Jasper Griffin, in his recent book on Homer, has suggested that modern critics would do well to pay more attention to the localized insights and the general critical framework of the ancient Greek commentators. In a previous article, ‘Homeric Pathos and Objectivity’, he claimed to show, by careful study of those passages in which the scholiasts found λεος, οκτος or πάθος, that ‘the ancient scholars were right to regard pathos as one of the most important elements in the Iliad’. also (...) think this is a potentially fruitful and underdeveloped approach to the criticism of Homer and other ancient authors; and that the term pathos, together with ēthos, with which it is often coupled or contrasted, is one of the most suggestive, though also confusing, of ancient critical terms. I want to begin the story further back in time than the scholia, in the treatises on rhetoric and poetics from which the scholiasts’ critical vocabulary was largely derived. I propose to survey the use of ēthos and pathos as contrasted terms in these treatises from Aristotle to Longinus, in the hope that such a survey will not only clarify the various meanings and associations attached to these terms but will also throw a more general light on ancient critical presuppositions. Both Aristotle and Longinus used the ethos/pathos distinction to contrast the Odyssey and theIliad; and a clearer understanding of the significance they gave to these words may help us to appraise the critical usefulness of their comments. (shrink)

The most recent attempt to explain Aristotle's use of in Poetics 13 is that of T. C. W. Stinton , 221–54). Stinton insists that must not be restricted to any one definition, but should be understood to include a ‘range of applications’ embracing both moral error and ‘ignorance of fact’.

This article reconstructs the work of John Moles, eminent classicist with a wide range of interests, as a historian of ancient philosophy. The article focuses on Moles’ studies of Dio Chrysostom, Cynicism, and Aristotle’s Poetics. In particular, the article presents Moles’ ever original interpretations, based on an exceptional knowledge of the ancient sources and modern scholarship. The article highlights the fundamental characteristics of Moles’ approach to the history of ancient philosophy, which is grounded in a firm historical basis and in (...) detailed, acute, and always rigorously demonstrative analyses of texts. Moles’ contribution to the history of ancient philosophy is marked by strong ethical motivations and a commitment to trace in classical texts not just mere data, but rather values and ideas to be preserved and reflected upon. (shrink)