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Dance and Drama in Aristotle’s Dramatics (aka

Poetics): New Principles from an Ancient Treatise

Gregory Scott

T
he title, given how the paper has evolved since I submitted my abstract months
ago because of the recent developments in Greece, is better called “The
Unrecognized Value of Dance in the Politics of Plato and Aristotle.”

Today, I wish to speak first about Greek politics. No, not about the Syriza Party and the
matters pertaining to the European Union. Rather, about political theory as given by two
ancient Greeks, who may well have stood on the exact spot you are sitting: Plato in his last
book, the Laws, especially when he focuses on mousike ̄, typically translated as “music,” and
by Aristotle in his Politics VIII, and how the theory pertains to educating the young in
mousike ̄. This was all to function as a preface to speaking about unrecognized principles
in Aristotle’s treatise typically known as the Poetics, but which I call, as some of you
know, the Dramatics. This is in part because I have argued in print (Scott 1999) and at
this annual conference two years ago that tragedy in that treatise requires harmonia kai
rhuthmos to be not translated as typically done, as “harmony and rhythm,” but more cor-
rectly in the context of choral art for those two philosophers as “music and dance.” This
means that tragic drama qua musical theater for Aristotle was its own independent art, like
opera for us, and that drama should not be categorized under literature, even though
drama, like opera, uses language in part. However, given that I have less time today
than I originally thought I would have, I will only be able to cover the political principles
from the two ancient Greeks with regard to dance, which in some ways are most germane
to this conference and to the current cultural climate here in Greece.

These principles may seem very theoretical, but given also the economy of the U.S., which
itself is trillions of dollars in debt, it may be very soon that we need to look to Greece and
to how it handles dance in education given its own current troubles. Thus, this talk also
has a very practical undercurrent in it. When governments get too strapped for cash to
handle all of their needs—military, medical, educational, and services as banal but as im-
portant as garbage collection—it obviously becomes difficult for their citizens to argue that
the state should pay for music or dance education, when these are considered by many to
be leisurely activities, often ranking last in the last of disciplines to fund. Indeed, dance is
the last of the last, because when it comes to arts in education, at least in the U.S., it is very
rare that it would be funded before music, literature, visual arts, and theater. Yet this is
exactly the question that Aristotle takes up in Book VIII of his Politics over 2,300 years

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ago: why should the state fund “musical” education? Some questions are eternal. I hope to
show today that, properly understood, he and his mentor Plato can be enlisted when you
have to provide reasons why dance should be funded, in spite of the typical historical view
that they—as mind- or soul-oriented thinkers—do not care much about the body and
therefore by extension dance.

Until my own work recently, at least Aristotle was considered always to focus, when it
came to choral arts such as tragedy, on poiesis as “poetry,” the way the term is standardly
translated in this context, that is, as “language in verse.” Yet this is the meaning of the term
as given only for the first time by the sophist Gorgias in his Encomium to Helen in 415
BCE, according to an impressive article by Noburu Notomi (2011). No one, shockingly,
for over 1,000 years (as far as I can ascertain after exploring the historical commentators
going back to Avicenna, at least with respect to Aristotle) considered that the two ancient
philosophers would use term poiesis as Plato himself actually describes it via Diotima in the
Symposium 205c, if even to argue that the Gorgian sense of the word is more correct.
Diotima, you will recall, is the woman who taught Socrates about the meaning of love,
and she says people use the word poiesis as “making,” the general sense, or more narrowly,
and she emphasizes more appropriately, as “making with mousike ̄ and verse.” I have con-
tinued to argue, especially in a forthcoming book (Scott unpublished), that by hypothesiz-
ing that Plato and Aristotle actually use poie ̄sis and cognate terms like poie ̄tai and poie ̄tike ̄s
(typically translated as “poets” and “the art of poetry”) in the way Diotima describes the
term, we can solve a number of seemingly untractable problems in both the Laws II and
the Dramatics. The latter treatise itself begins, of course, with the words peri poie ̄tike ̄s, “re-
garding poetry,” in the traditional but in my view horrible translation. I say this in spite of
Leonardo Tarán, one of the finest philologists in the world, in his very recent book on the
Dramatics, as he astutely notices that it starts off with an immediate mention of plot. The
first sentence of Aristotle is, according to my corrected translation:

Regarding [the art of] (dramatic) “musical” composition ( poiêtikês) in itself


and its kinds (τω̑ν εı҆ δω̑ν), and what power (δύναμιν) each has; how plots
(μύθους) should be constructed if the (dramatic) “musical” composition
(ποίησις) is to turn out well . . .

