DeLacy Ph., “Stoic Views of Poetry”, AJPh 69: 3 (1948) 241-271.

* Pg. 241, Aunque no poseemos ninguna Poética estoica, “of all ancients philosophies
stoicism was the most favorably disposed toward poetry”.

* Nota 1, títulos de las obras de estoicos que abordaban el estudio de la poesía (Zenón,
Cleantes).

* Pg. 242, repaso de las fuentes que poseemos de los estoicos y su fiabilidad.

* Su objetivo es reorganizar las evidencias para reconstruir las visiones poéticas de los
estoicos.

* The starting point: the problems in the poetics follow the pattern of the problems of
language.

* A poem can be considered as both lexis and logos. As lexis, it is a pattern of sounds
and words; as logos it signifies a certain meaning.

* El autor divide el artículo en 1) The linguistic form of poems 2) The meaning or

thought of poems 3) the poetic elaboration of thought.

* A poem, considered as phone or echos, is in the first instance an object of auditory

perception.

* Pg. 251, sobre la psychagogia, nota 52, “the term psychagogia is sometimes used by
the stoics of this influence, but apparently not in any precise sense. It is not, of course, a
peculiarly stoic term. Incluye noticias de Estrabón, Epicteto, etc.

* Pg. 252, La lexis, “this part of literary theory is thought to have been neglected by the
stoics.

* Sobre la lexis solo tenemos pequenas referencias de Crates y Aristón de Quíos (no
estoicos, pero cercanos, según el autor).

* Aristo held that good (astheia) must have a good arrangement of words (synthesis
asteia) and a serious meaning (dianoia spoudaia)

* Pg. 256, para Posidonia, “poiesis is significant poetic diction, containing an imitation
of things divine and human”.

* The imitative relation between words and meaning appears on three levels in Stoic
theory. In one sense a poem taken as a whole imitates life, in that it presents the actions,
characters and passions of men. Nota 86, Cf. Strabo I, 2, 3; Horace, Ars Poet. 317-8;
Plut. Aud. Poet. 25B.

* Pg. 257, imitación = reflejo de la realidad. Aristóteles, Poética 1447 a 16; 28.
* It involves appropiateness in the sense that the words and actions of a character in a
play must conform to what would be considered appropriate to such a character in real
life.

* Sometimes a poem or other work of art does not literally copy that which it signifies,
but rather presents a situation in which the relations of the elements correspond to those
found in the thing signified, though the elements themselves are different. For example,
Heracles´killing the many-headed hydra signifies the philosopher´s triumph over
pleasure.

* Thus the imitation may be symbolical or allegorical.

* The imitation of meaning is found not merely in extended passages or entire poems; it
is present also in single words. Here the imitation is again expressed in terms of
relationships, rather than simple copying.

* Pg. 258, Gellius reports that according to Chrysippus all words are ambiguous.

* Pg. 259, “the stoics recognized that the use of words in altered meanings is especially
common in poems”. Cf. PLut, Aud. Poet. 24C

* Allegory is present when a poets says one thing and means another (Heraclito Cap 5;
Quint. VIII 6, 44), or when he presents one thing by means of another (Ps. Plut, Hom.
II, 70).

* The stoics gave them (alegorías) a special prominence.

* Pg. 260, catachresis is properly the application of the name of a thing to another thing
that has no name on its own. According to Quintilian (VIII, 6, 34; cf. Ps. Plut. Aud.
Poet. 25 B, hablando de Eurípides), poets use words by catachresis even when the
things so designated have names of their own. The stoic use of catachresis in the
interpretation of Homer is implied in Aristo´s statement that Homer is good not kuríws
but katachrstikws (Philod., Poems, V).

* Perhaps the figure most often linked with allegory by the Homeric commentators is
ainigma, which Quintilian defines as allegoria quae est obscurior (Quint. VIII, 6, 52).

* PG. 260-1, el autor une la alegoría con la metalepsis, ainigma y énfasis.

* Allegory is also linked with the “symbolical” use of words.

* Simbolismo de Homero en la descripción del inframundo en Heraclito 74.

