from the seventh to the beginning of the
fifth century B.C.—the foundations of Greek culture, including government, learn-
ing and art, were laid. In this second phase one can find the first traces of aesthetic
thought.
After the Dorian conquest Greece was inhabited by various tribes who had lived
there before the invasion and by the invaders themselves. The older tribes, particu-
larly the Ionians, had partially removed themselves from the Greek peninsula and
settled on the nearby islands and along the shores of Asia Minor. Thus Ionian and
Dorian territories and states in Greece bordered on each other, but the characters
and the destinies of the inhabitants were different. The differences between Dorians
and Ionians were not only ethnic and geographical, but embraced economy, state
organization and ideology. The Dorians maintained aristocratic governments while
the Ionians established democratic rule. The former were led by soldiers, while
among the latter merchants soon took the lead. The Dorians venerated tradition
 THE ARCHAIC PERIOD 13
while the Ionians were curious about novelties. Thus, at quite an early stage, the
Greeks evolved two types of culture, the Dorian and the Ionian. The Ionians pre-
served more Mycenaean culture and also came under the influence of Cretan culture
and the culture of the flourishing civilizations of the East in whose proximity they
had settled. This duality between the Dorian and the Ionian culture dominated
Greece for a considerable time and is discernible in her history, particularly in the
history of her art and theory of art. The Greek search for constant norms in art and
immutable laws governing beauty stemmed from the Dorian tradition, while their
love of living reality and sensory perception stemmed from the Ionian tradition.
2. GEOGRAPHICAL CONDITIONS. Greek culture evolved with astonishing speed and
splendour. This evolution is at least partly explained by the favourable natural con-
ditions of the territories which the Greeks inhabited. The geographical situation of
the peninsula and the islands, which possessed a developed coastline with suitable
harbours surrounded by calm seas, facilitated travel, commerce and the exploita-
tions of the riches of other countries. The warm healthy climate and the fertile soil
ensured that the energies of the people were not wholly used up in the struggle for
existence and the satisfaction of elementary human needs, but could be devoted to
learning, poetry and art. On the other hand, the fertility and the natural riches of
the country being only just adequate for them, the Greeks could not allow them-
selves to indulge in luxury or to dissipate their energies. The successful development
of the country was also due to the social and political organization, and in particu-
lar to its division into a multitude of small states with numerous cities, which
evolved many competing centres of life, work and culture.
The regular and harmonious structure of the landscape of Greece may have exer-
cised a special influence on Greek artistic culture. This may have contributed to the
fact that the Greek eye became used to regularity and harmony which, perhaps for
that reason, the Greeks systematically applied in their art.
3. SOCIAL CONDITIONS. Over the centuries the Greeks greatly expanded their
territories. With colonies established from Asia to Gibraltar they dominated the
Mediterranean. The Ionians founded the eastern colonies in Asia Minor, while
the Dorians founded colonies in the West in Italy, or so-called Greater Greece.
By acquiring control of the Mediterranean, the Greeks evolved from a maritime
nation into a seafaring nation and this in turn had further consequences.
Until the seventh century Greece was mainly an agricultural country with only
a limited amount of industry. There were many products which the Greeks did not
manufacture because they were bought from the Phoenicians in the East. This
situation changed when the Greeks acquired colonies. Their production rose with
the demand of their produce in the colonies outside Greece. From the colonies
their products found their way to other countries. The Greeks possessed iron and
copper ore as well as clay, while their numerous herds ensured a supply of wool.
All these materials were in demand and could be exported. The export of manu-
factured goods followed the export of raw materials. Favourable terms of trade
14 AESTHETICS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

gave an impetus to industry, and industrial centres based on metallurgy, ceramics

and weaving sprang up all over the country. Industry in turn stimulated trade and
the Greeks themselves became middlemen and merchants. Trade centres were
established in the Ionian colonies, particularly at Miletus, as well as in European
Greece, particularly at Corinth, and later at Athens. Seafaring and trade not only
increased the prosperity of the Greeks, but also their knowledge of the world and
their aspirations to be no longer merely citizens of a small peninsula, but citizens
of the world. Their great capacities, once they became linked with great aspirations,
produced in a small nation artists and scientists of world stature.
The economic changes, most of which took place in the seventh and sixth cen-
turies B.C., gave rise to demographic, social and political changes. Once they became
established as economic centres, the cities attracted not only townspeople, but
(at the foot of the Acropolis) villagers as well. They were not large centres—even
Corinth and Athens in the sixth century had only about 25,000 inhabitants each—
but there were many of them and they were in rivalry with each other. When industry
and trade led to the rise of a prosperous middle class, a struggle with the nobility
followed. As a result, the patriarchal kingdoms supported by the nobility fell
and were superseded first by timocracy and then democracy, which rested not only
on the people and the middle class, but also on an enlightened and prosperous
nobility capable of adapting itself to new conditions. In this way a whole nation
could and did take part in the creation of Greek culture.
The system was democratic but based on slavery; there were numerous slaves in
Greece. In certain centres there were in fact more slaves than free citizens. Slaves
relieved the free population of physical toil, enabling it to pursue its interests, which
were primarily political but also included science, literature and art.
4. RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. Such, then, were the living conditions—moderately pros-
perous and affluent, partially industrialized, with a democratic system, though one
based on slavery—which evolved in Greece during the seventh and sixth centuries.
These conditions were responsible for the universally admired Greek culture. Cen-
turies of travel and trade, of industrialization and evolution of democratic processes
had to a great degree led Greece away from her early religious beliefs towards
a mundane way of thinking in which the natural meant more than the supernatural.
All the same, the Greeks had retained in their convictions and preferences, and,
therefore, also in their arts and sciences, certain older elements—relics of other
beliefs and relationships. In an enlightened, cosmopolitan community of industrial-
ists and merchants there were regressive echoes of the dim past and an older way
of thinking. This was particularly noticeable in religion and more so in the mother-
land of Greece than in the colonies removed from sacred sites and traditions.
Greek religion was not monolithic. The Olympian religion, which we know
through Homer, Hesiod and the marble statues, was the product of new conditions
and more enlightened times. It was a religion of lofty, happy, godlike supermen,
 THE ORIGINS OF POETRY 15