Never even acknowledging the Diotiman sense, Tarán helps to explain this by simply as-
suming the Gorgian sense of poie ̄sis and by saying, absolutely unbelievably, that “Aristotle
is implying that the plot is the essential element of each species of poetry [my emphases]
(Tarán and Gutas 2012, 224).”1 Suffice it to say here that much poetry in ancient
Greece before and during Aristotle’s time, even some poems that he himself wrote, did
not have plot, and Aristotle would have been ridiculous to imply the opposite. Rather
poie ̄sis has the Diotiman sense as “mousike ̄ and verse,” whatever mousike ̄ means, which I
will discuss in a moment, and poie ̄tai and poie ̄tike ̄s should be translated instead as “com-
posers” or “musical composers” and “the art of musical composition” or something sim-
ilar; understanding this helps to resolve why Aristotle only focuses in the treatise on the
two dramatic musical arts, tragedy and comedy, and secondarily on epic, which also in-
volved a rhapsode chanting and gesticulating, which was allowably dance in the ancient
Greek sense, and which was said in Chapter 23 in its definition to be composed on dra-
matic principles (dramatikous, 1459a19).

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What about mousike ?̄ The term has been unfortunately translated, also in the political trea-
tises of the two ancients in all places typically over at least the last hundred years, as
“music,” even though it can—and should—much of the time mean “music and dance.”
In other places, mousike ̄ can have an even broader, original meaning as “arts of the
Muses,” which can include history and other non-artistic disciplines. Muses. Mousike ̄. It
is very clear, however, from the context in the two philosophers’ political works, that
the term is not used in this very broad sense. In Plato’s dialogue the Alcibiades (at
108c), mousike ̄ is explained as being the combination of kithara-playing, singing, and step-
ping rightly. The Greek is τo` κιθαρίζειν καὶ τo` ᾁδειν καὶ τo` ἐμβαίνειν ὀρθω̑ς (Plato 1986,
305). In Aristotle’s Politics VIII 7, mousike ̄ is said to be the harmonia kai rhuthmos (Ross
1957, 1341b242)—the music and dance, as I translate. Today, then, in the context of choral
art for Plato and Aristotle, mousike ̄ is “music and dance,” not simply aural music in our
sense.

So much for preliminaries. Again, because our time allotted has shrunk, I am going to
have to dispense with remarks on the unrecognized value of dance for Plato, even if
some parts of the Laws are clearly praising the practice. I merely suggest now, then, that
anyone needing arguments in support of the polis funding dance read Glenn Morrow’s
Plato’s Cretan City (1960) and Susan Sauvé Meyer’s Plato Laws I and II (2015) and,
even more powerfully with respect to dance, her “Legislation as a Tragedy” (2011).

The Clearly Recognized Value of Dance for Aristotle


One famous statement in Chapter 1 (1447a26-7) of Dramatics is that dancers, even apart
from music, can impersonate with ethos (character), pathos (emotion/suffering), and praxis
(action) (Tarán and Gutas 2012, 165).3 This is the statement that most people focus on
when trying to understand Aristotle’s sparse comments on dance. Some, like André
Levinson (1927), argue that because of this passage that Aristotle unfortunately only ac-
cepted dance that was mimetic and always subsumed dance under drama. I rebutted
this view in Dance Research (Scott 2005) and showed that Aristotle would also accept for-
malistic art-dance, even if his preference is mimetic dance. One reason is that in Chapter 4
he states, pertaining to painting, that if the source of the representation is not known, one
can enjoy the color or composition, and without compelling arguments to the contrary the
same would hold for dance. Thus, unlike Plato, who disparages “meaningless” tunes,
Aristotle grants formalism value, even if, again, his own preference is also for mimetic
dance. More importantly in this context, Aristotle also diverges from Plato by ranking
tragedy over epic, Plato’s favorite art form, using dance in part in Chapter 26 to outrank
epic. Clearly, then, Aristotle values dance.

