Note on this edition: this is an electronic version of the 1999 book ...

72Demonic Texts and Textual DemonsOPPOSING READINGS OF THE CONFLICTING SELFA different reading is put forward by Jean-Pierre Vernant, whose views ondaimon/ethos conflict I introduced earlier. He thinks that the integration ofthe Erinyes does not entirely dispense with the contradictions inherent inthe Oresteia. Rather, this just establishes an equilibrium, which is based ontensions. A vote was took to clear Orestes from charges, and Vernant emphasisesthat actually the majority of human judges voted against Orestes –the vote was tied, and only because Athena had cast her lot for Orestes wasan absolving verdict reached. 77 In Vernant’s reading, “tragic ambiguity is notresolved; ambivalence remains.” 78 The mythical past and the young democraticsociety lay different claims to the fundamentals of the city; these tensionsin basic values and conceptions of human subjectivity can be analysedin the dialogue between the chorus (an anonymous collective) and the individualisedcharacter (the tragic hero). As I have pointed out, ancient tragedydid not recognise the unity of a person in the modern sense; instead, as Aristotlewrote, the character must bend to the requirements of the action(muthos). 79 Vernant claims that the tragic effect of such plays as Aeschylus’Seven Against Thebes is constituted by constant reference to two conflictingpsychological models, “political psychology” and “mythical psychology.” Inthis way, Vernant comes to his double reading of Heraclitus (discussedabove). 80 The tragedy is not pointing towards true integration; instead, it isVernant’ strategy to focus on hidden tensions and to emphasise conflict asfundamental for tragedy and the human condition.Suzanne Gearhart, in her The Interrupted Dialectic (1992), has exploredthe use of tragedy in theoretical discourse, and noted how criticism, philosophyand psychoanalysis have an ambivalent relationship to it. Manytheories privilege tragic literature, find their theoretical insights confirmedby it, but, according to Gearhart, they are also limited by their particular interpretationsof tragedy. In the case of Hegel, for example,philosophy itself can claim to be higher than tragedy only because it incorporatestragedy into itself, because its own truth has a tragic dimension.The dialectic of tragedy and philosophy is a process out of whichphilosophy itself emerges as absolute, because of the way it is able to recognizeitself in tragedy and merge with it without losing its own identity. 81my demon but also my friend spurring me on. Not only the torment, the anguish and thefeeling of irreparable humiliation faded, but the driving force of my creativity was alsoeclipsed and fell away.” (Bergman, The Magic Lantern; quoted in Diamond 1996, 295.)77Aeschylus 1979, 264-65 [Eum., ll. 750, 767].78 Vernant 1969, 108n2.79 Aristotle 1982, 51 [1450a-1450b]. See above, page 24.80See above, page 26.81 Gearhart 1992, 2. – The “ancient quarrel” between poetry and philosophy has beendiscussed in Gould 1990 and Rosen 1988.