Pindar, metapoetics

This study of Greek time before Aristotle’s philosophy starts with a commentary on his first text, the Protrepticus. We shall see two distinct forms of time emerge: one initiatory, circular and Platonic in inspiration, the other its diametrical opposite, advanced by Aristotle. We shall explore this dichotomy through a return to poetic conceptions. The Tragedians will give us an initial outline of the notion of time in the Greek world (Fate); we shall then turn to Homer in order to better grasp the complex relations between time and the religious sphere (the Hero); the work of the great theologian Hesiod will confirm this initiatory vision, later set out in remarkable fashion by Nietzsche (Myths); we shall then dive deep into Pythagoreanism to complete our account (Mysteries). Having understood this current of thought, powerfully influenced by the Iranian theogony, we shall be able to discern its clear differences from the so-called “Ionian” current, and thus to move away from Plato (Ideology). Lastly, we shall return to the early Ionian thinkers Thales and Anaximander to analyse whether this really was the vision of the world that Aristotle adopted in developing the first model of time (Science). In the second volume we shall see the return of the thought of the theologoi within the Aristotelian corpus itself, and will question our distinction between the being and existence of time.

Régis Laurent is a philosopher and member of the association Kairos Kai logos (Centre for the study of ancient philosophy). This book is the first part of his doctoral thesis in philosophy, undertaken under the aegis of three French universities (Grenoble, Clermont-Ferrand and Rennes). In addition to his philosophical training, the author is also qualified to Masters level in linguistics and in general psychology, and studied theology at the Thomist University in Paris (ULSH) and at the CEJ of the EHESS.
Trad Trista SELOUS of the book of Régis LAURENT : METAPHYSIQUE DU TEMPS CHEZ ARISTOTE - I - Recherches historiques sur les conceptions mythologiques
et astronomiques précédant la philosophie aristotélicienne, villegagnons-plaisance, 2009/04/16, Paris, www.editions-villegagnons.com

The article investigates the uses to which the figures of the Muse(s) are put in the poetics of Pindar and Bacchylides, considered against the background of their earlier employments in elegiac and melic poetry. Based on a thorough examination of the evidence, it argues that the two poets pursue different strategies: whereas Bacchylides develops a poetic mythology of named Muses (particularly, Ourania), Pindar redeploys the single unnamed Muse of the earlier hexameter and choral traditions, envisioning her as the poet’s collaborator. Pindar may thus be seen to originate the notion of the Muse as a deity associated with poetic composition, as contrasted with her mnemonic-epistemic role in hexameter verse.

Throughout his two books, Tibullus cultivates feet, chains, and related images as metapoetic symbols to express both his literary program and his involvement in contemporary literary polemic between elegy and epic. Unlike Propertius and Ovid, Tibullus engages only minimally in explicit programmatics and polemics, but metapoetic symbolism reveals literary concerns analogous to those of the other elegists. In Tibullus 1.1, these symbols allow the speaker's rejection of riches and soldiering to function also as a recusatio from writing panegyric epic for Messalla.

The problem of unity has plagued Pindaric criticism for generations and, although it has been a driving force in advancing the understanding of many aspects of the odes, it has also contributed to an excessive rationalization of its poetry by means of logical analysis that are inextricably bound to the literary form of the epinicians. Since I understand Pindar’s epinicians to be the entextualized script of an oral performance, I shall claim that the tools of traditional textual criticism will usually fall short of grasping the very unity after which they strive by forcing the odes to comply to a "centripetal" notion of unity (Heath, 1986). On the contrary, what I shall be proposing is that we move from a textual unity to a gestalt unity approach, which, as I shall try to show, is more akin to the dynamics of grasping the odes contents in the context of an oral delivery. By using the tools provided by the framework of Cognitive Sciences, I shall try to show that the architecture of Pindar’s epinicians invite such an approach, and that they are, in fact, designed to elicit a visual, rather than syntactical, parsing of the odes’ content in the audience.

Exegetical notes on 13 (Pindar conjures up the beginning of the Hesiodic Catalogue), 5-25 (Pindar turns the Catalogue's linear story into a complex 'récit'), 23-25 (Hypnos is personified and as such is 'murdered' (analisko) by Cyrene) and 87-92 (on the metapoetic meaning of Dirce's waters).