Strategies of Ambiguity in Ancient Literature

Martin Vöhler, Therese Fuhrer, Stavros Frangoulidis, Martin Vöhler, Therese Fuhrer, Stavros Frangoulidis

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783110715842
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Ambiguity in the sense of two or more possible meanings is considered to be a distinctive feature of modern art and literature. It characterizes the "open artwork" (Eco) and is generated by "disruptive tactics" (Wellershoff) and strategies to engender uncertainty. While ambiguity is seen as a "paradigm of modernity" (Bode), there is skepticism regarding its use in the pre-modern era. Older studies were dominated by the conviction that there was a lack of ambiguity in pre-modernity because, according to the rules of the "old rhetoric", ambiguity was seen as an avoidable error ( vitium ) and a violation of the dictate of clarity ( perspicuitas ).

The aim of the volume is to re-examine the putative "absence of ambiguity" in the pre-modern era. Is it not possible to find clear examples of deliberately employed (intended) ambiguity in antiquity? Are the oracles and riddles, the Palinode of Stesichoros and Socrates (Phaedrus), the dissoi logoi of rhetoric, the ambiguities of the tragedies all exceptions or do they not indicate a distinct interest in the artistic use of ambiguity?

The presentations of the conference, which will include scholars from various philologies, will combine a recourse to theoretical concepts of intended ambiguity with exemplary analyses from the field of pre-modern art and literature.

Part I: Concepts and Aesthetics of Ambiguity

Modern and Ancient Concepts of Ambiguity

Martin Vöhler

Abstract

Ambiguity in the sense of two or more possible meanings is considered to be a distinctive feature of modern art and literature. It characterizes the ‘open work of art’ (Eco) and is generated by strategies to engender uncertainty. While ambiguity is seen as the preferred domain of modernity, there is skepticism regarding its use in the pre-modern era. Older studies were dominated by the conviction that there was a lack of ambiguity in pre-modernity because, according to the rules of the ‘old rhetoric’, ambiguity was seen as an avoidable error (vitium) and a violation of the dictate of perspicuity. Is it not possible to find in antiquity clear examples of deliberately employed (intended) ambiguity? Stanford was the first to re-examine the putative ‘absence of ambiguity’ in the pre-modern era. His approach serves as a starting point for the following studies.

keywords: ambiguity (amphibolía), Aristoteles, connection (sýnthesis), form of expression (schéma tes léxeos), homonymity (homonymía), individual word (léxis), ‘open work of art’ (Eco), perspicuity (saphéneia), separation (diaíresis), stress (prosodía),

Ambiguity in the sense of two or more meanings is regarded as a significant characteristic of modern art and literature. Christoph Bode describes it (in the context of his comprehensive study of 1988) as a “paradigm of modernity”.¹ In view of the increasing use of the term, however, a certain skepticism can be perceived. With the “suspicion that ‘somehow’ almost everything in our (post)modern times could be described as ambiguous and ambivalent”, literary and art scholars as well as the art world, where the term is “ubiquitous”,² are calling for a critical revision of the term ambiguous.³ A study of ancient concepts of ambiguity, however, contributes only indirectly to the current discussion, to the extent that it deals with the question of the ambiguity of pre-modernism, which has hardly been explored in literary and art studies.⁴ It makes sense to look at the historical dimension of the concept and to examine its scope. Is ambiguity really the preferred domain of modernity? What about its use in pre-modern literature? Can strategies of intended ambiguity already be recognized here, or are they inadmissible ‘retrospective projections’ when the term is applied to a pre-modern work?⁵ How is the concept used? Are there any specific differences regarding its use in modernity? These questions are the focus of the contributions collected in this volume. Based on the current discussion, pre-modernity will be examined. In Umberto Eco’s 1962 study Opera Aperta,⁶ which is fundamental to the establishment of the term, the author examines the openness of interpretation of works of art. He starts from the assumption that an artwork (as a carrier of meaning) always comprises several meanings.⁷ It is not aimed at clarity and unambiguity, but at ambiguity and indeterminacy, even the inexhaustibility of interpretations. We might add that clarity and explicitness lead to a suspicion of kitsch or propaganda, for they deprive the work of art of its aesthetic value. According to Eco, the work of art as such has the characteristic of multiple meanings. To express this trait, he chooses the term ambiguity. He states that openness (in the sense of a fundamental ambiguity) is constitutive for the works of art of all epochs.⁸ Irrespective of this basic assumption, however, he observes specific forms of ambiguity that distinguish modern art. His study begins with compositions of the ‘New Music’. The scores by Stockhausen, Berio and Posseur offer the performer great freedom and a broad spectrum of possibilities; in a sense, they form an “explicit invitation to exercise choice”.⁹ Eco recognizes in the spaces provided here the basic features of a “poetics of the open work”¹⁰ of art that differs from traditional poetics. The compositions of the ‘New Music’ “reject the definitive, concluded message and multiply the formal possibilities of the distribution of their elements. They appeal to the initiative of the individual performer, and hence they offer themselves not as finite works which prescribe specific repetition along given structural coordinates but as ‘open’ works, which are brought to their conclusion by the performer at the same time as he experiences them on an aesthetic plane.”¹¹ Eco sees the tendency observed in the ‘New Music’ towards the “open”, i.e. ambiguous, work of art also in the visual arts of the present¹² as well as in contemporary literature.¹³

