JACOB BERNAYS On Catharsis From Fundamentals of Aristotle’s Lost Essay on the “Effect of Tragedy” (1857) The definition of the essence of tragedy (8po¢ tig oboias) at the beginning of the sixth chapter of Aristotle’s Poetics runs: Bott. . . tpaypdia pipnors xpdEews onovdaiacs Kai teAcias, péyebog Exovons, HSvopévp Adyo, xwpic Exdotw tov eiddv év trois nopiorg, Spavtav Kai od 51’ &mayyediac, 51’ EAgov kai poBov nepaivovoa thy tiv toiottav naBnpétov KéBopow. [Tragedy . . . is the imitation of a good action, which is complete and of a certain length, by means of language made pleasing for each part separately; it relies in its various elements not on narrative but on acting; through pity and fear it achieves the catharsis of such emotions.] In his Dramaturgy, Lessing has undertaken to discuss this definition in connection with the developments concerning “pity” and “fear” found in Aristotle’s Rheforicand to safeguard it against French and German misunderstandings, with on the whole utmost success for the part extending as far as neporivovoa. In the treatment of the last six obscure words, however, he no longer proceeds so securely: to.0btav, first of all, poses difficulties for him; he extracts himself from these with the following turn, which is scarcely compatible with his otherwise sharp demarcation of pity and fear: The tovobtwv relates merely to the foregoing pity and fear; tragedy should excite our pity and our fear only in order to cleanse these and suchlike passions, but not all passions indifferently. But he says towoitov and not tovtav; he says “these and suchlike” and not merely “these” in order to point out that by pity he understands not merely actual so-called pity but rather all philan- thropic sensations in general, just as by fear he under- stands not merely unpleasure about an evil looming ‘American Imago, Vol. 61, No. 3, 319-841. © 2004 by The Johns Hopkins University Press 319320 On Catharsis before us but rather also the unpleasure related to it, the unpleasure about a present evil as well as the unpleasure about a past evil, distress, and grief. For Lessing, furthermore, ro@npétov means exactly the same as na@év, and he has also—although he otherwise balances adroitly enough the gold scales on which the individual words of this definition are placed—not asked himself why, if both words are conceptually equivalent, for “pity and fear” Aristotle did not then rather choose the no@@v offering itself initially from the Rhetoric. Finally, Lessing translates x&Qapoig by “cleansing” [Reinigung]; but wherein “cleansing” consists he will “only say briefly.” About this main point, however, everyman—including “those up to snuff” to whom Lessing appeals about a related question—would gladly have seen a more thorough exposition and justification, all the more so since the more precise definitions of catharsis, which seemed indispensable to Aristotle himself and which he had explained in the eighth book of the Politics that he wanted to save for the Poetics, are now to be sought in vain in our Poetics. Now, Lessing’s discussion is the following: Since, to put it briefly, this cleansing consists in nothing other than the transformation of the passions into practical virtues, yet with every virtue, according to our philosopher, one finds an extreme on this side and on that, between which it stands: so must tragedy, if it is to transform our pity into a virtue, be capable of cleansing us of both extremes of pity; which is to be understood also of fear. With respect to pity, tragic pity must cleanse not only the soul of the one who feels too much pity, but also of the one who feels too little. With respect to fear, tragic fear must cleanse not only the soul of the one who fears no misfortune at all, but also of the one who is placed in anxiety by every misfortune, even the most remote and improbable. Likewise, tragic pity must in purging fear navigate between too much and too little: just as, conversely, tragic fear must in purging pity.Jacob Bernays 321 One has to concede that if such a “transformation of the passions into practical virtues” is the essential definition of tragedy for Aristotle—and so it would be, if he were to append this meaning of catharsis to a definition of its essence (6po¢ This odciacg)—then is tragedy likewise also for him essentially a moral event. Indeed, after Lessing has gone through all the stages of too much and too little pity and fear, one might call tragedy a moral house of correction that must keep in readi- ness the remedial method conducive for every irregular turn- ing of pity and fear. Understandably, no one could be less well-disposed to such a conception than Goethe, transfigured by age and always consciously removing teleology from his views on nature and art. “Music,” he says in his Gleanings from Aristotle's Poetics (1826), “is capable of working on morality as little as any art whatever. Tragedies,” he goes on—and he, if anyone, is en- titled to weigh in here—“tragedies and tragic novels do not in the least ease the spirit [Geist], rather they unsettle the mind [Gemiith].” And he denies that Aristotle, “in that he really speaks entirely of the construction of tragedy, could be think- ing of the effect, and what is more the most remote effect, which a tragedy might perhaps have on the spectator.” So on account of what is for him this compelling consideration Goethe then had to banish every moral misinterpretation from the definition, and also let himself be guided by this consider- ation even in his attempt at explaining Aristotle’s words. He therefore sought to shift catharsis from the spectator onto the tragic character by the following translation: “tragedy is the imitation of a significant and completed action, which after a pitiful and fearful course completes its business with the stabilizing of such