| Summary: | This is a reply to a recent article by G.F.R. Ferrari, in which he proposes an umpteenth interpretation of catharsis in the final clause of the definition of tragedy in chapter 6 of Aristotle’s Poetics, despite all the arguments that Gregory Scott and I have developed in favor of the suppression of this clause. Ferrari supports his interpretation above all on a “re-reading” of Politics VIII, according to which catharsis is identified with “leisurely activity”, diagōgē and becomes an aesthetic experience, whereas I associate catharsis here with Aristotle’s category of “amusement / relaxation”, paidia / anapausis (that is said to function like a “healing”, iatreia, at 5.1349b17) and render diagōgē – whose goal is leisure, skholē, understood as theoretical activity – as “intellectual past-time.” For his own identification, Ferrari invokes three arguments. Although all three are absolutely untenable (two are even disconcerting), they are carefully considered in this reply. Yet I cannot resist adapting the famous question of Cicero at the beginning of The First Catilinarian Oration: “How long, dear colleagues, will you go on abusing our patience?”.
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