In some ways, though, Levinson merely follows the general impression that hearkens back
to Claude-François Menestrier (1631–1705), Jean Georges Noverre (1727–1810), and
Carlo Blasis (1797–1878), three of the great ballet theorists of Western Europe. Those
three did not recognize in their publications all, or even most, aspects of dance in
Aristotle’s work, and they seemingly did not care about exegesis of passages in
Dramatics. Rather they only typically borrowed the concepts to support their own purpos-
es. Nevertheless, unlike most modern dance scholars, at least Menestrier (1682, 37) and
Blasis (1828, 116) emphasized that orchesis was the more representational form of

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dance, and that mere dancing was patterned movement that did not deserve as much
praise. Indeed, Menestrier denigrates those who are too lazy to represent a story in
dance (1682, 162–163)! This is the distinction that I have claimed exists in Plato and
Aristotle between mere rhuthmos as dance qua ordered body movement, as given by
Plato in Laws II (1903, 665a4), and orchesis as a more complex, gestural, representational,
and even storytelling type of dance, even if sometimes the terms are used interchangeably.

The Unrecognized Value of Dance for Aristotle


Again, until my own work, there has been no recognition to my knowledge that Aristotle
was concerned with dance also in Politics. To summarize what I said in Trondheim two
years ago, and which is available online in the Proceedings and as I noted already
above, Aristotle specifically says that mousike ̄ is harmonia kai rhuthmos in VIII 7. Again,
this is not “harmony and rhythm,” but “music/melody and dance.” Moreover, melos, an-
other important concept used there, primarily means “limb” in ancient Greece but is typ-
ically translated as “melody” in these contexts. However, as ancient musicologists, for
example, Thomas Mathiesen, have recognized independently with respect to other ancient
Greek authors, the three types of melos that Aristotle discusses in this chapter are not pure-
ly aural music, but in my interpretation the associated dance too, even if the primary focus
is on the aural experience. This adjusts what all or almost all commentators have thought
before, reading Aristotle as if only aural music in our sense was meant.

I wish to build now on this reappraisal of the ancient Northern Greek. A reviewer of my
forthcoming book asked what evidence there is that Aristotle in Politics VIII was concerned
with dance apart from the translation of harmonia kai rhuthmos as “music and dance.” A
couple of examples providing direct evidence follow. First, again as a preliminary remark,
the context is Aristotle justifying state-funded “musical” education. At the beginning,
Aristotle takes on the subject of the state, supporting practices that are not only useful
but that are ends in and of themselves—because “the first principle of all action is leisure”
(1944, Bk 8.3, 1337b31-325)—and these are better than things that are mere means to an
end, like, we might put it, using music to get better scores on exams. This is one of
Aristotle’s crucial points, which all dance and music theorists should understand and
use in their own apologies for dance. A few things are valuable in and of themselves:
no other justification is necessary, and one needs to be trained in them as one grows
up. Then, to put it in modern, more simplistic terms, a culture will have sons and daugh-
ters at artistic performances during their leisure time rather than, for instance, destroying
their livers with alcohol in bars. Aristotle says in VIII 3 (1338b4-7):

. . . the children should be enrolled in gymnastics (γυμναστικῇ) and physical


training (παιδοτριβικῇ). For the former brings a certain quality to their
bodily condition, and the latter to their performances. (Kraut 1998, 38; my
italics)

Before continuing, I should note that when one reads “gymnastics,” one should consider it
a synecdoche for “athletics,” following Meyer (2015), who very persuasively demonstrates
in her own forthcoming book that the activity covered more than what we ourselves call
“gymnastics.” That is, the term was as broad as “athletics” is for us. In effect, then, just as

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scholars have unfortunately in effect transliterated rhuthmos as “rhythm,” so they have in
effect transliterated inappropriately gumnastike as “gymnastics,” when it really meant, and
should be rendered, as “athletics.”

