Methodos (Feb 2016)
Nous et noein en action dans les tragédies conservées : l’intelligence sur la scène tragique
Abstract
Numerous studies were dedicated to the psychological vocabulary and to the intellectual functions in Greek literature, particularly in theater, notably since the works of Br. Snell until the works of S.D. Sullivan. This article is in fact more modest and precise. It analyzes how the tragic theater is a corpus appropriate to seize the way the intelligence can appear in a traditional way with a concrete sense connected with action, but also how it is enriched by changing these uses, or even how it appears more abstractly as a reflection on the sense of human action, in dramas where this is staged and questioned at the same time. This study concerns not only the distinction between traditional senses and innovative meanings, but also the dramatic contexts on which these notions are used, because these contexts can contribute to renew the use of an apparently traditional use (e.g. in contexts dealing with political values in Sophocles and in Euripides). Also, the examination does not limit itself to nous and noein : it takes into account, on one hand the lexical peculiar creations of an author to measure their possible importance for the evolution of the notion (Aeschylus), and on the other hand some derived and compounded words – as far as they express the notion of intelligence – such as ennoein, ennous, pronoia and the antonym anoia : these words – verbs, names, or adjectives –indeed allow to enhance the uses connected with practical action, but where the notion of intelligence takes on an essential significance, and which sometimes are close to those present in the works of contemporary historians, such as Herodotus or Thucydides. The analysis shows how the tragic theater, in its dialogical dimension, presents situations of conflict where is questioned the sense of nous according to the diverse points of view of the characters, as well as the reflections for these characters or the chorus on these conflicts, by staging decisions which are followed or not by actions. Thus the tragic corpus appears as an important corpus for studying the evolution of the notion of intelligence in Ancient Greece before Plato.
Keywords
