As H. states in his introductory chapter, the constitutive concepts of the title, ecstasy and truth, are not meant to mark a firm and permanent polarity but rather the dynamic dialectic between ‘intense psychological absorption’, on the one hand, and ‘lasting cognitive and/or ethical value’ on the other. H. sees this dialectic as balanced in Gorgias, Aristotle and Longinus but unsettled in Aristophanes, Plato, Isocrates and Philodemus. The book as a whole provides a minute and comprehensive exploration of the mutual attractions and repulsions between the title's notions within several landmarks of Greek critical thought.
First, the poetics immanent within poetry are explored in Homer and Aristophanes for, as H. observes, ‘The poets are their own first interpreters, and some might say their best’ (p. 25). Focusing on Achilles and Odysseus in their relationship to song, he traces the underlying mechanics of poetic self-consciousness in the epic narrative in such a way that the reader's answer to the chapter's title question (‘Is there a Poetics in Homer?’) must clearly be affirmative. Though some of the key moments of powerful auditory engagement displayed by epic characters, especially in the Odyssey, may not conform to the notion of ‘ecstasy’, H.'s detailed observations regarding the multifaceted dynamics of performing and listening to song in the poem offer justification, I believe, for us to refer in these cases to conceptualisations inherent in broader Greek aesthetics. Homer may explicitly be given a prominent position in the chorus of those thinkers for whom ‘intense psychological absorption’ and ‘lasting cognitive or ethical value’ (to use H.'s terms) are creatively juxtaposed and successfully negotiated.
The next chapter's extensive reading of Aristophanes' Frogs sheds light on what is represented in the play as a case of gridlock in critical judgement. Taking into account its parodically exaggerated twists, the impasse could be read as a caustic comment on the status of late fifth-century Athenian criticism which, lost amid diverging attitudes towards tragic art, falters between discourses of formalism or moralism, on the one hand, and a stammering emotionality, on the other.
An open-ended critical debate of a different kind is explored by H. in his chapter on Platonic poetics. Here he discusses the philosopher's views on poetry and philosophy as an almost unresolved tension rather than a definitive rejection of the former by the latter. Under the pointedly aporetic title ‘To Banish or Not to Banish?’ he performs a detailed reading of relevant passages in early Platonic dialogues, such as the Apology and the Ion, before moving onto a re-examination of (mainly) the tenth book of the Republic. Among several important issues raised here, three stand out. First, there is the tension between what H. sees as Socrates' (and Plato's) inclination to approve the poets for their technical knowledge of verbal texture and structure, on the one hand, and the refusal, on the other hand, to grant them a deeper understanding of the subject matters that they poetically represent. Second, we encounter the discursive impotence of poets, performers (such as the rhapsode Ion) and Socrates himself when challenged to account for what might constitute the value of poetry, including its aesthetic value. Third, there emerges a dialectic between attraction and repulsion in the Republic's second critique of poetry, an emblematic instantiation of which is Socrates' own reference to his sustained attentive interest in poetry. If Socrates unequivocally meant to banish poetry from the city, H. asks, why would he present himself and Glaucon as future listeners of poetry (akroasometh' autês, 608a), albeit with the protection of incantations (epôidai) chanted by them while they attend to it?
H.'s examination of Plato's adventurous affair with poetry is distinctly nuanced and as such it encourages a reading of the Platonic text that is sensitive to Plato's own complex arguments when discussing Athenian musical culture. It may thus prompt new questions. For instance, how consistent, really, is the line separating verbal structure from subject matter in the Platonic approach to poetry as a technê? One might recall here the inextricable unity of verbal structure and subject matter in the process of inspiration as described in the Ion, where the Muse is said to stir one poet to compose dithyrambs, another encomia, another huporchêmata and another iambic poetry. Then again, regarding the failures to articulate that H. observes in Platonic dialogues whenever questions of aesthetic value are raised, one wonders whether these should be viewed less as a discursive void somehow inherent in poetry and more as the result of a Platonic strategy in the representation of such matters. That is, even if a critic of the calibre of Dionysius of Halicarnassus had existed in Plato's era, able to provide an articulate account of what makes a poem beautiful, would Socrates (and Plato) ever have acknowledged him and his useful contribution within the polis? Finally, does not the auditory condition that Socrates establishes in the tenth book of the Republic, namely ‘listening’ to poetry while chanting the epôidai of philosophy, essentially cancel the role of the listener qua listener, thus turning the listener into a counter-performer of an alternative discourse, namely philosophy? Although such questions may linger, the open-endedness with which H. discusses Plato's views on poetry, particularly in the Republic, is effective, especially if one takes into account the complex treatment with which the philosopher once more raised these problems towards the end of his life, in the Laws.
The dialectic of cognition and emotion in Aristotle's approaches to artistic representation, and more specifically to tragic poetry, is explored in the chapter on ‘Aristotle and the Experience of Tragic Emotion’. Here the reader may sense, perhaps more strongly than in any other chapter, the bonds of intellectual affection forged by long and deep familiarity with an author. These are quite perceptible in the way H. traces the path between idolisation and iconoclasm in the study of Aristotle's overarching approach to the aesthetic, and are especially strong in his reflections upon the ‘voice’ of the Poetics, its fundamentally theoretical, but at the same time profoundly exploratory and experimental, stance. H.'s views on what he calls ‘emotional understanding’, both in relation to Aristotelian notions of psuchagôgia and to the concept of catharsis, are thought-provoking. I find highly productive his deep attention to the powerful vibrations of attraction between emotion and cognition as well as between aesthetics and ethics. This approach is useful for those analysing how Greek thought explored the aesthetic as a profoundly inclusive (not autonomous or insulated) mode of apprehending cultural artefacts.
The last two chapters are dedicated to the evaluation of poetry within the broader frame of questions about the substance and function of verbal art, from Gorgias and Isocrates through Philodemus and ultimately up to Longinus' treatise On the Sublime. Particularly illuminating are H.'s discussions about the relationship between the verbal and the visual in Gorgias, and about Philodemus' attempts to shift poetry's role away from either formalism or moralism. Finally, his understanding of Isocrates' ‘pragmatist agenda’ regarding poetic matters is in stark contrast to his reading of Longinus. H. emphasises the importance of Longinian sublimity as conducive to cognition while repeatedly highlighting Chapter 35, where Longinus associates outstanding moments of the verbal sublime with contemplation of a cosmos residing beyond the senses. Such an approach prompts one to rethink the relationship between verbal art and metaphysics. Since Longinus' thoughts here stem from his deep admiration for Plato's writing, H.'s reader might close the book reflecting upon whether the ancient critic was silently wondering about the position of verbal artefacts in a world divided into universals and particulars, or perhaps even was quietly inserting verbal art as a new step onto Plato's laborious ladder, a step that Plato would never have explicitly acknowledged.
