Abstract

Let me repeat one of my main points of my article: that "all three subjects of tragedy—plot, character, and thought—are reciprocal and correlative concretizations of a particular action and that thought bears this relation and makes its appearance with respect to each . . . in a definite way."1 This would be "understanding the interdependence or reciprocity of the three objects of imitation as functioning dynamically within an organic unity" . Thus, in one of the instances to which Ford refers, the question I raise as to disjunction of the three subjects of tragedy is not a question for me at all, except rhetorically, since it is based upon the suggestion of Jones, a view which I reject, but the mention of which allowed me to consider its possibilities first. In the other instance, and again with respect to Jones, the "double awkwardness" to which Jones originally refers is alleviated through clarification and interpretation by Jones himself, whose position in this matter I expand upon and interpret more widely. Thus, there is no "disjunction," and there is no "doubleness" of plot and action, nor, as I myself went on to show, any tripleness and quadrupleness either in relation of action, plot, character, and thought. Really, what we have here are different ontological orders of the subject of tragedy, a relation between the general and specific, the abstract and concrete, the concept and its instance, a relation like that of energy to the incandescent light . · 1. "On Aristotle and Thought in the Drama," Critical Inquiry 3 : 561. Leon Rosenstein is an associate professor of philosophy at San Diego State University