What, then, is the “bodily condition,” and who is the second trainer (παιδοτρίβης) set
against the athletic trainer who, by the way, Plato had also aligned alongside of, or in con-
trast to, dance in the Laws II (672–673, and especially 673b)? Aristotle never says but
Isocrates does in the Antidosis:

. . . certain of our ancestors, long before our time, seeing that many arts had
been devised for other things, while none had been prescribed for the body
and for the mind, invented and bequeathed to us two disciplines, physical
training (παιδοτριβικήν) for the body, of which gymnastics [γυμναστικὴ,
so better “athletics”] is a part (μέρος), and, for the mind, philosophy,
which I am going to explain. (Isocrates 1980, 15.181)
. . . For when they take their pupils in hand, the physical trainers
(παιδοτρίβαι) instruct their followers in the postures (σχήματα) which have
been devised for bodily contests (ἀγωνίαν), while the teachers of philosophy
impart all the forms of discourse in which the mind expresses itself.
(Isocrates 1980, 15.183; my italics)

The schemata are what both Plato and Aristotle attribute to dancers, especially those asso-
ciated with choral arts. The “contests” (agônian) obviously include the competitions that
Aristotle refers to twice in Dramatics 6 and 9, with the same word (agôn). This should not
be surprising to those who know that, e.g., the dithyramb was at least an annual compe-
tition involving a chorus of fifty boys from each of the ten demes (or “tribes”) in Athens,
for 500 competitors. The same competition was done in parallel with the men, so there
were 1,000 male competitors total showing off their singing and dancing skills, and at-
tempting to win the prize, which included their names being recorded for posterity.
Imagine the Super Bowl for Americans or Carnival for Brazilians, but in a context that
was more political and religious. Is it any wonder that training was given for these
types of events—training that also gave the kind of health, strength, flexibility, endurance,
and group harmony that Plato praises for dance, and that was useful for fighting in war?
Aristotle then is specifying that dance-type training (along with the “athletics”) should be
part of the education that is done before “theory.”

Then in VIII 5, Aristotle re-introduces the dilemma (with arguments on both sides) as to
whether education at the state-sponsored level should include “music.” He mentions the
three possible goals: first, amusement or recreation leading to relaxation; second, character
development; and finally, as already noted above, leisure implying intellectual enjoyment
(the best end because it is valuable in and of itself). Then, while still developing the
dilemma, he mentions again relaxation and states “for this end men also appoint
music, and make use of all three alike—sleep, drinking, music (mousike ̄)—to which
some add dancing” (orche ̄sin) (Aristotle 1944, 5.1339a20-21; my italics).6 Aristotle never
says whether he is one of those who adds dancing, nor does he say whether some add
it to the triad to make it a tetrad, or whether some add it to “music,” to give “music” a
broader sense. Obviously the issue is not crucial to him, perhaps because he has just

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emphasized the importance of bodily training in VIII 3, and there is no doubt that physical
and dance training will be implemented however one categorizes “music.” Whether the
term always includes dancing, or sometimes does, or never does, I determine in my
new book as I go through the rest of Politics VIII, showing that indeed sometimes mousike ̄
includes dance, apart from the definition of mousike ̄ in VIII 7 as harmonia kai rhuthmos as
“music and dance” (Scott forthcoming).

For instance, while settling in VIII 5 that “music” can and should be used for character
development, various passages are much better understood if rhuthmos is translated as
dance, which also helps explain a stunning passage in which Aristotle claims that
“music” is the most mimetic of the arts and can even represent courage and temperance!
This is the kind of specific ethos mentioned in Dramatics 1 portrayed by dancers, and not
just some mood like sadness. Conceiving mousike ̄ as I do, “(dramatic) ‘musical’ compos-
ers” really can portray courage, temperance, and the like without implying that aural music
for the Greeks had magical properties. As Athenaeus writes:

Aristotle says that Telestes the director of Aeschylus’s choruses was so great a
master of his art, that in managing the choruses of the Seven Generals against
Thebes, he made all the transactions plain by dancing. (Athenaeus 1854,
1.39)

After Aristotle settles that mousike ̄ should be taught for all three aforementioned goals, he
gives in VIII 6 an example of the Spartan chorus-leader (chore ̄gos) who led the chorus play-
ing the double-oboe (aulos) (1341a32), a topic that would only be relevant were mousike ̄ to
be meant as “a whole,” in the way Plato had used the term in the Alcibiades, including
playing an instrument or singing while “stepping rightly.”

