Matteo Milesi (University of Michigan)
In this paper I argue that the Cave of the Nymphs by the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry (234-305 CE) is best interpreted as an attempt to harmonise Aristotelian and Platonic ideas about poetry.
Since the pioneering work of Schrader (1880 and 1890) and Bidez (1913), scholars (e.g. Lamberton 1986: 108-113) have been struck by the fact that the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry performs two allegedly different kinds of exegesis in his works on Homer: on the one hand, his Homeric Questions appear to be a collection of short essays aiming at solving specific problems concerning Homer’s lexical or rhetorical choices according to a method that has been labelled philological or “Aristarchean”; on the other hand, The Cave of the Nymphs provides an allegorical interpretation of a marginal passage from the Odyssey in order to convey Platonic doctrines on the soul. More recent analyses (e.g. Fotini-Viltanioti 2019; Pontani 2019) have attempted to reconstruct a more coherent picture of Porphyry’s exegetical project, but the assumption that the Cave and the Homeric Questions are methodologically very different has remain unchallenged. By switching the focus from the results of Porphyry’s exegesis to the theoretical assumptions under which he operates (chs. 1-4 and 36), in this paper I argue that in the Cave Porphyry begins his investigation by reading the passage through Peripatetic/Aristarchean categories, in the spirit of the Homeric Questions, but he expands the limits of this tradition and he ends up proposing a Platonic theory of poetry.
I consider first the introductory chapters (1-4), where Porphyry justifies his allegorical interpretation on exclusively literary grounds. Building on the Aristotelian idea about the importance of credibility for poetic inventions (e.g. Poetics 1460b9-12), Porphyry recognizes that the Cave fails to produce the desired emotional effect on the reader (ψυχαγωγία) because it is too absurd; hence, either Homer is a bad poet according to the Aristotelian standard or the passage should be interpreted allegorically.
In the final chapter of the essay (36), Porphyry defends the allegorical interpretations that he has proposed. Starting from the analogy between the poem and the kosmos that he has established throughout the essay, he justifies the correctness of his interpretation by comparing the creative act of the poet with the creative act of the platonic demiurge: both of them are reproducing intelligible realities in a different medium (ἀπό τινων ἀληθῶν μεταποιοῦντα τὸ πλάσμα). Hence, Porphyry closes his essay by proposing a vision of poetry that is rooted in the Platonic theory of demiurgic craftsmanship.
My interpretation bears two important consequences: first, the exegetical method of the Cave is not at odds with the more philological inquiries of the Homeric Questions, but they are both grounded in the peripatetic tradition of literary criticism. Second, the structure of the Cave, by beginning with Aristotle and ending with Plato, mirrors Porphyry’s broader aspiration to harmonise the two philosophers (Karamanolis 2006: 243-330) and to show that Aristotle is propaedeutic for the understanding of Plato.