Aristotle and Musicologists on Three Functions of Music
A Note on Pol. 8, 1341b40-1
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In Pol. 8, we find two rather different threefold divisions of the aims, or usages, of music. At the very beginning of his analysis, Aristotle first lists (1339a11-26): amusement and relaxation; moral education; leisure . Strikingly enough though, when it comes up again at the end of the treatise on musical education, this threefold division has undergone a few remarkable changes. Now, the division comes up between moral education, emotional purgation/purification, and “thirdly”, Aristotle says, “leisure, rest and relaxation of one’s tensions (τρίτον δὲ πρὸς διαγωγὴν πρὸς ἄνεσίν τε καὶ πρὸς τὴν τῆς συντονίας ἀνάπαυσιν)” (1341b36-41). The main difficulty that this new enumeration creates is notable: how to explain that now the third aim of music seems to consist in the ensemble of leisure, repose and relaxation, while leisure and relaxation were first introduced as two distinct aims? I argue that πρὸς διαγωγὴν should be best considered a gloss.
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1
Reeve 1998: 240. Other translations have a similar rendering (eg. Lord 1984, Simpson 1997). Many previous English translations proposed the same sort of non-committal reading (eg. Barker 1946: “a third is benefit of cultivation, with which may be linked that of recreation and relaxation from strain”). This is also the case in other languages—again, I guess, because of the authority of the three main editions in use. See eg. Pellegrin 1990: 542: “. . . et en troisième lieu, elle [la musique] sert à mener une vie de loisir et à se reposer de ses efforts”.
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Aristotle and Musicologists on Three Functions of Music
A Note on Pol. 8, 1341b40-1
In: Greek and Roman Musical StudiesSearch for other papers by Pierre Destrée in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
In Pol. 8, we find two rather different threefold divisions of the aims, or usages, of music. At the very beginning of his analysis, Aristotle first lists (1339a11-26): amusement and relaxation; moral education; leisure . Strikingly enough though, when it comes up again at the end of the treatise on musical education, this threefold division has undergone a few remarkable changes. Now, the division comes up between moral education, emotional purgation/purification, and “thirdly”, Aristotle says, “leisure, rest and relaxation of one’s tensions (τρίτον δὲ πρὸς διαγωγὴν πρὸς ἄνεσίν τε καὶ πρὸς τὴν τῆς συντονίας ἀνάπαυσιν)” (1341b36-41). The main difficulty that this new enumeration creates is notable: how to explain that now the third aim of music seems to consist in the ensemble of leisure, repose and relaxation, while leisure and relaxation were first introduced as two distinct aims? I argue that πρὸς διαγωγὴν should be best considered a gloss.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 561 | 108 | 11 |
| Full Text Views | 363 | 8 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 274 | 32 | 4 |