it was human and anthropomorphic, full of light and serenity, without magic or
superstitions, daemonism or mysteries.
However, side by side with this religion, there survived in the beliefs of the people
a gloomy religion of underground deities common to the primitive peoples of Greece,
while from outside, mainly from the East, the mysterious, mystical and ecstatic
religion of Orphians and the cult of Dionysius infiltrated. This was a barbarous
and wild cult, finding its outlet in mysteries and bacchanalia and providing an
escape from the world and a means of release. Thus, two streams appeared in Greek
religion; one of them embodying a spirit of order, clarity and naturalness, the other
a spirit of mystery. The former brought out particular characteristics of the Greeks
which in succeeding centuries have been regarded as typically Greek.
The Olympian religion, humanist and adaptable, conquered Greek poetry and
sculpture. For a long time Greek poets sang the praise of the Olympian gods and
Greek sculptors carved figures of gods before turning to the portrayal of human
beings. This religion permeated the art of the Greeks; and aesthetics permeated
their religion.
Mystical religion is less noticeable in Greek art, at least as far as poetry and
sculpture are concerned. Music, however, served that religion and was therefore
interpreted in accordance with its spirit. But Greek mystical religion was chiefly re-
vealed in philosophy, and through philosophy it influenced aesthetics. While one
stream of early aesthetics was an expression of philosophical enlightenment, the
other was an expression of mystico-religious philosophy. This was the first clash in
the history of aesthetics.
Philosophy emerged in Greece in the sixth century B.C., but its range was at
first limited. The early philosophers concerned themselves with theories of nature
rather than with theories of beauty and art. The latter make their first appearance
in the works of poets. Their observations and aesthetic generalizations were modest
in scope, but are important in the history of aesthetics: they show how the Greeks
reacted to beauty at a time when they had already produced splendid works of art,
but had not yet laid down any scientific propositions concerning beauty and art.

2. The Origins of Poetry

(a) CHOREIA

1. THE TRIUNE Choreia. Information about the original character and organization
of the arts in Greece is indirect and hypothetical, but it is certain that their character
as well as the organization were different from those in later ages. In fact the Greeks
began with only two arts: an expressive art and a constructive art,* but each had

* Nietzsche with great insight observed the duality in Greek art, but he saw this as two currents
of art, which he named "Apollonian" and "Dionysian", while indeed primarily for the Greeks they
were two different arts.
16 AESTHETICS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

numerous constituents. The first consisted of an amalgam of poetry, music and

dance, while the second included architecture, sculpture and painting.
Architecture was the basis of constructive art; sculpture and painting comple-
mented architecture in the building of temples. The dance formed the core of expres-
sive art; it was accompanied by words and musical sounds. The dance, combined
with music and poetry into a whole, formed what the eminent philologist T. Zie-
linski has described as the "triune chorda". This art expressed man's feelings and
impulses through words and gestures, melody and rhythm. The term choreia under-
lines the crucial role of the dance; it is derived from choros, a chorus, which originally
signified a group dance.
2 . KATHARSIS. A later writer Aristides Quintilian, who flourished at the turn
of the second century A.D., says of the archaic Greek art that it was above all an
expression of feelings: "Already in ancient times people realized that some cultivate
song and music when they are happily disposed, when they experience pleasure and
joy, others indulge in them while experiencing melancholy and anxiety, and yet
others when in a divine rapture and ecstasy". In this art of choreia people expressed
their feelings expecting that this would bring relief. Aristides says that at a lower
cultural level only those who actually participated in the dancing and singing ex-
perienced relief and satisfaction, while afterwards, on a higher intellectual level,
this was also achieved by the spectators and listeners.
At first dance fulfilled the role which was later to be taken over by the theatre
and by music. Dance was then the most important of the arts and had the most
powerful stimulus. The experiences which were to be later available to the spectators
and listeners, on the lower level of evolution had been available only to the par-
ticipants, i.e., the dancers and singers. Originally the purifying art was performed
within a framework of mysteries and cults, and Aristides adds that "Dionysian
and similar sacrifices were justified because the dances and singing which were
there performed had a soothing effect".
Aristides' testimony is important for several reasons. It shows that the early
Greek choreia had an expressive character, that it expressed feelings rather than
shaped things, that it stood for action rather than contemplation. Aristides shows
that this art consisted of dancing, singing and music, and also that it was linked
with cults and rituals, particularly those associated with Dionysus. It strove to
soothe and pacify feelings or, to use a contemporary expression, to purge souls.
Such purification the Greeks called katharsis, a term they employed quite early
in relation to art.
3. MIMESIS. Aristides called this early expressive art "imitation", mimesis. Like
katharsis, this term and concept appeared early and had a long career in Greek
aesthetics. But while later it signified the representation of reality through art (in
drama, painting and sculpture in particular), at the dawn of Greek culture it was
applied to the dance and signified something quite different; namely, the expression
of feelings and the manifestation of experiences through movement, sound and
 THE ORIGINS OF POETRY 17

