Medea, tragedy and the Triduum

 

Reading Euripides' "Medea" during the Triduum.

Tragedy allows us to do three things:

1. appreciate more the goods we have
2. experience suffering w/o having to go through it ourselves
3. purge ourselves of the tension of bad emotions

Thus it brings us to a better place by instilling in us

1. self-knowledge
2. the sense of pity
3. gratitude

 

Thus the whole community was purged of the weight of suffering, anger, and pain; a practice which goes back thousands of years, perhaps beginning with an actual human as the scapegoat and only later by transference becoming an animal. In this sense it was more expedient that one lamb die than that the whole community perished. Before it perished, the little goat would lift up its head and cry out to heaven singing out its sorrow at the necessity of its own demise; a goat song; which in Greek is "trag - oidos".

Thus it brings us to a better place by instilling in us

In short, wisdom.

All education & art (perhaps all life) should be geared toward wisdom; a greater knowing of ourselves - gnothi seauton, as the Greeks said. Tragedy accomplishes this by allowing us to suffer vicariously without actually suffering;

    "drasanta pathos, pathei mathos"

    "the experience causes suffering, the suffering brings wisdom"

The First Sufferer of the tragedy, the proto-agonist, is one with whom we identify, allowing the drasanta to occur. Normally a human actor, used to be a goat (or a lamb). In the Ancient World the little goat would be painted, covered in ribbons and notes about the sins or sufferings of the village, and sacrificed (thrown off a cliff or eviscerated).

In tragedy we are encouraged to see the other as ourself, appreciate more our own blessings, become more aware of the sin and devastation we have caused. Sure it is sad, and it ought to cause us pain and sorrow even knowing that eventually the pain will pass over like a storm and be gone; but the point is that we fully enter into the mystery, not gloss over it with platitudes and self-congratulating affirmations; "there is offense, Horatio, and much of it."

We have to experience the Tenebrae facta sunt if ever we are to really appreciate the Haec est dies. And even though we rejoice that the pagan message of the goat song was christened by the "Christos anesti", still we have to experience the storm in all its rage, dying to ourselves that we might truly live.

Humpty Dumpty Broken

 

Humpty dumpty sate on a wall,
Humpti dumpti had a great fall;
Threescore men and threescore more,
Cannot place Humpty dumpty as he was before.
(1810)

    I have always maintained that the most important aspects of learning are entirely useless. Utility ought not be the measuring stick for why we learn these things - instead it should be love.
    

    I was interested whilst teaching about the Scholastic Debate to reflect on the original structure of the Liberal Arts and find that there is a logical connection between the Debate and the structure. The original LA did not include the mechanical arts, law, business, or carpentry, but it also did not include history, poetry, literature, or art. These were the later products, perhaps, of the LA, but the Liberal Arts were two sets;

1. the Trivium
2. the Quadrivium

The Trivium was HOW to learn. The Quadrivium was WHAT to learn (as in the most important things the mind could focus on). Trivium consisted of three disciplines

• Grammar
• Logic
• Rhetoric

Which taught the methods that could be applied to any form of learning.

    Grammar was not just ABCs, but rather was understanding the inner language of whatever discipline one entered, be it math, law, history, carpentry, plumbing.

    Logic included formal logic, yes, but was also learning the connections between the principles of the discipline; how does A relate to B? how does B connect with C? how do all three work together?

    Rhetoric trained in how to read, write and speak - but more to the point - trained how to express oneself in the language of the discipline and make comprehensible (and attractive) to others that language.


When I first read about this in my early 20s (in Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student by Corbett) it made sense to me, but for years I could not fathom why on earth (or heaven) the Medievals organized the Quadrivium in the way they did? Why not have history as a thing to be studied? Why not poetry? Why not Calculus?
    When reading Josef Pieper's "Scholasticism" the other day it dawned on me why this structure was considered the more important aspect of the Liberal Arts.
    Pieper points out that the Quadrivium consisted of

• Arithmetic
• Geometry
• Astronomy
• Music

This is primarily a Platonic organization based on the Divided Line (Eikasia, Pistis, Dianoia, Noesis) as outlined in The Republic & is the mind's ascent to be able to perceive the LOGOS (i.e. the pattern of the mind of God).



So essentially what the Medievals were saying was the greatest thing for the soul to consider was this mathematical pattern upon which all the world was based. Studying it led to the ability to use it (Architecturally, in music, in government, in sculpture, in poetry and prose) and also gave growth and enrichment to the soul BUT the main reason for studying it was for its own sake; a thing of beauty to be known and loved.


The Realists and Nominalists, then, were debating about the efficacy of this sort of education. The Realists held that there was something real existing in another world to which the mind could ascend through study and contemplation. Nominalists held that the thing to be known and loved didn't really exist outside of this world but was a perspective or viewpoint to be gained about the world which allowed men to live well (a utilitarian stance). As long as the two viewpoints were in debate or discussion with each other there was a healthy confidence and output to the society of the Medieval world. When that debate broke down (afterd Tempier's condemnations in 1277) and when the world was shaken by a series of upheavals in the 14th century, Europe devolved (as Pieper noted) into the two camps of rational atheism and irrational belief. And that was the beginning (and end) of the Modern World as noted by Guardini. Humpty Dumpty (the golden egg of mystical religious thought) had been broken and not all the king's horses nor all the king's men 

could put Humpty Dumpty back together again.