Cource:M.A English
Semester:1
Batch:2016-2018
Roll no:18
Submitted to:S.M.T
S.B Gardi
Department of English
Mk bhav university
Email
id:kavitamehta164@gmail.com
Paper no:3 Literary
Theory & criticism
Topic:Plato’s objection
to poetry and Aristotle’s answer.
My Assignment’s
Plato’s objection to
poetry :
Plato was the first systemic critic
who inquired in to the nature of imaginative literature and put forward
theories which are both illuminating and provocative .He was him self a great
poet and his dialogues are full of his gifted dramatic quality.his dialogues
are the classic of the world literature having dramatic,lyrical and fictional
elements.
Plato’s
theory of mimesis : all arts are imitative or mimetic in nature .He wrote
in The Republic that ‘Ideas are the
ultimate reality’.Things are conceived as idea before they take practical
shapes.so,idea is original and these things is copy of that idea.Carpenter’s chair is the
result of the idea of chair in his mind.Thus chair is once removed from reality
.But painter’s chair is imitation of carpenter’s chair.So it is twise
removed from reality .
Plato the
philosopher:as a moralist Plato disapproves of poetry because it is immoral.As
a philosopher he disapproves of it because it is hased in flashehood. Truth is
philosophy that is more important.
Plato’s three main objections to poetry
are that poetry is not ethical,philosophical and
pragmatic and other words,he
objected to poetry from the point of view of Education,from Philosophical point
of view and from Moral point of view.
Plato then makes a challenge to
poet to defend themselves against his criticisms.Ironically it was plato’s most
famous student,Aristotle,who was the first theorist to defend literature and
poetry in his writing poetics. Plato felt that poetry,like all form of
art,appeals to the inferior part of the soul,irrational,emotional cowardly
part.plato,an appreciation of poetry is incompatible an appreciation of reason,justice ,and the
search for truth.In Ion he suggest that poetry causes needless lamentation and
ecstasies at the imaginary eventf sorrow
and happiness.To him drama is the most dangerous form of literature because the
auther is imitating things that he/she does not understand .Plato seemingly
feels that no words are strong enough to condemn drama.Plato felt that all the
word’s evils derived from one source:a faulty understanding of
reality.Miscommunication confusion and ignorance were facets of a corrupted
comprehension of what Plato always strived for truth.Plato is above all a
moralist.His primary objective in the republic is to come up with the most
righteous,intelligent way to live one’s life and to convince others to live
this way .Every thing else should conform in order to achieve this perfect
state.plato considers poetry useful only as a means of achiving this state,that
is,only useful if it helps one to become a better person,and if it does not ,it
should be expelled from the community.Plato’s quation in book 5 is the
intellectual status of literature .He states that ,the good poet cannot compose
well unless he knows his subject,and he who does not have this knowledge can
never be a poet .Plato says of imitative
poetry and homer,a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth.
Plato’s commentary on poetry in republic
is overwhelmingly negative.In books 2 and 3 Plato's main concern about poetry
is that children’s minds are too impressionable to be reading false tales and
misrepresentation of the truth.As stated in book 2 ,for a young person can not
judge what is allegorical and what is literal;anything that he receives into
his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and undelible and
unalterable;and therefor it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be
model of virtuous thought.He is essentially saying that children cannot tell the
difference between fiction and reality and this compromises their ability to
discernright from wrong.Thus,children should not be exposed to poetry so that
later in life they will be able to seek the truth without having a
preconceived,or misrepresented,view of reality.Plato reasons that literature
that portrays the gods as behaving in immoral ways should be kept away from
children ,so that they will not be influenced to act the same way.
Another objection is that
it is often viewed as portraying either Male dominance or female
exploitation.People argue that this should not be the way the word
works;therefore it is not the truth.These claims sound much like the claims that
Plato is trying to make when he asserts that certain poetry should be kept out
of the hands of children.While the power of censorship can be abused ,Plato
seemed to believe that his stance is justified because he is trying to make
children grow to be good ,moral individuals.While Plato has some very negative
view on the value of literature ,he also ststes the procedures that he feels
are necessary in order to change poetry and literature from something negative
to something positive.He does feel that some literature can have redeeming
values.Good ,truthful literature can educate instead of corrupting children .In
the city plato would allow only hymns to the gods and praised to famous
men.Plato does not want literature to corrupt mind he wants it to display
images of beauty and grace .Plato’s view may be deemed narrow minded by today’s
society,but one must remember that Plato lived over 2000 year ago.He probably
wrote republic with the best intention for the people of his time.While his
views on censorship and poetry may even seem outlandish today,Plato's goal was to state what he judge to be the guidelines for a
better human existence.