words.* This original meaning was later changed. In early Greece mimesis signified
imitation, but in the sense in which this term is applied to acting and not to copying.
It probably made its first appearance in connection with the Dionysian cult where
it signified mimicry and the ritual dances of the priests. In the Delian hymns and in
Pindar the word mimesis means a dance. The early dances, particularly the ritual
ones, were expressive, not imitative. They expressed feelings rather than imitating
them. Later mimesis came to mean the actor's art, later still it was applied to music
and even later to poetry and sculpture, and it was at this point that its primary
meaning shifted.
The expressive cult dances which aimed at inducing a release of feelings and
at purification were not peculiar to Greek culture, but were known to many
primitive peoples. The Greeks, however, retained them even when they had reached
the zenith of their culture.1' They continued to hold sway over the Greek people,
not merely as ritual, but as spectacle for the masses. At first these dances formed
the basic art of the Greeks, who at that time had still not developed music as a sepa-
rate entity divorced from movement and gesture. Neither did they have separate
poetry. "There never was any archaic Greek poetry", says a student* of the subject.
By this he means that it did not exist as a distinct art expressed only through words
without the accompaniment of movement and gestures. Only in time did independ-
ent poetry and independent music develop out of this "triune choreia", this single
art composed of movement, gesture and expression.
The primitive theory of art was based upon this primitive expressive art. The
early Greeks interpreted poetry and music expressively and emotionally. By being
associated with cult and magic, choreia paved the way for the later acceptance
<5f the theory that poetry is an enchantment. Furthermore, because of its expres-
siveness, choreia gave substance to the evolution of the first theory of the origins
of art, which stated that it is a natural expression of man, that it is for him a necessity
and a symptom of his nature. This expressive art also contributed to the evolution
in the consciousness of the Greeks of a duality between poetry and music on the
one hand and the plastic arts on the other. For a long time the Greeks failed to see
any connection between poetry and such arts as sculpture, because poetry for them
was an expression and it did not occur to them to interpret sculpture in terms of
expressiveness.

(b) MUSIC

1. ASSOCIATION WITH CULTS. M u s i c , o n t h e o t h e r h a n d , a s s u m e d q u i t e e a r l y

a special place in the primitive triune Greek choreia and gradually took over the

* H. Koller, Die Mimesis in der Antike. Dissertationes Bernenses (Bern, 1954).

t A. Delatte, Les conceptions de l'enthousiasme chez les philosophes présocratiques (1934).
t T. Georgiades, Der griechische Rhythmus (1949): "Altgriechische Dichtung hat es nie gegeben".
18 AESTHETICS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

function of the dominant expressive art, the voicing of feelings.* At the same time
it retained its links with religious cults. Its various forms evolved from cults con-
nected with several deities. The pean was sung in praise of Apollo, the dithyramb,
sung by the choir during spring rites, praised Dionysius, and the prosodies were
sung during processions. Music was a feature of the mysteries, the singer Orpheus
being regarded as its originator, just as he was regarded as the originator of the
mysteries themselves. Music maintained its association with religion, although
it spread to secular ceremonies both public and private. It was regarded as a special
gift of the gods. Special attributes, such as magic powers, were ascribed to it. It was
believed that incantation (aoide) exercised a power over man, depriving him of the
freedom to act. Orphic sects assumed that the frenzied music which they used did
at least temporarily snatch the soul from the bounds of flesh.
2. ASSOCIATION WITH THE DANCE. Even after it had moved away from the triune
choreia, Greek music retained its association with the dance. The singers of dithy-
rambs dressed as satyrs were also dancers. The Greek word choreuein had two
meanings: group dancing and group singing. The "orchestra", that is, the place in
the theatre reserved for the singers, took its name from orchesis, dance. The singer
himself played the lyre, while the chorus combined accompaniment with dancing.
Arm movements were no less significant than leg movements. As in the case of
Greek music, its essential feature was rhythm. It was a dance that did not require
technical mastery, that was without solo performances, without rapid turns, without
embraces, without women, without eroticism. It was an expressive art just as much
as music was.
3. ASSOCIATION WITH POETRY. Early Greek music was also closely associated
with poetry. Just as there was no poetry which was not sung, so all music was vocal
music, the instruments serving merely as an accompaniment. The dithyramb (sung
by a chorus to the rhythm of a trochaic pentameter) was a poetic as well as a musical
form. Archilochus and Simonides were both poets and musicians to an equal degree,
and their poems were sung. In the tragedies of Aeschylus sung parts (mele) pre-
dominated over spoken parts (metra).
Originally songs were not even accompanied. According to Plutarch, it was
Archilochus who in the seventh century introduced accompaniment. Music without
song was a later development. Solo playing on the cithara was a novelty introduced
at the Pythian contests in 588 B.C. and remained something of an exception. The
Greeks did not develop instrumental music of the type we know today.
Greek instruments emitted soft sounds, not very resonant and not particularly
effective. This is easily understood if we consider that for a long time the instruments
were used only for accompaniment. They gave no scope for virtuosity and could
not be used in more complex compositions. The Greek did not use metal or leather
* R. Westphal, Geschichte der alien und mittelalterlichen Musik (1864). F. A. Gevaërt, Histoire
de la musique de l'antiquité, 2 vols. (1875-81). K. v. Jan, Musici auctores Graeci (1895). H. Riemann,
Handbuch der Musikgeschichte, Bd. I. J. Combarieu, Histoire de la musique, vol. I (1924).
 THE ORIGINS OF POETRY 19