To summarize: A number of passages in Bk VIII reflect Aristotle’s concern for mousike ̄ as a


practice that sometimes includes dance or is associated with dance. This is shown even
more when he gives the three or four goals of mousike ̄ in Chapter 7: amusement/recrea-
tion/relaxation, catharsis, education (or character development), and intellectual enjoy-
ment (diagoge), sometimes translated as leisure, but clearly differentiated earlier in VIII
from the amusement that children need. Intellectual enjoyment is typically an adult con-
templation and is something one gets, for instance, at the theater, which means it would
have been associated for Aristotle with the kind of choral arts one saw and heard per-
formed. The type of musical training in education involved for Aristotle the milder and
gentler kinds of music and dance, suitable for youngsters. I gather his kind of dance for
amusement/recreation/relaxation would be various ancient folk dances, akin to our social
dance like tango in terms of function but not in look, of course—dances in which one
participates for the sake of exercise and social contacts. The kind of melos or music-dance
for catharsis is the final case, and one especially intriguing, I imagine, for any dance ther-
apist in the audience today.

I should first explain that catharsis had been explicitly introduced in VIII 6 (1341a23).
There Aristotle indicates that the aulos (a double-oboe) should be used not in education
but for exciting (orgiastikon) performances that have the effect of catharsis. As some schol-
ars think, catharsis in the Politics VIII 6 & 7 might simply be a variation of the goal of

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mousike ̄ designed for relaxation, because earlier in VIII 3, Aristotle had said the relaxation
functions as a kind of medicine ( pharmakeias, 1337b41), and in VIII 7 he also emphasizes
that catharsis is a kind of medicine. However, it may be that Aristotle recognized that the
cathartic form is much more therapeutic and can handle more severe pathologies or psy-
chological conditions than mere recreational dance. Perhaps, then, there are for him two
variants of “relaxing” (or “becalming”) dance, and perhaps we should make cathartic
dance a fourth category. Aristotle himself uses the example of the melos of the sacred
rites to explain the catharsis, and says we see (the verb is ὁρω̑μεν) the participants under-
going a purification—the catharsis (1342a11-12). J. W. Fitton reminds us, while speaking
of the rites of the secret societies or “mysteries” (muste ̄ria), that, “According to Lucian
(Salt. 15), all muste ̄ria included dancing” (Fitton 1973, 255). Lucian, along with Plato,
is one of the three best sources of dance in ancient Greece, the final being Athenaeus.
Also, the neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus writes in the book On the Mysteries (I
11): “By seeing and hearing shameful things in some of the holy rites we are released
from the harm that derives from them in actuality (Janko 2011, 459; my italics).” I
have no idea what “shameful things” were seen (and heard), although the word from
other places, orgiastic, might give a hint. The catharsis from the “musical” aspect in the
sacred rites, then, was not simply an aural experience but one that involved dance move-
ments, some of which were shameful and which may have involved participants baring
their souls in all senses of that phrase.

Conclusion
Let me finish with both a general and particular remark. The general one is that, read as
above, Aristotle’s Politics offers as much support for state-supported dance as it does for
state-supported music in the modern sense. It also gives three reasons for “music” in
the aural or mixed aural-kinetic sense, and the best reason is that “music” is valuable in
and of itself, like eudaimonia or happiness, which is Aristotle’s end in life. Eudaimonia in-
cludes appropriate pleasure or the type of intellectual enjoyment that “music” gives as one
of the goods.

Now, only a fool, or a billionaire perhaps, would think that political power is not impor-
tant for the arts and especially for dance in any modern country. Can one imagine ballet
today without Louis XIV? His love and practice of dance, and his creation of the Academy
of Ballet even before the Academy of Music, permitted one of the great arts of ancient
Greece to get firmly planted again in Western culture. There is no Louis today, and
thus in a democracy, the professionals must unify and get their fair share of the pie,
because the billionaires seem to have other interests. I trust that the brief analysis above
demonstrates that those professionals, especially including dance theorists, should use
Plato and Aristotle—two of the most highly respected philosophers of all time—to ensure
dance’s rightful place in modern culture.