1) Plato’s objection to poetry from
the point of view of Education:
a). In ‘The republic’book 2- He condemns
poetry as fostering evil habits and vices in children. Homer's epics were not
example of should or ideal morality.They were lusty,cunning ,and cruel-war
mongers.Even Gods were no batter.
b).Plato writes: “if we means our future guardians to
regard the habit of quarreling among themselves as of all things the basest,no
word should be said to them of the wars in the heaven,or of the plots and
fighting of the gods against one another,for they are not true…if they would
only believe as we would tell them that quarreling is unholy,and that never up
to this time has there been any quarreling
between citizens…these tales must not be admitted into our state,whether they are supposed to have allegorical meaning
or not”.
c).Thus he objected on the ground
that poetry does not cultivate good habits among children.
2)Objection from philosophical point
of view:
a).In ‘The Republic’ Book 5:poetry does not lead to,but
drives us away from the realization of the ultimate reality –the truth.
b).Philosophy is better than poetry because philosophy
deals with idea and poetry is twise removed from originl idea.
c).Plato says : “The imitator or maker of the knows
nothing of true existence;he knows appearance only …The imitative art is an
inferior who marries an inferior and has inferior offspring.”
3)Objection form the moral point of
view:
a).In the same book in ‘The Republic’:Soul of man has
higher principles of reason as well as lower constituted of baser impulses and
emotions.Whatever encourages and strengthens the rational principle is good,and
emotional is is bad.
b).Poetry waters and nourishes the baser impulses of
men-emotional, sentimental and
sorrowful.
c).Plato says : “Then the imitative poet who aims at
being at being popular is not by nature made,nor is his art intended,to
pleaseor to affect the rational principle in the soul ;but he will prefer the
passionate and fitful temper,which is easily limited…And there for we shall be
right in refusing to admit him into a well order state ,because he awakens
and waters the passion instead of drying them up;she lets then rule,although
they ought to be controlled,if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and
virtue.”
These are Plato's principal charges on poetry
and objection to it .Before we pass on any judgment ,we should not forget to keep
in view the time in which he lived .During his time:
· Political instability.
· Education was in sorry state.Homer
was part of studies-misrepresented.
· Woman were regarded inferior-slavery
· Best time of Greek literature was
over –corruption and degeneration in literature.
· Confusion prevailed in all spear of
life-intellect,moral,political and education.
· Example;philosophers and thinkers like socrates
were imprisoned,forces to drink wine/poison and kill him.
Aristotle replied to
them one by one in his defense of poetry:
1)Plato says that art being the imitation of the actual is
removed from truth.It only gives the likeness of a thing in concret,and the
likeness is always less than real.Bit Plato fails to understand that art also
give something more which is absent in the actual.The artist does not simply
reflect the real in the manner of a mirror.Art is not slavish imitation of
reality.Literature is not the photographic reproduction of life in all its
totality.It is the representetion of selected events and characters necessary
of a coherent action for the realization of artist’s
purpose.He even exalts,idealizes and imaginativaly recreates a world which has
its own meaning and and beauty.These elements,present in art,are absent in the
raw and rough real.While a poet
creates something less than reality he at the same times creates something more
as well. He puts an idea of the reality which he perceives in an object. This
‘more’, this intuition and perception, is the aim of the artist. Artistic
creation cannot be fairly criticized on the ground that it is not the creation
in concrete terms of things and beings. Thus considered, it does not take us
away from the Truth but leads us to the essential reality of life.
2)Plato again says that art is bad because it does not inspire
virtue,does not teach morality.But it is teaching the function of the art?Is it
the aim of the artist?The function of art is to provide aesthetic delight
,communicates experience,express emption
and present life .It should never be confused with the function of
ethics which is simply to teach morality.If an artist succeeds in pleasing us in aesthetic sense,he is a good
artist.If he fails in doing so,he is a bad artist.There is no other criterion
to judge his worth.Plato’s charge that needless lamentation and ecstasies at
the imaginary events of sorrow and happiness encourages weaker part of soul and
numbs faculty of reason .The charge is defended by Aristotle in his Theory
of catharsis .David Daiches summarizes
Aristotle’s views in reply to Plato's charges in brief: “Tragedy (Art) gives new
knowledge ,yield aesthetic satisfaction and produces a better state of mind.”
3)Plato judge poetry now from the
educational standpoint ,now form the philosophical one and then from the
ethical one.But he does not care to consider it form its own unique standpoint
.He does not define its aims .He forgets that everything should be judged in
terms of its own aims and objective its own criteria of merit.We cannot fairly
maintain that music is bad because it does not
sing .Similarly ,we cannot say that poetry is bad because it does not
teach philosophy of ethics.If poetry ,philosophy and
ethics had identical function,how could they be different subjects?To denounce
poetry because it is not philosophy of ideal is clearly absurd.
Reference:
Your topic is Plato's objection to poetry and you also put Aristotle's views is really good.
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