instruments. Only the lyre and the cithara, an improved version of the lyre, were
regarded by them as their own national instruments. They were so simple that
anyone could play them.
From the East the Greeks borrowed wind instruments, particularly the aulos,
which resembled the flute. Only this instrument was capable of replacing discon-
nected sounds with a continuous melody and, therefore, when it was first introduced
it made a powerful impression on the ancient Greeks. It came to be regarded as
an orgiastic stimulant and acquired a dominant position in the Dionysian cult
comparable to that of the lyre in the cult of Apollo. It played the same role in drama
and the dance as the lyre played in sacrifices, processions and general education.
The Greeks regarded the two types of musical instruments as so different that they
did not even include all instrumental music within one concept; Aristotle himself
still treated "citharoetics" and "auletics" as quite distinct.
4. RHYTHM. Greek music, especially in early times, was simple. The accompani-
ment was always in unison and there was no question of having two parallel inde-
pendent melodies. The Greeks did not know anything of polyphony. This simplicity
was not, however, a symptom of primitivism and it arose not out of incompetence,
but from certain theoretical assumptions, that is, from the theory of consonance
{symphonia). The Greeks maintained that consonance between sounds is achieved
when they intermingle to such an extent that they become indistinguishable, when,
as they themselves put it, they fuse "like wine and honey". This, they thought, could
only be achieved when the relationships between the sounds are the simplest possible.
In their music, rhythm took precedence over melody.* There was less melody
in it than in modern music, but there was more rhythm. As Dionysius of Halicar-
nassus was later to write, "melodies please the ear, but it is rhythm which incites".
This predominance of rhythm in Greek music is partly explained by the fact that
music was linked with poetry and the dance.
5. NOMOS. The origins of Greek music go back to archaic times and were asso-
ciated by the Greeks with Terpander, who lived in Sparta in the seventh century B.C.
His achievement consisted of establishing musical norms. Thus the Greeks asso-
ciated the origins of their music with the moment when its fixed norms were estab-
lished. They used to describe Terpander's action as "the first fixing of norms",
and the musical form which he fixed (on the basis of older liturgical chants) they
called nomos, that is, law or order. Terpander's nomos was a monodic tune consisting
of seven parts. Four times it achieved victory at Delphi and became in the end the
obligatory form. It was an outline to which various texts were set. Certain modi-
fications were later introduced by Thaletas the Cretan, who also flourished in Sparta
and, according to Plutarch, was responsible for "the second fixing of norms". The
norms changed, but neither then nor at any later time did Greek music cease to
depend on them. They were most strictly observed during its golden age in the sixth

* H. Abert, "Die Stellung der Musik in der antiken Kultur", Die Antike, XII (1926), p. 136.
20 AESTHETICS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

and fifth centuries B.C. The term nomos signified that in Greece the cultivation
of music was regulated by compulsory norms. Even the late Greek musicologist
Plutarch could write: "The highest and most proper characteristic in music is the
maintenance of a suitable measure in all things".
Norms were the same for the composer and the performer. The modern distinction
between the two was virtually unknown in antiquity. The composer merely supplied
a skeleton of the work to be completed in detail by the performer. In a sense both
were composers, but their freedom of composition was restricted by fixed norms.

(c) POETRY

1. EXCELLENCE. The great epic poetry of the Greeks probably dates from the
eighth and seventh centuries B.C., the Iliad belonging to the eighth and the Odyssey
to the seventh century. These were the first written poems in Europe, yet their excel-
lence was unsurpassed. They had no antecedents since they were based on oral
tradition, but in their final form were written down by poets of genius. Despite
great resemblances, they were the work of two different men : the Odyssey embodied
later attitudes and described a more southerly community. Just as in the following
period Greece was to produce several tragedians of genius in succession, so now
she produced two epic writers of genius of a calibre that was to remain unmatched
for thousands of years to come. Thus at the time when Greece was taking the first
steps in aesthetic thought, she already possessed great poetry.
This poetry soon became legendary. Its creators quickly lost their individuality
and, as far as the Greeks were concerned, Homer became a synonym for a poet.
He was revered as a demigod and his poetry came to be regarded as revelation.
It was treated not only as art, but also as the highest wisdom, and this attitude left
a mark on the Greeks' first thoughts about beauty and poetry.
The original aesthetic views of the Greeks derived from the character of Homeric
poetry. Being full of myths and having divine as well as human heroes, this poetry
not only consolidated but probably also to a large extent created Olympian religion.
But in the divine and mythical world of Homeric poetry order reigned and everything
happened in a rational and natural way. The gods were not miracle makers and
their actions were subject to the forces of nature rather than of supernatural powers.
At the time when they began to think about beauty and art, the Greeks already
possessed poetry of various kinds. Besides the Homeric poetry they had Hesiod's
epic poetry, which praised not armed heroism, but the dignity of labour. They also
had the lyric poetry of Archilochus and Anacreon, of Sappho and Pindar, and this
lyric poetry was in its own way almost as perfect as Homer's epic. The excellence
of this early poetry, which shows no trace of primitivism, naïveté or clumsiness,
can only be explained by the fact that it had inherited a long tradition, that songs had
lived and perfected themselves on the lips of the people before they were exploited
by professional poets.
 THE ORIGINS OF POETRY 21