passions.” For those acquainted with Greek it is superfluous to point out that 51’ éAéov Kai g6Bov nepaivovoa xéBapow could not possibly mean “after a course of pity and fear being completed with catharsis,” but can rather only mean “causing catharsis through pity and fear.” And those who are acquainted with Aristotle, however unclear they may be about the precise meaning of catharsis, still know from the eighth book of the Politics that this word in any event describes a process in the mind of the auditor and spectator (dxpoatiis, Beot}c) of music322 On Catharsis and tragedy, and by no means a stabilizing conclusion of the represented action. Now, however easily we succeeded in setting aside Goethe’s translation as a completely misguided one, just so little have the numerous later commentators on the passage in Aristotle been able to remedy the sensitive sore spots that compelled the poet to be put off by Lessing’s view. The most noteworthy of these later commentators, Eduard Miller (Theory of Art in the Ancients), after diligent scrutiny of many scattered hints in the surviving works by Aristotle, arrived at the result: “Who could doubt any longer that the cleansing of these and other passions consists precisely in the transformation of unpleasure, which inheres in pity and fear, into pleasure, or at least stands in the closest connection to it.” But such distributive particles are always awkward in the definition of concepts. If the second part of the sentence introduced by “or” contains the proper meaning so that one can say of the transformation of unpleasure into pleasure only that it stands in connection with catharsis, however close this connection may be, then one may still justifiably ask: in what after all does catharsis consist? It is surely not too bold a presumption that by catharsis Aristotle certainly meant some- thing definite, not one thing or another. And if in modern times the “tragic cleansing of the passions” has passed into the well-stocked category of fine aesthetic phrases, which are common with every scholar and clear to no thinker, then this is probably not the fault of the Stagirite. Indeed, the fog that surrounds that phrase about cleans- ing in the customary jargon of aesthetic judges, no less than the effort to detect in catharsis a transformation of passions into practical virtues or of unpleasure into pleasure, are both derived from the fact that one has forgotten how clearly Aristotle himself makes catharsis out to be a technical term of aesthetics first given its stamp by him. Once this was forgotten, nothing came more easily than to translate catharsis, accord- ing to the ordinary meaning of the verb xaQaipa, by “cleans- ing.” It was then also unavoidable to allow tragedy, like a cleaning woman, to perform on the passions, as objects of cleansing, various operations that have a greater or lesser similarity to the cleaning performed everyday by housewivesJacob Bernays 323 and master carvers, that is, the separation of what is impure from what is pure. In order to turn back once more from these faulty paths into the proper road, the investigation must above all focus itself on the already repeatedly mentioned, and by expositors of the Poetics least cited, passage in the eighth book of the Politics, which even if it is not as thorough as one might have wished is still far less brief than the definition that treats of catharsis in the Poetics. Of its existence Goethe seems to have heard only a dim rumor, at first probably through Herder, whose treatment of it to be sure could not arouse any great expectations of its utility. Lessing, too, who mentions it once very fleetingly, neglected by a strange chance to crack it; for no one who reads the words will be prepared to admit the even stranger chance that he was more closely acquainted with them and nevertheless did not recognize their inherent impor- tance. In the passage of the Politics (VIII, 1341b32), Aristotle wants to assign the various musical harmonies to their place in a well-ordered state. He says: We accept the arrangement of a few philosophers who divide songs first into those that bring about a steady moral mood (ethical), second into those that bring about an agitated mood leading to a deed (practical), and third into those that bring about rapture (enthusias- tic). But now one should, in our view, apply music not merely to one but to several useful purposes, first as part of the instruction of youth, second to catharsis—what catharsis is we will now say only in general, but come back to it again and speak of it more precisely in the essay on the art of poetry—and third to amusement, in order to relax and unwind. So one can therefore utilize all harmonies, though not in the same way, but rather those that bring about as steady and ethical a mood as possible as part of theOn Catharsis instruction of youth, conversely others that bring about an agitated state leading to a deed for hearing a musical lecture, and also those that bring about rapture. For the emotion that appears intensely in some minds is present in all; the difference consists only in the more or less— for example pity and fear, which appear intensely in the pitiful and fearful, but are present to a more limited extent in all people. The same with rapture. To a lesser extent all people are subject to it, but there are people who are exposed to frequent attacks of this movement of the mind. Now we see with sacred songs that if enrap- tured people of this kind allow songs that do indeed intoxicate the mind to work upon them, they calm themselves, as if they had undergone medical cure and catharsis (doonep iotpetac tuxdvtac Kai KaBdpoews). The same must correspondingly take place also with the pitiful and fearful and in general with all who are disposed to a certain emotion (tabtd 57 todto évayxaiov néaxew