The particular remark concerns Greek business, specifically tourism: practically, one path
forward economically for Greek dance, politics, and tourism might be going backward.
Consider ancient Greece’s incredible dance history, for example: three choruses of
naked men that Plato describes dancing (the young, the middle-aged, and the old); or
the maeneds, some of the dancing women portrayed on vases, one of whom was clearly

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shown, according to one specialist, T. B. L. Webster, to be dancing flittingly en pointe,
without pointe shoes (1970, 26–27); or the Lesbian competitions; or the pyrrhic dances;
or the various forms recounted by Athenaeus. We do not know exactly what they looked
like, but so what? Truth has not stopped artists or creativity before, and there are dozens if
not hundreds of vases depicting satyrs and other performers to give some kind of authentic
flavor. Tourism brings many people to Greece who do not speak or read Greek, and who
will not therefore usually go to Greek film or theater. With dance you do not have the lin-
guistic problem: putting revivals on, properly qualified and explained, of the vast numbers
of subjects and styles would be a great boon to visitors, and would certainly make even me
wish to return with much greater frequency, notwithstanding my already existing love of
much of ancient Greek culture. Leave aside the modern values—be they Christian,
Communist, Greek Orthodox, or the like—and show the authentic, ancient Greek ones,
and the ancient Greek dance skills that, along with the philosophy and art of the day,
made Greece great. Naturally, no record of actual movement exists, but that then permits
any blend of dance techniques and excellent choreography, again, taking the historical re-
cords merely as a starting point. No critic could reasonably demand anything more (just
do not pretend the whole choreography is “authentically” ancient). The architectural mon-
uments should not be Greece’s only, or primary, draw. Then the country will offer some-
thing that Italy and other Mediterranean cultures—Greece’s competitors in the tourist
space—simply do not have.

Notes
1. Since their book is addressed to classicists, they often leave Greek passages untrans-
lated, and nothing should be inferred from me translating the Greek myself other than ex-
plaining for the non-Greek reader. Unless noted, all Greek is from their edition, and
redundant page numbers are given to supplement the Bekker numbers at the rigid insis-
tence of the editors.
2. Online version; no pagination. All Bekker numbers for Greek are to this source,
unless noted.
3. Redundant pagination required by editor.
4. No pagination given online.
5. No pagination given online. All Bekker references for English are to this transla-
tion, unless noted.
6. Kraut translates: “And this is why people classify it as they do and treat them all in
the same way—sleep, drink, and music; and they also include dancing among them”
(1998, 40). D. S. Hutchinson himself translates and comments:

“and that is why people order it and also engage in all of these, sleep and
alcohol and music, and they include dance as well in these.” In Kraut’s ver-
sion, it is a matter of how scholars think: . . . I can’t say that his version is
wrong, nor is it obvious that mine is: one can use the former verb for clas-
sification or prescription, and one can use the latter verb to mean ‘engage in’
and to mean ‘treat as.’ (Private correspondence, March 23, 2015)”

Nothing hinges in this paper on whether Kraut or Hutchinson is right, although if the lat-
ter, then the dancing is something that apparently is more broadly or actively done than on

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a scholar’s view of “mere classification.”

An anonymous reviewer indicates that this passage proves dance is not part of mousike ̄ for
Aristotle, but since Aristotle is only laying out the aporiai, the “puzzles” or dilemmas, this
does not hold. Certainly, mousike ̄, like logos, is a rich term and need not be used univocally
always for Aristotle.

Works Cited
Aristotle. Poetics (see Tarán and Gutas).
———. 1957. Aristotle’s Politica. [Greek text]. Edited by W. D. Ross. Oxford, UK:
Clarendon Press. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%
3A1999.01.0057%3Abook%3D8%3Asection%3D1341b. Accessed October 10, 2015.
———. 1944. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 21. [English]. Translated by H. Rackham.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?
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© 2016, Gregory L. Scott

After teaching ballet, GREGORY L. SCOTT (Gls62@columbia.edu) finished his PhD at the
University of Toronto (philosophy), with a dissertation entitled “Unearthing Aristotle’s
Dramatics” under Francis Sparshott. Along with teaching philosophy at universities in
Canada and the U.S., he was Director of Doctoral Studies in Dance Education,
New York University, from 1995–1998.

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