2. POETRY'S PUBLIC CHARACTER. This early and quite unexpected poetry of the
Greeks preceded their prose. They then had no literary prose and even their philo-
sophical treatises were in the form of poems. This poetry flourished in conjunction
with music and had not completely broken away from the primitive choreia. Since
it was associated with religion and cults, it was something more than art. Songs
were a feature of processions, sacrifices and ritual. Even the great epinicia of Pindar,
which praised achievements in sport, had a semi-religious atmosphere.
By being associated with ritual, Greek poetry possessed a public, social, communal
and national character. Even the strict Spartans regarded it, together with music,
singing and dancing, as an indispensable feature of ceremonies. They were much
concerned with maintaining its artistic standard and invited the best artists to their
country. Homer's epic, by its inclusion in the official programmes of state ceremonies
in Sparta, Athens and other places, became the common property of the Greeks.
The cult and ceremonial poetry was intended for recitation and singing rather
than individual reading. This applied to all poetry, and even the erotic lyric had
more the character of a public banqueting song than a personal character. Ana-
creon's songs were performed at court while Sappho's songs were intended for
banquets.
This communal and ritualistic poetry was an expression of public feelings and
forces rather than of personal emotions. It was used as an instrument for social
struggle, and some poets gave their talents to the service of democracy, while others
chose to defend the past. The elegies of Solon were essentially political, Hesiod's
poems were an expression of protest against social injustice, the lyrics of Alcaeus
denounced tyrants, while those of Theognis voiced the complaints of nobles who
had lost their status. Its ceremonious and public character, as well as its involvement
in social problems, caused the poetry of the day to have a special appeal in the
country.
Early Greek poetry was thus both committed to contemporary issues and had
its links with the past. The links were there because of the inherited oral tradition,
which had a long history. This inheritance of the past included myths, which became
essential elements in poetry. These archaic, remote and mythical qualities were
responsible for a gulf between the poetry and the people. This would transport
the audience from mundane preoccupations into a realm of ideals. In so far as the
Iliad and the Odyssey were concerned, the distance was further emphasized by their
language, which was artificial, or at least no longer in use in classical Greece. This
distance further enhanced their sublimity and monumentality.
3. A DOCUMENT AND A MODEL. This poetry of the Greeks—archaic yet distinguished,
based on folk literature, yet full of literary accomplishment, topical, yet endowed
with a remote grandeur, lyrical yet public—provides historians of aesthetics with a
document reflecting the artistic understanding of an age which had yet to formulate
its ideas explicitly. It shows that the age was not given to pure poetry and art for
art's sake. On the contrary, it regarded poetry as being associated with religion
22 AESTHETICS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

and ritual, as a communal and social activity capable of serving social, political
and daily needs, while, at the same time, withdrawn from the world and speaking
to men from a remote vantage point.
The early Greek aestheticians took this early poetry as a model, which they
steadfastly kept in view when they formulated the first ideas and definitions regarding
beauty and art. Yet they drew on this model only in part, noting only its superficial
characteristics and missing the fundamental ones. This was so even in the case of
observations made by the practitioners of verse themselves, because they too were
still incapable of stating explicitly all that they had expressed in their poetry. It
seems as though it was easier in those ancient times to be a good poet than a good
aesthetician.
4. THE COMMON MEANS OF EXPRESSION. "There was a time", says Plutarch, "when
poems, songs, chants were the common means of expression". Tacitus and Varro
thought likewise. This was how the ancients accounted for the origins of poetry,
music and the dance: they regarded them as archetypal, natural forms in which men
expressed their feelings. But there came a time when their function and status changed.
Plutarch continues: "Later, when a change came over man's life, fate and nature,
things that could be got rid of were abandoned. People removed gold ornaments
from their hair, discarded soft purple raiment, cut off their long locks and took off
their high-heeled shoes because they had rightly become accustomed to taking pride
in simplicity and to discovering in simple things the greatest ornament, splendour
and brilliance. Speech, too, had changed its character with prose distinguishing truth
from myth".
Perhaps there was once a time when poetry, music and the dance had been "the
common means of expression" and perhaps that was the time when the arts began.
But with the rise of the theory of poetry, music and the dance and the beginnings
of ancient aesthetics that period drew to an end.

