Plato:

Plato was born in 427 B.C of an Athenian family. Plato may as a friend know Socrates. It is said that after falling under the sway of Socrates, he destroyed his poems and dramas , and turned to philosophy and mathematics, even he abandoned the field of politics after Socrates' execution and traveled a lot . he founded the Academy worked on philosophy , mathematics, natural sciences, jurisprudence, and practical legislation was done under his supervision. He wrote his early dialogues as Ion, Lysis, Gorgias, his great achievements are: Sympsium, Phaedo, Republic.

Before Aristotle there was no critical treatment of literature as literature by European writers. To Homer the end  of poetry was pleasure produced b some enchantment. To Hesiod , on the other hand , the poetic function was that of teaching or conveying a divine message.

In Ion , Plato believes the gift the Ion possess o speaking about Homer , is not an art but an inspiration , there is divinity moving Ion . he says : " for all great (good) poets , epic s well as Lyric compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed the great poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains , but when falling under the power of music and mete they are inspired and possessed , for there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses , and his mind is no longer with him. For in this way : the poets are only the interpreters of the gods by whom they are severally possessed .   

 

From Republic:

In Republic Plato asserts his idea about imitative art and imitation, again Republic is  in the form of dialogues.

That: there are beds and tables in the world, plenty of tables and beds , but there are only two ideas for beds and tables, one idea for beds and other idea for tables- the maker of the bed makes it in accordance with the idea but no artificer makes the ideal themselves. And there is the maker of lots of things . there are 3 beds : the existing in nature , which is made by God, another which is the work of carpenter, the third the work if the painter, beds, then are of three kinds and there are 3 artists who superintended them : God, the maker of bed, … then the painter is the imitator, so the tragic poet is an imitator , so thrice removed from the truth.

Plato mentions Homer , he says if you are only in second remove from the truth in what you say of virtue ( education, politics, tactics, noblest subjects) and not in the third tell us what Staten was ever better governed by your help( was carried on successfully by him, or aided by his counsel , when he was alive. To plato all poetical individuals , beginning from Homer are only imitators, they copy images of virtue but the truth, they never reach. Poets understand the nature of several arts, only enough to imitate them , and by  the  power of melody, rhythm they enrich the picture.

In the other part Plato introduces the idea that there are 3 arts concerned that are concerned with all things : one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them. (Example flute player) who tells the maker which flute is satisfactory. In this case the imitator has no information about whether or not his drawing is correct or beautiful, no opinion from another who gives him instructions, he will have no opinion about goodness/badness of his imitation. Also excellence or beauty or truth of every structure , animate or inanimate, and of every action of man , in related to the use for which nature or the artist has intended them.

He says that painting or drawing , and imitation in general , when doing their own proper work. ,are removed from truth, and the companions   and friends and associates of a principle within us which is equally removed from reason , and they have no true healthy aim. The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior and has inferior offspring.

Accordingly the imitative poet will prefer the passionate and fitful temper, which is easily imitated –so he is concerned with an inferior part of soul. And therefore we shall be right in refusing him to admit into a well-ordered State , because he awakens ,  nourishes, and strengthen the feelings and impairs the reason. He plants an evil constitution in the soul of man –he is the manufacturer of images and far removed from the truth.

He believes that when we have  sorrow we try to act manly and be patient so long oration of weeping and representing of sorrow and pities –why we should praise a man that in person  we don’t like this.

Plato's attack on the art of poetry in his The Republic is one of the oldest philosophical debates. It certainly has meaning still today in the midst of debates on censorship, and also on considerations of the value of certain genres of writing. That certain discourses such as history and law disparage texts for their supposed lack of truthfulness and correspondence to reality is not altogether removed from Plato's charges issued in Books II, III, and X.

It is generally acknowledged that Plato's arguments in Books II and III act more as a prelude to the argument in Book X, rather than as self-sufficient indictments of the poetic form. It is only after Plato has developed his psychological theory of the triparite soul that he is able to offer a complete presentation of the vices of poetry. I will here offer a brief description of these arguments, without any critical treatment. Below are a number of key quotes from The Republic, which constitute a great deal of Plato's diatribe against poetry.

In Book X, Plato gives at least two different arguments for the banishment of poetry from his ideal State. The first argument is ontological and moral, while the second argument is based on the psychology developed earlier in The Republic (between Book III and Book X) and a corresponding moral theory.

