About Alfa manuscript of Aristotle Poetics (Parisinus Gr. 1741)

• Main Author: Paulo José Moraes Pinheiro
• Format: Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) 2018-06-01
• Series: O Que Nos Faz Pensar
• Online Access: http://www.oquenosfazpensar.fil.puc-rio.br/index.php/oqnfp/article/view/594

About the manuscripts from Aristotle’s Poetics that have reached us today, as its primary source (codd.), there are only two Greek texts, the Latin translation from G. de Merobeke and the Arab translation from Abu-Bishr Matta, made from the missing Syrian translation. In this essay, I intend to describe the course of the so-called Alpha MS (Manuscript Search) from Aristotle’s Poetics, that is, what’s in the Codex Parisinus Graecus 1741 between the pages 184 and 199. Also, I intend to allude to the importance of a study about the conditions of the ancient Greek text reading. Indeed, today’s reading of the Poetics is constructed from the variation of understandings – which is obvious –, and the subtle and usually determining variation of what was really written so many centuries ago, by one scribe or another.