3. The Origins of the Plastic Arts

In the Greek mind there was a close association between architecture, sculpture
and painting but these were regarded as totally unconnected with poetry, music
and the dance. Their function was different: the former produced objects for viewing
while the latter expressed feelings, the former were contemplative, the latter ex-
pressive. They did, nevertheless, all belong to the same country and the same period;
and despite the differences which separated them, the historian can see that they
possessed common characteristics which Greek artists themselves failed to notice.
1. ARCHITECTURE. The period spanning the eighth to the sixth centuries B.C.,
during which the first great Greek poetry appeared, also produced great archi-
tecture, which, like the poetry of Homer, rapidly reached such excellence that 25
centuries later modern architects, by-passing all later forms, have returned to the
 THE ORIGINS OF THE PLASTIC ARTS 23

models of Greek architecture in its archaic period. Thus the Greeks who first began
investigating art and beauty had before them both architecture and poetry of the
first quality.
Greek architecture derived certain elements from other countries, especially
from Egypt (for example, the column and the colonnade) and from the North
(the ridged temple roof). Nevertheless, taken as a whole, it was an original and
unified creation. At a certain point in time it broke away from foreign influence
and continued to develop independently in accordance with its own logic and came to
be regarded by the Greeks as their own achievement.
Thus the Greeks were easily convinced that their architecture was a free creation
established by them unhampered even by technical limitations and the demands
of the material they used, and that it was they who had guided the technical means
rather than vice versa. They had evolved such techniques as were necessary for
their aims. Above all they had mastered the technique of working stone. From
wood and soft limestone which they had originally employed, they had advanced,
as early as the sixth century B.C., to precious materials, such as marble. Quite
early they were able to undertake projects of enormous size: the Temple of Hera
on the island of Samos, dating from the end of the sixth century, was a colossal
building with 135 columns.
Greek architecture was as associated with religion and cults as was poetry. The
efforts of the early Greek architects were devoted entirely to the creation of temples.
The living quarters of the period had a wholly utilitarian character without any
artistic pretensions.
2. SCULPTURE. Although it already played a significant role in archaic Greece,
sculpture had not yet attained the same excellence as architecture, and was neither
as independent nor as definitive in its forms. Nevertheless, it revealed some charac-
teristics of the Greek attitude toward art and beauty even more emphatically than
architecture.
Sculpture, too, was associated with cults. It confined itself to statues of the gods
and temple decorations such as pediments and metopes. Only later did the Greeks
begin to sculpt human forms: at first only the dead but in time also the distinguished
living, particularly the winners of wrestling contests and games. This association
between sculpture and religion accounts for the fact that its character was more
complex than might be expected of early art. The artist was representing the world
not of men, but of the gods.
Greek worship was anthropomorphic, as was Greek sculpture. It served the
gods but portrayed men, it did not portray nature and had no other forms beside
the human; it was anthropocentric.
But although it portrayed men, it did not represent individuals. Early Greek
statues appear to have had a general character, with no attempt made to represent
personality, and there was as yet no portraiture. The early sculptors treated faces
schematically and did not try to impart expression to them. Indeed, it was the limbs
24 AESTHETICS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

rather than the faces which they endowed with expressiveness. In representing the
human figure they were guided more by geometric invention than by observation
of organic bodies and for this reason they altered, deformed and reduced the human
figure to geometric patterns. They continued to arrange hair and draperies archaically
in ornamental patterns with little regard for reality. In this they were not original:
Greek artists were no more the inventors of geometric forms than of superhuman
themes, for in both respects they were copying the East. Only when they came to
repudiate these influences did the Greeks really find their own ground, but this
did not occur until the classical period.
3. CONSCIOUS RESTRICTION. This early Greek art invariably relied on restricted
themes and resorted to restricted forms. It laid no claim to variety, originality or
novelty. It possessed a limited number of themes, types, iconographical motifs,
patterns of composition, decorative forms and basic ideas and solutions. The only
buildings were colonnaded temples with only minor variations allowed. Sculpture
consisted of little more than the naked male figure and the draped female figure,
always inflexibly symmetrical and presented frontally. Even such a simple motif
as a head turned to one side or out of the perpendicular does not appear before
the fifth century. But within these limits the artist had considerable freedom. Al-
though they were subject to a set plan, temples could differ in the proportion of
their parts, the number and height of columns and their disposition, the space
between the columns and the weight of the entablature. Analogous variants were
permissible in sculpture. But the stubborn rigidity of archaic art and its narrow
limits also had positive results: by setting themselves the same task and employing
the same scheme over and over again, artists were able to evolve the necessary tech-
niques and mastery of form.
4. ARTISTIC CANONS. Greek artists treated their art as a matter of skill and obe-
dience to general rules rather than of inspiration and imagination. They thus invested
it with universal, impersonal and rational characteristics. Rationalism entered
that concept of art which established itself in Greece and also became accepted
by Greek philosophers. The rationality of art and its dependence on rules was the
crucial point of the aesthetics implicit in archaic Greek art. These rules were absolute
but were not based on a priori assumptions. They had been determined by structural
needs, particularly in architecture. The forms of the columns and entablature of
any temple, its triglyphs and metopes were dictated by statics and the nature of
the building materials.
Despite, its universality and rationality, Greek plastic art had a number of variants.
It had two styles: the Doric and the Ionic. The Ionic displayed more freedom and
imagination, while the Doric was more rigorous and subject to stricter rules. The
two styles also differed in their proportions, those used in Ionic art being slimmer
than those in Doric art. Both styles evolved simultaneously, but the Doric, which
reached perfection earlier, became the characteristic form of the archaic period.
 COMMON AESTHETIC ASSUMPTIONS OF THE GREEKS 25
A famous nineteenth century architect said* that the sense of light gave the
Greeks joys unknown to us. One may assume that they felt the harmony of shapes,
as musically oriented people feel the harmony of sounds, that they had "perfect
sight".
The Greeks saw isolated, specific objects rather than combinations of objects.
Evidence of this may be observed in their art: the early group figures in the pedi-
ments of their temples are collections of separate statues.
At the close of the archaic period the Greeks already possessed a great art but
had not produced any theories of art, or at least none that has come down to us
in writing. The sciences of the period were concerned exclusively with nature, not
with works of man, and therefore did not include aesthetics. Nevertheless, the Greeks
possessed their own conception of beauty and art, which they did not record but
which we can reconstruct from their artistic practice.

