It is probable that Aesop did not commit his fables to
writing; Aristophanes (Wasps, 1259) represents Philocleon as
having learnt the ``absurdities'' of Aesop from conversation
at banquets) and Socrates whiles away his time in prison by
turning some of Aesop's fables ``which he knew'' into verse
(Plato, Phaedo, 61 b). Demetrius of Phalerum (345-283
B.C.) made a collection in ten books, probably in prose
(Lopson Aisopeion sunagogai) for the use of orators,
which has been lost. Next appeared an edition in elegiac
verse, often cited by Suidas, but the author's name is
unknown. Babrius, according to Crusius, a Roman and tutor
to the son of Alexander Severus, turned the fables into
choliambics in the earlier part of the 3rd century A.D.
The most celebrated of the Latin adapters is Phaedrus, a
freedman of Augustus. Avianus (of uncertain date, perhaps
the 4th century) translated 42 of the fables into Latin
elegiacs. The collections which we possess under the name
of Aesop's Fables are late renderings of Babrius's Version
or Progumnasmata, rhetorical exercises of varying age and
merit. Syntipas translated Babrius into Syriac, and Andreopulos
put the Syriac back again into Greek. Ignatius Diaconus, in
the 9th century, made a version of 55 fables in choliambic
tetrameters. Stories from Oriental sources were added, and from
these collections Maximus Planudes made and edited the collection
which has come down to us under the name of Aesop, and from
which the popular fables of modern Europe have been derived.
For further information see the article FABLE; Bentley,
Dissertation on the Fables of Aesop; Du Meril, Poesies
inedites du moyen age (1854); J. Jacobs, The Fables
of Aesop (1889): i. The history of the Aesopic fable;
ii. The Fables of Aesop, as first printed by William Caxton,
1484, from his French translation; Hervieux, Les Fabulistes
Latins (1893-1899). Before any Greek text appeared, a
Latin translation of 100 Fabulae Aesopicae by an Italian
scholar named Ranuzio (Renutius) was published at Rome,
1476. About 1480 the collection of Planudes was brought out
at Milan by Buono Accorso (Accursius), together with Ranuzio's
translation. This edition, which contained 144 fables, was
frequently reprinted and additions made from time to time
from various MSS.--the Heidelberg (Palatine), Florentine,
Vatican and Augsburg---by Stephanus (1547), Nevelet (1610),
Hudson (1718), Hauptmann (1741), Furia (1810), Coray (1810),
Schneider (1812) and others. A critical edition of all the
previously known fables, prepared by Carl von Halm from the
collections of Furia, Coray and Schneider, was published in
the Teubner series of Greek and Latin texts. A Fabularum
Aesopicarum sylloge (233 in number) from a Paris MS., with
critical notes by Sternbach, appeared in a Cracow University
publication, Rozprawy akademii umiejetinosci (1894).
AESOPUS, a Greek historian who wrote a history of
Alexander the Great, a Latin translation of which,
by Julius Valerius, was discovered by Mai in 1816.
AESOPUS, CLODIUS, the most eminent Roman tragedian,
flourished during the time of Cicero, but the dates of his
birth and death are not known. The name seems to show that
he was a freedman of some member of the Clodian gens. Cicero
was on friendly terms with both him and Roscius, the equally
distinguished comedian, and did not disdain to profit by their
instruction. Plutarch (Cicero, 5) mentions it as reported of
Aesopus, that, while representing Atreus deliberating how he
should revenge himself on Thyestes, the actor forgot himself
so far in the heat of action that with his truncheon he struck
and killed one of the servants crossing the stage. Aesopus
made a last appearance in 55 B.C.---when Cicero tells us
that he was advanced in years--on the occasion of the splendid
games given by Pompey at the dedication of his theatre. In
spite of his somewhat extravagant living, he left an ample
fortune to his spendthrift son, who did his best to squander
it as soon as possible. Horace (Sat. iii. 3. 239) mentions
his taking a pearl from the ear-drop of Caecilia Metella and
dissolving it in vinegar, that he might have the satisfaction
of swallowing eight thousand pounds' worth at a draught.
Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 37; pro Sestio, 56, 58;
Quint., Instit. xi. 3, iii; Macrobius, Sat. iii. 14.
AESTHETICS, a branch of study variously defined as the philosophy
or science of the beautiful, of taste or of the fine arts.
Preliminary definition.
The name is something of an accident. In its original Greek form
(aisthetikos) it means what has to do with sense-perception
as a source of knowledge; and this is still its meaning
in Kant's philosophy (``Transcendental Aesthetic''). Its
limitation to that function of sensuous perception which we
know as the contemplative enjoyment of beauty is due to A. G.