Bode confirms and deepens this approach in his study on “The Function and Meaning of Ambiguity in Modern Literature”, which he programmatically places under the title “The Aesthetics of Ambiguity”.¹⁴ The concept of ambiguity is “synonymous with two or more meanings”.¹⁵ In order to emphasize the new aspects of contemporary aesthetics, Bode draws the following conclusion by implication. While modernist literature is characterized by its ambiguity, older literature is distinguished by its avoidance of ambiguity. He postulates a fundamental “distance from ambiguity” for all ancient art and literature.¹⁶

Is this reasoning correct? It undoubtedly applies to ancient rhetoric, because in its framework the use of ambiguous stylistic devices appears to be a violation of the imperative of clarity and perspicuity (σαφήνεια, perspicuitas). These promote the trust and credibility that the speaker wants to gain from his listeners.¹⁷ Ambiguity, on the other hand, leads to a lack of clarity (ἀσάφεια) and damages prestige and authority: its use is considered dubious or unwise. The entire rhetorical tradition adheres to this precept of avoiding ambiguity.¹⁸

The avoidance of ambiguity applies to rhetoric, but not to ancient art and literature. This is the conclusion of Stanford’s fundamental study (Ambiguity in Greek Literature) of 1939,¹⁹ the first part of which deals with ancient rhetoric and the second with poetry. The study is based on the Aristotelian writings, especially the Sophistical Refutations and Rhetoric, which sum up the philosophical critique practiced by Socrates and Plato on the Sophist Enlightenment.²⁰ Aristotle systematizes this critique and, in the Sophistical Refutations, a small script that represents an appendix to the Topics, he treats the various possibilities of deception, presenting a total of thirteen strategies.²¹

What are the linguistic deceptions based on and what means are used? Aristotle distinguishes five types of ambiguity; he describes them as 1. homonymity (ὁμωνυμία), 2. ambiguity (ἀμφιβολία), 3. connection (σύνθεσις) and separation (διαίρεσις), 4. stress (προσῳδία) and 5. form of expression (σχῆμα τῆς λέξεως). These five types describe the entire rhetorical application spectrum of ambiguity, which fulfils the following functions: 1. Homonymity (ὁμωνυμία) leads to ambiguity when the word in question has two or more meanings. Ambiguity becomes in this way effective within the range of the individual word (λέξις). Ambiguity (ἀμφιβολία) refers to turns of phrase that include several successive words, but whose possible references remain ambiguous, as, for example, in the ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Part I: Concepts and Aesthetics of Ambiguity
• Part II: Playing with Linguistic Ambiguity
• Part III: Ambiguous Narratives
• Part IV: Ambiguity as Argument
• Part V: Ambiguous Receptions
• List of Contributors
• General Index
• Index of Passages