Ideas and Forms of Tragedy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages

275 Pages·1993·6.33 MB·English

by  Henry Ansgar Kelly

"Tragedy" has been understood in a variety of conflicting ways over the centuries, and the
term has been applied to a wide range of literary works. In this book, H. A. Kelly explores
the various meanings given to tragedy, from Aristotle's most basic notion (any serious
story, even with a happy ending), via Roman ideas and practices, to the Middle Ages, when
Averroes considered tragedy to be the praise of virtue, but Albert the Great thought of it as
the recitation of the foul deeds of degenerate men. Professor Kelly demonstrates the
importance of finding out what writers like Horace, Ovid, Dante, and Chaucer meant by the
term, and how they used it as a tool of interpretation and composition. Referring to a wealth
of texts, he shows that many modern analyses of ancient and medieval concepts and works
are oversimplified and often result in serious misinterpretations. The book ends with
surveys of works designated as tragedies in England, France, Italy, and Spain.

CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 18
Ideas and forms of tragedy
from Aristotle to the Middle Ages

CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE 18
General Editor: Professor Alastair Minnis, Professor of Medieval Literature, University
of York
Editorial Board
Professor Piero Boitani (Professor of English, Rome)
Professor Patrick Boyde, FBA (Serena Professor of Italian, Cambridge)
Professor John Burrow, FBA (Winterstoke Professor of English, Bristol)
Professor Alan Deyermond, FBA (Professor of Hispanic Studies, London)
Professor Peter Dronke, FBA (Professor of Medieval Latin Literature, Cambridge)
Dr Tony Hunt (St Peter's College, Oxford)
Professor Nigel Palmer (Professor of German Medieval and Linguistic Studies,
Oxford)
Professor Winthrop Wetherbee (Professor of English, Cornell)
This series of critical books seeks to cover the whole area of literature written in the
major medieval languages - the main European vernaculars, and medieval Latin and
Greek — during the period c. woo—c. 1500. Its chief aim is to publish and stimulate
fresh scholarship and criticism on medieval literature, special emphasis being placed on
understanding major works of poetry, prose and drama in relation to the
contemporary culture and learning which fostered them.
Titles published
Dante's Inferno: Difficulty and dead poetry, by Robin Kirkpatrick
Dante and Difference: Writing in the Commedia, by Jeremy Tambling
Troubadours and Irony>, by Simon Gaunt
Piers Plowman and the New Anticlericalism, by Wendy Scase
The Cantar de mio Cid: Poetic creation in its economic and social contexts,
by Joseph Duggan
The Medieval Greek Romance, by Roderick Beaton
Reformist Apocalypticism and Piers Plowman, by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton
Dante and the Medieval Other World, by Alison Morgan
The Theatre of Medieval Europe: New research in early drama, edited by Eckehard Simon
The Book of Memory: A study of memory in medieval culture, by Mary J. Carruthers
Rhetoric, Hermeneutics and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic traditions and vernacular
texts, by Rita Copeland
The Arthurian Romances of Chretien de Troyes: Once and future fictions, by Donald Maddox
Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority, by Nicholas Watson
Dreaming in the Middle Ages, by Steven F. Kruger
Chaucer and the Tradition of the "Roman Antique", by Barbara Nolan
The Romance of the Rose and its Medieval Readers: Interpretation, reception, manuscript
transmission, by Sylvia Huot
Women and Literature in Britain, IIJO ~IJOO, edited by Carol M. Meale
Ideas and Forms of Tragedy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages, by Henry Ansgar Kelly
Ideas and forms of tragedy
from Aristotle to the Middle Ages
HENRY ANSGAR KELLY
Professor, Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Victoria 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1993
First published 1993
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data
Kelly, Henry Ansgar, 1934—
Ideas and forms of tragedy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages /
Henry Ansgar Kelly.
p. cm. - (Cambridge studies in medieval literature: 18)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN O 521 43184 O
1. Tragedy. 2. Literary form. 1. Title. 11. Series.
PN1891.K45 1993
809.2'$ 12—dc2o 92-24353 CIP
ISBN o 521 43184 o hardback
Transferred to digital printing 2004
For Robert Looker
All words are pockets into which
now this, now that is put,
and sometimes many things at once.
Nietzsche, The Wanderer and his Shadow
ERRATA
Kelly: Ideas and forms of tragedy from Aristotle to the Middle Ages
ISBN 0 521 43184 0 hardback
p. 28, line 25: profitemu to read profitemur
p. 36, n. 1: Origine to read Origines
p. 38, line 10: Carmine quo to read Carmine qui
p. 41, 2 lines up: pulpitam to read pulpitum
p. 59, n. 107: egentes to read agentes
p. 64, line 6: vocabulus to read vocabulis
p. 69, n. 6: emunerabantur to read remunerabantur
p. 73, n. 18: lectus to read luctus.
p. 89, n. 100: quidem to read quid[a]m
p. 89, n. 101:fol. AD 1101. to read for AD 1101.
p. 90, n. 109: Shakleton to read Shackleton
p. 130, n. 80: antigua to read antiqua
p. 157, n. 178: supez to read super
p. 159, n. 183: Atikinson to read Atkinson
p. 175, n. 11: Berger to read Bergen
p. 205, n. 123: elegre to read alegre
p. 208, n. 139: Santillana account to read Santillana's account
p. 223, line 4: A. Grudeman to read A. Gudeman
p. 223, line 30: Shakelton to read Shackleton
p. 224, line 6: super librio Boethii to read super libris Boethii
p. 224, line 17: Translatio Antiguior to read Translatio Antiquior
p. 227, line 25: (1989) to read (1899)
p. 232, line 11: In Artem Donati minorem commentum to read In Artem
Donati majorem commentum
p. 232, line 12: In Artem Donati minorem commentum is a new subentry
p. 236, line 7: Romantic Reviews to read Romanic Review
p. 240, line 26: Annali del Corso di Lingue Letterature to read Annali
del Corso di lingue e Letterature
p. 241, line 13: YEcerinis to read VEccerinis
p. 242, line 4: Studie to read Studi
pp. 113-123 running head: Boethius in French to read Aristotle: a lost
opportunity
In the Index, references to pages between 88 and 109 sometimes need to be
advanced to the next page; for instance, under Accursius, read 107-08 for
107; under Berengar, read 90 for 89-90; under Brito, read 103 forl02.
Contents
Preface page xiii
List of abbreviations xvii
1 Greek and Roman poetics i
(1) Aristotle on the tragic in general i
(2) The Roman tradition 5
2 Modes and subjects of Roman tragedy 16
(1) Ways of performing tragedy 16
(2) Tragedies read, tragedies lived 23
(3) Rash generalizations of tragic themes 27
3 Early medieval clues and conjectures 36
(1) Isidore of Seville 36
(2) Remigius and Remigians 50
(3) Non-Remigians, Senecans, Horatians, and later
Isidorians 5 7
(4) Papias the protolexicographer 64
4 The twelfth-century scene 68
(1) William of Conches and the commentaries on Boethius 68
(2) Metaphorical tragedy 78
(3) Tragic style and new tragedies 92
(4) Continuing tradition: the lexicographers 103
5 The high Middle Ages: discoveries and oblivions 111
(1) Aristotle: a lost opportunity in
(2) Nicholas Trevet on Boethius and Seneca 125
(3) Seneca at Padua 134
(4) Dante and his commentators 144
(5) Boethius in French 157
6 Final variations 169
(1) England: Chaucer and the future 170
xi