Kai todg éhenpovas Kai todg poPytiKxods Kai tods 8hag xadntixodc), but with all remaining people in so far as something of these emotions forms part of each. There must be some kind of catharsis for all and they can be relieved through a feeling of pleasure (xao1 yrweoBai tia KéBapow Koi ovgitecBor 20" ASoviic). Now, in the same way as other means of catharsis, cathartic songs also hold in store for people a harmless joy (xopav &BAoBi). One must therefore adhere to the lawful regulation that those who play music for the theater (which should indeed create harmless joy) will perform such cathartic harmonies and songs. But now because the public is of two kinds (6 @eariic Sittéc), one part free and educated, the other common and consisting of manual workers, day laborers, and so forth, one must also arrange perfor- mances and visual pleasures for the relaxation of the latter. Now, as the minds of this part of the public are made eccentric from their naturally corresponding con- dition, so are there also harmonies that lurch and a stormy and artificially colored type of songs. But every- one is afforded only that pleasure that corresponds toJacob Bernays 325 his nature; one must therefore give the performing artists the freedom to make use of this type of music before such a public. This passage had to be brought forward here together with its final sentences that do not treat catharsis directly because precisely these final sentences provide irrefutable proof of how utterly remote from Aristotle was the thought of previous centuries to make the theater into a subsidiary and rival institution of the church, a sanatorium of ethical improve- ment, and how he much rather ruthlessly goes to the trouble of safeguarding its character as a place of pleasure for diverse classes of the public. While Plato devotes his entire zeal to condemning the new style of music that departs from the old simplicity as the primal source of the loss of all morality, Aristotle wants to give even abnormal kinds of music their play- space. Because there is after all an eccentric public, which according to its nature finds pleasure only in ornate music, so when it seeks pleasure and relaxation at infrequent festivals one should offer it also such inferior music, and not seek to bore and improve it through music that is completely good. Now this view of the regulation of theater also includes the peremptory exhortation to exclude from theatrical catharsis everything through which the moral element that perhaps lies within it would gain predominance over the hedonistic, and would make ethical improvement appear to be the principal purpose, with pleasure and enjoyment only the unavoidable means, and would give the latter only the significance of honey on the rim of the cup to tempt those who would have spurned the wholesome drink in its unsweetened state. And why also should one look on theatrical catharsis from a moral or hedonistic point of view before one tries to do it from that point of view from which Aristotle has approached catharsis in general in the Politics? But that is not the moralistic, nor as little the purely hedonistic; it is a pathological point of view. Pathological is straightaway the first actual example of a catharsis, presiding over the general Greek experience with the enraptured, from which the philosopher then deduces the possibility of a similar cathartic treatment also for all the other movements of the mind. The Phrygian songs derived from the326 On Catharsis mythical singer Olympus—for that predominantly these are meant by “sacred songs” can be extrapolated with certainty from other passages in Aristotle and Plato—transport other- wise calm people into rapture. Conversely, those possessed by rapture undergo, after they have heard or sung those intoxicat- ing songs, a calming down. Perhaps as Catullus might have done it in his Adis if the most poetic Roman poet had understood so much of enthusiasm as the most sober Greek philosopher. The poet would not have needed first to drive the raving youth, after making him delirious through Phrygian song, through the forests in order that he might sink into sleep exhausted from this strain and then regain his self-conscious- ness the following morning. Immediately after the suppressed rapture had dissolved into the frenzied song, it would have subsided and given way to a more composed mood. The poem would thereby have at most forfeited the adornment of a sunrise, but certainly lost nothing in poetical worth and gained infinitely in pathological truth. It would have depicted the catharsis of enthusiasm. Also adhering strongly to the pathological field, like that actual example, are moreover the explanatory phrases through which Aristotle seeks to elucidate catharsis. “Those calmed down from rapture,” he says, “have as it were experienced a medical cure and catharsis” (onep iatpeiag tuxdvtag Kai xaQépoeuc). As it were, so not really; thus a metaphor lies at the bottom of xéBaporg as much as it does of iotpeta. But now xdBapoig means, as soon as one disregards the entirely general “cleansing,” which precisely on account of its generality ex- plains nothing, and which Aristotle could have had no occa- sion to introduce after the much more concrete iotpeia, and which finally is so very general that it would have been impermissible to have preceded it with an “as it were” appro- priate only to metaphor—grasped thus concretely, x&Baporg in the Greek language means only two things: either an expiation of guilt brought about by certain priestly ceremonies, a lustration, ora lifting or alleviation of illness brought about by means of medical relief. Dionysus Lambinus alighted on the first meaning in his translation of the Politics, he renders x&8aporc by lustratio seu expiatio (lustration or expiation). If this sixteenth-century