Baumgarten. Although the subject does not readily lend
itself to precise definition at the outset, we may indicate
itsscope and aim, as undeibtood by recent writers, by saying
that it deals successively with one great department of
human experience, viz. the pleasurable activities of pure
contemplation. By pure contemplation is here understood that
manner of regarding objects of sense-perception, and more
particularly sights and sounds, which is entirely motived by
the pleasure of the act itself. The term ``object'' means
whatever can be perceived through one of the senses, e.g.
a flower, a landscape, the flight of a bird, a sequence of
tones. The contemplation may be immediate when (as mostly
happens) the object is present to sense; or it may be mediate,
when as in reading poetry we dwell on images of objects of
sense. Whenever we become interested in an object merely
as presented for our contemplation our whole state of
mind may be described as an aesthetic attitude, and our
experience as an aesthetic experience. Other expressions
such as the pleasure of taste, the enjoyment and appreciation
of beauty (in the larger sense of this term), will serve
less precisely to mark off this department of experience.
Differentiation of aesthetic experience. Its characteristics as feeling.
Aesthetic experience is differentiated from other kinds
of experience by a number of characteristics. We commonly
speak of it as enjoyment, as an exercise and cultivation of
feeling. The appreciation of beauty is pervaded and sustained
by pleasurable feeling. In aesthetic enjoyment our capacities
of feeling attain their fullest and most perfect development.
Yet, as its dependence on a quiet attitude of contemplation
might tell us, aesthetic experience is characterized by a
certain degree of calmness and moderation of feeling. Even
when we are moved by a tragedy our feeling is comparatively
restrained. A rare exhibition of beauty may thrill the soul
for a moment, yet in general the enjoyment of it is far removed
from the excitement of passion. On the other hand, aesthetic
pleasure is pure enjoyment. Even when a disagreeable element
is present, as in a musical dissonance or in the suffering
of a tragic hero, it contributes to a higher measure of
enjoyment. It is, moreover, free from the painful elements
of craving, fatigue, conflict, anxiety and disappointment,
which are apt to accompany other kinds of enjoyment; such as
the satisfaction of the appetites and other needs. To this
purity of aesthetic pleasure must be added its refinement,
which implies not merely a certain remoteness from the bodily
needs, but the effect of a union of sense and mind in giving
amplitude as well as delicacy to our enjoyment of beauty.
Marked off from practical activity,
As the region of most pure and refined feeling, aesthetic
experience is clearly marked off from practical life,
with its urgent desires and the rest. In aesthetic
contemplation desire and will as a whole are almost dormant.
also from intellectual activity.
This detachment from the daily life of practical needs
and aims is brought out in Kant's postulate that aesthetic
enjoyment must be disinterested (``ohne Interesse''), that
when we regard an object aesthetically we are not in the
least concerned with its practical significance and value: one
cannot, for example, at the same moment aesthetically enjoy
looking at a painting and desire to be its possessor. In like
manner, even if less aoparently, aesthetic contemplation is
marked off from the arduous mental work which enters into
the pursuit of knowledge. In contemplating an aesthetic
object we are mentally occupied with the concrete, whereas
all the more serious intellectual work of science involves
the difficulties of the abstract. The contemplation is,
moreover, free from those restraints which are imposed
on our mental activity by the desire to obtain knowledge.
Uniformity of aestetic experience.
While as the highest phase of feeling aesthetic experience
appears to belong to our subjective life, the hidden region of
the soul, it is connected just as clearly, through the act of
sense-perception, with the world of objects which is our common
possession. Being thus dependent on a contemplation of
things in this common world it raises the question whether,
like the perception of these objects, it is a uniform
experience, the same for others as for myself. We touch
here on the last characteristic of aesthetic experience
which needs to he noted at this stage, its uniformity or
subjection to law. It is a common idea that men's judgments
about matters of taste disagree to so large an extent
that each individual is left very much to his subjective
impressions. With regard to many of the subtler matters of
aesthetic appreciation, at any rate, there is undoubtedly
on a first view the appearance of a want of agreement.
The aesthetic judgment.
Contrasted with logical judgments or even with ethical
ones, aesthetic judgments may no doubt look uncertain and
``subjective.'' The proposition ``this tree is a birch'' seems
to lend itself much better to critical discussion and to general
acceptance or rejection than the proposition ``this tree is
beautiful.'' This circumstance, as Kant shrewdly suggests,
helps to explain why we have come to employ the word ``taste''
in dealing with aesthetic matters; for the pronouncements of
the sense of taste are recognized as among the most uncertain
and ``subjective'' of our senseimpressions. Yet viewed as a
species of pleasurable feelings, aesthetic experiences will
be found to exhibit a large amount of uniformity, of objective
agreement as between different experiences of the same person
and experiences of different persons. This general agreement
appears to be clearly implied in the ordinary form of our
aesthetic judgments. To say ``this rose is beautiful''
means more than to say ``the sight of this rose affects me
agreeably.'' It means that the rose has a general power of
so affecting me (at different times) and others as well.
Logical judgment and judgment of value.
The judgment is not the same as a logical one. It does not say
simply that as a matter of fact it always does please---even
if we add the limitation those who for, as we know, our varying
mood and state of receptivity make a profound difference in
the fulness of the aesthetic enjoyment. It is a ``judgment of
value'' which claims for the rose aesthetic rank as an object
properly qualified to please contemplative subjects. This
value, it is plain, is relative to conscious subjects; yet since
it is relative to all competent ones, it may be regarded as
``objective''---that is to say, as belonging to the object.1