4. The Common Aesthetic Assumptions of the Greeks

The Greeks had to devise a language in which to think and talk about the art
they created.t Some of their commonly employed concepts had been formed even
before the philosophers came on the scene. They were adopted, at least in part,
by the philosophers, who enlarged and transformed them. Yet they were very different
from those which after centuries of learned discussion are in common use today.
Even where the words employed were the same, their meaning was different.
1. THE CONCEPT OF BEAUTY. First of all, the word kalon, which the Greeks used
and which we translate as "beauty", had a different meaning from that which this
word commonly has today. It signified everything that pleases, attracts and arouses
admiration. In other words, its range was wider than it is now. While it included
that which pleases the eye and the ear, that which pleases by virtue of its shape,
it also embraced a multitude of other things which please in different ways and for
different reasons. It meant sights and sounds but also a quality of human mind and
character in which we today see a value of a different order and which we only
call "beautiful" with the realization that the word is being used metaphorically.
The famous pronouncement of the Delphic oracle, "The most just is the most beau-
tiful", demonstrates how the Greeks understood beauty. Out of this wide and general
concept of beauty commonly used by the Greeks there emerged, but only gradually,
the narrower, more specific concept of aesthetic beauty.
The Greeks first gave this narrower concept other names. Poets wrote about
"charm", which "gives joy to mortals", hymns spoke of the "harmony" (harmonia)

* E. E. Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire d'architecture: "Nous pouvons bien croire que les Grecs
étaient capables de tout en fait d'art, qu'ils éprouvaient par le sens de la vue des jouissances que
nous sommes trop grossiers pour jamais connaître."
t W. Tatarkiewicz, "Art and Poetry", Studia Philosophica, II (Lwôw, 1939).
26 AESTHETICS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

of the cosmos, sculptors referred to "symmetry" (symmetria), i.e., commensurate-

ness or appropriate measure (from syn—together, and metron—measure), orators
talked about eurhythmy (eurhythmia) that is, proper rhythm (from eu—well, and
rhythmos—rhythm) and good proportion. But these terms did not become general
until a later, more mature epoch. The mark of the Pythagorean philosophers is
visible in such terms as harmony, symmetry and eurhythmy.
2. THE CONCEPT OF ART. The Greeks also gave a wider significance to the term
techne,* which we translate as "art". For them it meant all skilful production and
included the labours of carpenters and weavers as well as architects. They applied
the term to every craft created by man (as opposed to nature) so long as it was pro-
ductive (and not cognitive), relied on skill (rather than inspiration), and was con-
sciously guided by general rules (and not just routine). They were convinced that
in art, skill mattered most and for that reason held art (including the art of the
carpenter and the weaver) to be a mental activity. They laid stress on the knowledge
which art entails and valued it primarily on account of that knowledge.
Such a concept of art included the characteristics common not only to architec-
ture, painting and sculpture, but also to carpentry and weaving. The Greeks did
not possess a term to cover exclusively the fine arts, that is, architecture, painting
and sculpture. Their wide concept of art (which we today would perhaps term
"skill") survived to the end of antiquity and had a long career in European lan-
guages (which, when stressing the special features of painting or architecture, could
not call them simply arts, but had to qualify them as "fine" arts). It was not until
the nineteenth century that attempts were made to drop the descriptive adjective
and the term "art" came to be regarded as synonymous with "fine arts". The evo-
lution of the concept of art was similar to the evolution of the concept of beauty:
it was first wider and was only gradually narrowed down to a specifically aesthetic
concept.
3. DIVISION OF THE ARTS. A S far as the Greeks were concerned, the arts which
came later to be called fine arts did not even constitute a distinct g r o u p T h e y
did not divide art into fine arts and crafts. They thought that all art could be regarded
as fine arts. They took it for granted that a craftsman (demiourgos) in any art could
achieve perfection and become a master (architekton). The Greek attitude toward
those who engaged in the arts was complex. They were valued for the knowledge
they possessed, but at the same time they were despised for the fact that their work
was on the same level as that of a skilled labourer and also provided a means of
livelihood. The fact that knowledge was required for them caused the Greeks to
ascribe to skills and crafts more value than we would, while the toil involved caused
them to underrate art. This attitude had already developed in prephilosophical
times, but the philosophers accepted and maintained it.
* R. Schaerer, E7uaT7]ii.ï] xé/vv), étude sur les notions de connaissance et d'art d'Homère à Platon
(Mâcon, 1930).
t W. Tatarkiewicz, op. cit., pp. 15-16; P. O. Kristeller, op. cit., pp. 498-506.
 COMMON AESTHETIC ASSUMPTIONS OF THE GREEKS 27

