Philosophical Review

Aristotle's Art of Poetry. by W. Hamilton FyfeReview by: Richard RobinsonThe Philosophical Review, Vol. 50, No. 6 (Nov., 1941), pp. 644-645Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2180826 .

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644 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW [VOL. L.

in Southern Italy. His main contention is that, although the influence of the Pythagoreans was for a time widespread, it did not, even in Croton itself, take the form of government by the Pythagorean order. Rather one is to suppose that in Croton, and for a while in many other cities, individual members of the order participated in the govern- ment. If these were at all numerous at any time, their influence would be correspondingly great. Their political outlook, too, was liable to vary according to circumstances. In a struggle between democracy and aristocracy or oligarchy, they would tend to be anti-democratic; but if the alternatives were democracy and tyranny, they chose the democratic side. The parallelism to which the author draws attention, between the political activity of the Pythagoreans and that of Plato and his disciples, is also most worthy of consideration.

No one knows better than von Fritz himself that much in his re- construction is hypothetical. Consequently the reader may here and there question the validity of an argument or an interpretation. I am, for example, a little sceptical about the combination of Thucydides V,82 and Xenophon, Hellenica VIIT,43 to prove (73) that "the Spartans established an oligarchic regime in Achaia in 417". Thucy- dides does not say this, and to assume that, because the Achaean cities were oligarchic in 366, they had been so ever since 417, is a hazardous deduction. The interpretation of -rlev ntLv OtNOVOR?v in the Iamblichus passage (Appendix C) is most questionable. "To direct" or "to manage" the city-state can surely only mean what it says. And when the ancient writer adds that the three hundred had "organized a large political club", the picture raised in my mind is rather that of an oligarchic coup d'etat, like that of the Four Hundred at Athens in 4I I who also worked through political clubs, than of the indirect politi- cal influence which von Fritz assumes. I would not, however, end on a note of criticism. This investigation is undoubtedly a valuable con- tribution to the subject, which no one interested either in Pythagorean- ism or in the history of Magna Graecia can afford to neglect.

M. L. W. LAISTNER CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Aristotle's Art of Poetry. With an Introduction and Explanations. by W. HAMILTON FYFE. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1940. Pp. xxxii, 82. According to the wrapper this presentation of Aristotle's Poetics

is designed for the general reader who knows no Greek. More pre- cisely we may say that it is designed for such inhabitants of the British Isles as know no Greek and yet are fond of the best English literature and given to reflecting about it, a class both absolutely and relatively much smaller in the British Isles than in U.S.A. Principal Fyfe presents Bywater's translation, with alterations of his own. He

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No. 6.] REVIEWS OF BOOKS 645

omits chapter xx and a paragraph at the end of chapter xxi, on the grounds that they belong to grammar, not to literary criticism, and are probably interpolations. He inserts about a page of introduction to each group of two or three chapters. He adds notes explaining the allusions and obscurities, and giving some English parallels and illustrations. He prefixes a general introduction of 32 pages on Aris- totle in general and the Poetics in particular. Naturally all statements are made dogmatically and without evidence. Principal Fyfe views Aristotle the literary critic as a man of immense but slightly frigid common sense, employing a worthy scientific empiricism on a sub- ject that he did not fully understand. "Obviously Aristotle did not appreciate poetry. But he conscientiously pins the butterfly on the board and proceeds to dissect it."

The book may give its intended readers the impression that Aris- totle believed that the diversity of organic species has arisen out of a common ancestor, because Principal Fyfe sometimes says "evolu- tion" when he means growth. Some of the illustrations seem hardly worth inclusion, for example the explanation of Discovery through marks by this from Box and Cox: "Tell me, in mercy tell me, have you a strawberry mark on your left arm?" "No." "Then you are my long-lost brother." On the whole, however, Principal Fyfe, with a wealth of learning and good humor at his command, has well fulfilled his useful purpose. The sloping Greek type, though harmonizing with the upright English better than any type readily available in this country, is still a sloping type. And the Clarendon Press has a beauti- ful upright Greek that it could have used.

RICHARD ROBINSON Cornell University

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