Has aesthetic inquiry reached a high water mark in Classical Studies? Nearly fifteen years after S. Halliwell leveraged mimesis to re-centre discussion, ‘aesthetics’, whether as proper subject or post-colon keyword, is frequently seen in our discipline. As expected whenever a critical approach formerly pronounced ‘dead’ is brought back to life, no small anxiety has been expressed over this most recent aesthetic turn. Central to these concerns is whether the fashionability of ‘aesthetics’ belies its status as an empty signifier, an overcorrection away from historicist dogma. And, while allowing for debate over the precise meaning and utility of the phrase, it may even be wondered whether the basic contours of ‘ancient aesthetics’ can be agreed upon at all.
Enter D. and M.’s timely Blackwell Companion, an accessible compendium sure to become the first stop for those interested in aesthetic thought in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. D., M. and the scholars they have marshalled make a resounding claim for the applicability, intellectual importance and methodological diversity of aesthetic inquiries into (and within) classical antiquity. Charting and developing recent progress in value-sensitive analyses, the book ties together many scholarly strands, verbal and visual, for the first time. In so doing, it offers a real service to the field.
One is immediately struck by the international gathering of scholars. Nearly all chapters are penned by established authorities, but contributors (thankfully) rarely restate earlier-published work. Some apply established methods to new content; others distil book-length arguments into digestible, consistently eloquent, precises. A handful, too, are productively cast slightly against type: P. Woodruff, for instance, offers a fresh, clear look at mimesis, while S. Halliwell handles fiction. Some, like D. Konstan, took the editors' invitation as occasion to embark upon trajectories represented more fully elsewhere (cf. D. Konstan, Beauty: the Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea [2015]).
The volume leans noticeably towards contributions by anglo- and francophone scholars, reflecting current (though certainly not historical) regional interest. Some will miss relevant Dutch voices (among others), but in a volume this rich, it may be greedy to ask for more. The collection also skews towards Hellenic, even Academic, concerns. Again this reproduces broader trends, but it is telling (and, as J.I. Porter would have it, problematic) that Plato and Aristotle each receive full columns of the index locorum. Despite the collection's encompassing title, shorter shrift is given to Quintilian and Horace, as Roman-era perspectives tend to be voiced with a Greek tongue.
If its content is shaped by regional biases both ancient and modern, the volume's intellectual scope is hardly bounded at all. In an efficient, wide-ranging introduction, D. and M. define their topic as ‘aesthetics, broadly conceived as responses to, and reflections on, the arts' (p. 1). The editors directly confront essential problems inherent therein, including historical definitions of ‘art’, the question of its autonomy and the competing aesthetic systems that have engaged thinkers both past and present. Mapping some obvious pitfalls of their endeavour (conceptual anachronism, terminological difficulties, etc.) the editors stake defensible ground by stating, perhaps controversially, that ‘the difficulties involved in the process should not deter us from exploring the very rich field of ancient aesthetic experience’ (p. 2). Pace Kant and Kristeller, but in line with the current opinio communis, they agree that ‘a religious or social function does not preclude an aesthetic dimension’ (p. 4). In so doing they give contributors free range over all aspects of cultural production, although some, most pointedly A. Ford, are hesitant to move past such difficulties.
The 33 chapters are divided into three sections with rather fluid boundaries. The first two, each chronologically arranged, offer eight chapters on ‘Art in Context’ and twelve ‘Reflecting on Art’. The final thirteen thematic chapters further develop, sometimes sweepingly, ‘Aesthetic Issues’ raised in the preceding units. Most readers will find it useful to hop around. Hellenists might, for instance, pair R. Martin's ‘Festivals, Symposia, and the Performance of Greek Poetry’ with Ford's ‘Literary Criticism and the Poet's Autonomy’, to gain stereoscopic insight into early criticism of Attic drama. Romanists in turn might combine A. Rouveret's ‘Painting and Private Art Collections’, T. Ravasi's ‘Displaying Sculpture in Rome’ and M. Squire's ‘Conceptualizing the (Visual) Arts’ to gain broader understanding of the nexus of legal, cultural and spatial considerations affecting the experience of ancient art.
But readers are often left to design their own eclectic readings, as cross-references are given unevenly. An occasionally incomplete index locorum (no Sappho) presents further obstacles for hearing the volume's many resonances. Scholars today might be excused for reading narrowly, especially when fitted with digital blinders – my institution ‘houses’ this book electronically. But even in print, a more obvious dialogue within the Companion would have whetted its critical edge.
In the space allowed, little meaningful engagement can be made with individual chapters. This is a shame, as many path-breaking contributions (by A. D'Angour, M. Silk and G. Zanker, among others) deserve discussion. Instead, I highlight a dialogue between three chapters – those by Porter, A.-E. Peponi and Ford – representing certain core positions of ancient aesthetics today.
Porter's chapter offers a lucid introduction to his materialist understanding of the sublime. Versed in but unfettered by post-Enlightenment tradition, Porter traces, from the ground up, a unified ancient concept avant la lettre – an intellectual mission shared here by D., M. Heath and others. Sure to be appreciated by those intimidated by his multi-volume series, Porter's contribution demonstrates some of the Companion’s practical value.
Likewise interested in phenomenological experience, Peponi outlines an ‘orchestic imaginary’ to theorise the unique aesthetics of dance's dynamic polysemy. Peponi's concept has broad consequences, from partheneia to pantomime, and may well displace A. Henrich's ‘choral projection’ in contexts tragic and beyond. Instantiating as it were the Companion’s manifesto, this chapter recognises ‘diverse, often unsettling, modes of reflecting upon [beauty]’ with the result that Peponi, no stranger to Plato, is nevertheless keen to wrestle aesthetics away from ‘a purely philosophical method’ (p. 207).
Adherents to just such philosophical methods, however, will appreciate Ford's contribution which makes a measured, but crucial, claim for poetic autonomy in classical Greece. A tour de force of aesthetic reasoning, the piece could easily be imagined in the British Journal of Aesthetics, but seems an outlier in a collection impatient to enter new aesthetic frontiers.
There was a time when aesthetics was a dirty word, soiled by Formalist, New Critical and even classist associations. As Ford recalls, for some the word denoted a ‘mystified concept whose only use is to lay claim to a privileged social position’ (p. 155). That moment has clearly passed. Decades of careful work by scholars, many of whom appear in this volume, are to thank for this shift.
But there is still progress to be made. The future of aesthetics, to hazard a projection from this Companion, will embrace foundationally the embeddedness of aesthetic experience. The result may be that certain traditional ‘problems’ (e.g. the blended semantics of kalos, prismatically separated here by Konstan) give way to new issues. Materialist aesthetics, championed by Porter and a premise for many, seems poised to reconnect more systematically to its Marxist roots. Even so, aesthetics – indelibly linked to an individual perceiving subject – can never be fully subsumed by the social. Aesthetics' cognitive horizons are also being pursued: it is too bad early explorers in this area (P. Meineck, F. Budelmann and P.E. Easterling) were not here to navigate these promising but methodologically fraught waters.
Despite aesthetics' current vogue, it is difficult to imagine that this authoritative Companion will be superseded any time soon. But in a debate that is still very much alive, even (if not especially) between its very contributors, this volume's unifying introduction and occasionally absent cross-references together strike a rather conciliatory tone. D. and M.’s Companion, if consistently thought-provoking, is occasionally less than provocative. Today's ancient aesthetics might well aim to be both.