* Pg. 262, but most important in allegory is the notion of imitation. What is said may
coy, resemble, or imitate what is meant. The most conspicuous instance of this kind of
allegory is Crates´ interpretation of the shield of Agamemnon and Achilles. The shield
of Agamemnon is a mimema tou kosmou, according to Crates.
* So Alcaeus´use of the storm at sea as an allegory of civil strife is termed an eikasia by
Heraclitus. Este término, que remite a Platón aparentemente, nunca lo he visto cmo
semejante a alegoría. Heraclito usa esta palabra varias veces y Ps. Plut., ver nota 125.

* Pg. 263, the thought signified by speech is judged by the logician to be true or false,
valid or invalid, and so forth, in accordance with the rules of logic.

* The poet must be a master not only of logic, but of the other arts as well, if he is to be
competent to insure the truth of the thought he expresses. Cf. Philod. Poems V. Homer
is often portrayed as master of the various arts; cf. Strabo I, 1, 2; I, 2, 3; Ps. Plut, Hom.
II, 92; Heraclito 35; Dionisio Halicarnaso, Epist. Ad Pomp. 1.

* Pg. 264, Later stoics used Homer primarily as a source of moral instruction, citing
Ulysses, Agamemnon, and Achilles as examples of virtues and vices. E.g. Seneca,
Epist. Mor. 31, 1; 56, 15; 66, 26; 88, 7; 104, 31; 123, 12; Benef. IV, 27, 2; Dial. II, 2, 1;
IX, 2, 12; Arrian, Epict., I, 11, 31; 22, 5-8; 25, 10; 28, 23-5; II, 24, 21-26; III, 22, 7; 30-
37; IV, 2, 10. The most famous statement s perhaps Horace, Epist. I, 2.

* A rather surprising instance of the use of Homer as an ethical teacher appears in the
work of the Epicurean Philodemus, On the Good King according to Homer, where the
character of the ideal king is derive from the Homeric poems. Nota 142, in all
probability Philodemus is here following a non-epicurean source.

* Pg. 266, Cicero and Quintilian speak of the danger of infecting the minds of the young
through poetry, especially comedy (ver nota 149 para las citas). Seneca rejects the view
that Homer was a philosopher, and in general he places little value on the poets as
ethical teachers (nota 150). Aunque en la página 264, cita 100 pasajes de Seneca de
Ulises y otros héroes como ejemplo moral.

* Pg. 269, audiences are divided by the stoics into the educated and the uneducated (ver
nota 172). An uneducated audiences is unable to appreciate a philosophical discourse
and must

therefore be drawn to philosophy gradually, through poetry and music. The poets, for
instance, present the gods in human form in order to teach a los de peor mente that the
gods exist. Thus poetry and music are considered a kind of preparation for philosophy
(Philod. Mus.; Sextus, A. M. VI, 29; Plut. Aud. Poet. 15F) or even a first philosophy
(Strabo I, 1, 10; 2, 3).

* It is apparent that poetry and music are particularly important in the education of
children (Philod. Poems V; Strabo I, 2, 3; Athenaeus XIV, 623F; Heraclitus, 76).

* Instructs the hearer in virtue and the arts (Ps. Plut. Hom. II, 6; Athenaeus XIV,
628BC). The poet deters from vice by examples of evil, and provides good examples for
imitation. Cf. Heraclitus, 70; Philod., On the good King.).

* Seneca, in particular, believed that the study of poetry does not give instruction in
virtue, though he conceded that it prepares the way. (Nota 182) Como San Basilio más
tarde.
* Pg. 271, Seneca, Epist Mor. 108, 10: poetry is a kind of trumpet which amplifies the
human voice to the point where it is capable of expressing its divine theme.

* Resumen: The stoics analyzed poems in terms of multiple sets of relations: the
relation of speech sound to each other, the relation of the disposition of speech sounds
to the disposition of the auditor, the relation of words to meaning, the relation of a
poem´s meaning to truth, the relation of the complex of words and meanings to the
moral edification of the auditor.