Abstract
The article revives the notions of thaumaston and thaumasion from Aristotle’s Poetics to study surprise in music perception. A detailed analysis of these terms reveals a previously unrecognised distinction between the potentially and the subjectively surprising, referring to the disposition to surprise and to its subjective experience, respectively. This distinction resolves important problems: if the experience of surprise is subjective, what does it mean when we attribute the quality of surprising to the musical event itself? And why does the same musical event elicit surprise in one listener while leaving another indifferent? The article furthermore studies the conditions of both types of surprising with particular attention to influencing factors such as expertise and purpose of listening. Thus, by analysing surprise in music, we discover a necessity and a way to bridge ancient and contemporary philosophy, reaching a deeper understanding of surprise and demonstrating how ancient concepts may enrich contemporary aesthetics.