Song and Artefact

Although we have seen that only the ‘poetics of truth’ was relevant to the traditional Greek view of poetry, this does not necessarily mean that the ‘poetics of fiction’ was altogether alien to the Greek tradition. The very fact that Homeric man, as our discussion has shown, was held to be either responsible or not responsible for his activities, makes the poetics of fiction possible. Whether or not this possibility would also be actualized depends on whether or not the class of activities for which Homeric man is held individually responsible makes provision for an activity which can act as a typological counterpart to poetry. There is no difficulty in seeing that the activity in question is represented by handicrafts. Proceeding from their position within the classification of Homeric man’s activities discussed in Chapter 2, handicrafts can be defined as an activity of Homeric man belonging to the class of activities (constituted by practical wisdom, skills, and sports) which possess the semantic characteristics ‘teaching’ and ‘knowledge’ and for which, therefore, man is held individually responsible; it is thus opposed to the class of activities (constituted by instincts, emotions, insight, heroic valour, and singing) which possesses the semantic characteristics ‘giving’ and ‘ignorance’ and for which, therefore, man is not held individually responsible. At the same time, handicrafts and poetry, or ‘singing’, are not only set against each other as members of the opposed classes of Homeric man’s activities: their relationship is determined by the fact that they are seen as the only productive activities in their respective classes. That is to say, within the general opposition between the two classes of human activity, handicrafts and singing form a particular opposition relevant to these two activities alone, that between the author’s being, and not being, responsible for his work. This allows one to suggest that the two typological variants of poetics, the ‘poetics of truth’ and the ‘poetics of fiction’, are both present in Homer.

Aesthetics · Art · Class (philosophy) · Epistemology · Handicraft · Ignorance · Instinct · Literature · Poetics · Poetry · Singing · Visual arts · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Philosophy