Download Eros Mimesis Poesis

Eros, Mimesis, Poiesis:
In the Beginning Was Dance . . .
Verum Factum
The Republic Book III, 401b-403C
Education in dance and Mousike
• There are two reasons why Mousike (the realm of
song and dance) is so important. Firstly because
rhythm and harmony penetrate more deeply into the
inner soul than anything else…they make a person
graceful…. And when rationality does make its
appearance, wont the person who has been brought
up in this way recognize it because of its familiarity,
and be particularly delighted by it?
Book III, 410e-412a
Education in Mousike
What about a person who puts a lot of effort into his
physical training, but has nothing to do with the
Mousike or philosophy? … Someone like this becomes
an enemy of rational argument, and an enemy of
music, and literature. He abandons any attempt at
persuasion using rational argument. He lives his life in
ignorance and stupidity, without grace and rhythm….
Graham Pont:
Plato’s Philosophy of Dance
• …The course of studies was meant to introduce the
students to a philosophical world view in which the
mathematics of music and dance emerge as the key
to understanding the Kosmos or universal system.
• … The harmony of the Kosmos became a system of
mathematical ratios which, they believed, was found
in the structure of the musical scale as well as the
entire world-system. This universal harmony came to
be formulated as the analogy of Macrocosm and
Microcosm.
Plato, Epinomis
• “What fairer spectacle is there for a man than the
face of day, from which he can then pass…. To the
view of night, where all will appear so different?
Now as Uranus never ceases rolling all these objects
round, day after day, and night after night, neither
does he ever cease teaching men the lore of one and
two.”
• Mimesis: “Imitation” gives us rhythm and thus
numbers
What does Love have to do with it?
Symposium: Speeches on Eros
• Phaedrus: Ennobles, resides in the lover not beloved.
• Pausanias: heavenly and common love.
• The doctor: Love promotes order and harmony
• Aristophones: Looking for your half to feel whole
• Agathon: Love is young and beautiful
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Diotema’s Lesson on the nature of Eros
hybrid being: Child of Penia and Porros
It is needy, and it is enterprising/resourceful, as is a
philosopher
It desires beauty, because it does not have it, and
wants to possess it
For eternity. Love is love of immortality. We want
the things we love for ever.
What is Eros for?
• It moves us towards the beautiful.
• We create and procreate only in beauty.
• Language (logos and dance) itself contains
Eros, as it is a longing for completion, for
clarity and beauty.
• We become god-like and immortal in
creativity
• NOT all movement is Erotic. Following
Instruction is mechanical.
• So, Is it better to be the lover or loved?
Friedrich Nietzsche [KNEE-chay]
• 1844–1900: philologist,
philosopher, composer, poet
• befriended composer Richard
Wagner
• 1869 professor of classical
philology in Basel
• 1879 resigned due to health
reasons
• 1889 mental collapse
The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of
Music (1872)
• his first book
• What kind of dance did Plato
leave out?
• Dionysiac barbarians
Dionysus
wine, earthDionysus
nature, the wilderness
intoxicated reality
the group
sensuality
excess
cruelty, cries of horror
chaos
music, dance; tragedy
death
Apollo
Dionysus
Apollo
wine, earth
sun
nature, the wilderness
culture, the city
intoxicated reality
dream-world, appearance
the group
the individual
sensuality
intellect
excess
moderation, restraint
cruelty, cries of horror
beauty, joy
chaos
art, order, structure
music, dance; tragedy
sculpture; epic
death
illusion
reconciliation of Dionysus and Apollo
• Olympian gods: neither Titans nor ascetics: serenity
• Greek tragedy: combines Dionysian insight into the
horror of existence (Chorus: music, rhythm) with the
Apollonian instinct for beauty (protagonist: words)
=> emphasis on suffering, not action; the will to live
Nietzsche on dance/tragedy
• poiesis: a look into the abyss of horror and death
• eros: an excess of Dionysian sensuality
• mimesis: a group ritual, allowing us to cope