For the Greeks the most natural division of the arts was into those that were
free and those that were servile, according to whether they demanded physical
exertion or not. The free arts, which did not involve toil, were much more highly
esteemed. What we term "fine" arts they categorized partly as free (as, for example,
music) and partly as servile (as, for example, architecture and sculpture). Painting
at first was considered servile; much later it was elevated to the higher category.
While the Greeks treated "art" in general very broadly, they had a very narrow
conception of each particular art. As we have already remarked, they regarded
"auletics" (the art of flute-playing) as separate from "citharoetics" (the art of playing
the cithara) and only rarely did they combine the two under the concept of music.
Nor did they place in the same class sculpture carved in stone and sculpture cast
in bronze. Whenever different materials, tools and methods were used, or the work
was executed by different types of people, two works of art were, as far as the Greeks
were concerned, products of two different arts. In a similar way tragedy and com-
edy, epic and dithyramb were regarded as distinct' types of creative activity and
were only occasionally combined under the common concept of poetry. Such con-
cepts as music or sculpture were used infrequently. More common was the much
more general concept of art as a whole or such extremely specialized concepts as
auletics, citharoetics, stone carving and bronze casting. Paradoxically, the Greeks
created great sculpture and poetry, but in their conceptual vocabulary they did
not possess generic terms covering these activities.
Greek vocabulary may lead us astray, because the same terms (such as poetry,
music, architecture) were used then as now, but they meant something different to
the Greeks centuries ago. Poiesis (deriving from poiein—to make) originally sig-
nified any type of production, and poietes meant any kind of producer, not only
the producer of poems. The narrowing of the term came later. Mousike (derived
from "Muses") signified every activity patronized by the Muses and not just the
art of sound. The term mousikos was applied to every educated man. Architekton
meant "senior foreman" and architektonike meant "major art" in a general sense.
Only in time did these terms signifying "production", "education", and "major art"
become narrowed down and begin to mean poetry, music and architecture re-
spectively.
Greek ideas about art were formed in relation to the arts which the Greeks
actually cultivated and these, particularly in the early stages, were different from ours.
They had no poetry designed for reading; only verse for speaking, or rather for
singing. They had vocal music but no purely instrumental music. Some of the arts
which are today quite separate were practised by the Greeks in combination and,
therefore, were treated as one art or at least as a group of related arts. It was thus
with the theatre, music, and the dance. Because tragedy was staged together with
songs and dances, it was, within the Greek system of ideas, closer to music and the
dance than to (epic) poetry. The term "music", even when it was narrowed down
to mean the art of sound, still included the dance. This gave rise to ideas which
28 AESTHETICS OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD

strike us as strange, as for instance, that music is superior to poetry because it acts
on two senses (sound and sight), while poetry acts on one only (sound).
4 . THE CONCEPT OF POETRY. While the Greek conception of art was broader, on
the whole, than it is today, it was narrower in one important respect, namely in the
case of poetry. The Greeks did not class poetry as art, because it did not fit the
concept of art as material production based on skill and rules. Poetry they regarded
as the product not of skill but of inspiration. In the plastic arts skill blinded them
to the presence of inspiration while in poetry inspiration blinded them to the pres-
ence of skill, and for that reason they could see nothing in common between sculp-
ture and poetry.
Because they could not see a relationship between poetry and the arts, they
attempted to find for it a relationship with soothsaying. They placed sculptors
among craftsmen, and poets among soothsayers. In their opinion, a sculptor was
able to fulfil his tasks thanks to a skill (inherited from his ancestors) while a poet
could do so thanks to inspiration (granted by heavenly powers). Art signified for
them a production which could be learnt, and poetry that which could not. Poetry,
thanks to divine intervention, gives knowledge of the highest order; it leads the
soul, it educates men, it is capable of making them better. Art, on the other hand,
does something quite different: it produces useful and sometimes perfect objects.
It took a long time for the Greeks to realize that everything which they attributed
to poetry lies within the aims and possibilities of the arts, for they too are subject
to inspiration, they too guide the soul and all this shows how much in common
there is between poetry and the arts.
While the Greeks of the early period failed to notice characteristics common
to poetry and the plastic arts and could not find a unifying higher principle, they
not only perceived poetry's relation to music, but exaggerated it so much that they
treated the two as one and the same creative sphere. The explanation of this lies
in the fact that they apprehended poetry acoustically and performed it simulta-
neously with music. Their poetry was sung and their music was vocal. Moreover,
they noted that both led to a state of exultation. This served to link the two and
to contrast them with the plastic arts. Sometimes they even apprehended music
not as a separate art, but as an element of poetry and vice versa.
The role of the Muses was to express mythologically the ideas of the period.
There were nine of them. Thalia represented comedy, Melpomene tragedy, Erato
elegy, Polyhymnia lyric (sacred song?), Calliope oratory and heroic poetry, Euterpe
music, Terpsichore the dance, Clio history, and Urania astronomy. There are three
characteristic features of this group of nine: 1. the absence of a Muse presiding
over the whole range of poetry: lyric, elegy, comedy and tragedy are not covered
by a single concept since each of these literary categories has its own Muse; 2. the
literary genres are related to music and the dance since these likewise are presided
over by the Muses; 3. they are not, however, related to the visual arts, which have
no Muses of their own. The Greeks considered poetry above the visual arts. They