The first argument is best understood within the context of Plato's theory of Forms. An object in our everyday world is actually a copy of a divine and Ideal Form which is the truest and most perfect exhibit of the object. Any table at which we sit is possible only as an imperfect copy of the ideal Form of a Table which was fashioned by God or some other such ideal and perfect activity. A table, then, is removed from the truth by at least one degree. Further, we generally do not have a proper apprehension of the true value and perfection of any particular table. Rather than viewing the table as it actually is, we treat it as an appearance, and so the common (non-expert) experience of a table is twice-removed from the truth. Lastly, it is these appearances of objects that artists such as painters and poets seek to imitate. Their imitations, then, are a long way off the truth, says Plato: they are thrice-removed. This is the argument that culminated around 597e in Book X. The ontological fact that poetry is so distanced from truth implies that poetry is contemptible only if we also adopt the moral premise that knowledge is virtuous, which Plato certainly did insofar as it is one of Socrates' more famous maxims The first argument, then, depends not only on this ontological theory (and the corresponding theories of correspondence and representation implied), but also on the moral equation of knowledge, truth, and the good.

The second argument is more complicated and can only fully be understood within the context of Plato's psychological theory which carves the human soul into three parts. To be brief, this psychology holds that the passional and emotional aspect of the human soul is the lowest, and most contemptible part. It is argued around 605a in Book X that the poet, like the painter, is concerned with the inferior aspects of the soul. And, not only is poetry so devoted, but it also thereby damaging to the higher elements of human activity, divine contemplation of the Forms, i.e., the one and only true philosophy, or wisdom-loving. This is 'the heaviest count' against poetry, that it induces us to our emotional side, thereby denying our rational activity: "it feeds and waters our passions" (606e). The psychological location of poetry in the lower parts of the human soul is alone not sufficient to condemn poetry. Like the ontological argument, we also require a moral component that expresses condemnation for the lower parts of the soul. Again, that this is Plato's own moral position is not at all surprising given his love of order, proper government, and the soul's highest activity: philosophic contemplation.

Below are some selected quotes from The Republic of Plato on the ancient quarrel poetry and philosophy, and the values of poetry, imitation (or mimesis), and lying or falsehood in general.

" 'Then the first thing will be to establish a censorship of the writers of fiction, and let the censors receive any tale of fiction which is good, and reject the bad.'
'Of what tales are you speaking?', asked Adeimantus... 'And what fault to you find with them?.
'A fault which is most serious', replied Socrates, 'The fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie.
'But when is this fault committed?'
'Whenever an erroneous representation is made of the nature of gods and heroes,--as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original.' " (377b, Book II).

"A young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts." (378e, Book II).

"Such then, I said, are our principles of theology--some tales are to be told, and others are not to be told to our disciples from their youth upwards, if we mean them to honour the gods and their parents, and to value friendship with one another" (386a, first sentence of Book III).

"Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private individuals have no business with them. Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the philosopher kings should be the persons" (389a, Book III).

"Of the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection pleases me better than the rule about poetry: the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought not to be received" (595a, first sentence of Book X).

"All mimesis are ruinous to the understanding of the hearers, and the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them" (595a, Book X).

"The Aeschylus is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is Plato's ontology from the king and from the truth" (597e, Book X).

"When we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not be an illusion. Perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by them; they may not have remembered when they saw their works that these were but imitations Plato's theory of the Forms from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth, because they are appearances only and not realities?" (598e, Book X).

"The real artist, who know what he was imitating, would be interested in realities and not in imitations; and would desire to leave as memorials of himself works many and fair; and, instead of being the author of encomiums, he would prefer to be the theme of them" (599b, Book X).

"Must we not infer that all these poetical individuals, beginning with Homer, are only imitators; they copy images of virtue and the like, but the truth they never reach? The poet is like a painter who, as we have already observed, will make a likeness of a cobbler though he understands nothing of cobbling; and his picture is good enough for those who know no more than he does, and judge only by colours and figures" (600e, Book X).

"And now we may fairly take the poet and place him by the side of the painter, for he is like him in two ways: first, inasmuch as his creations have an inferior degree of truth--in this, I say, he is like him; and he is also like him in being concerned with an inferior part of the soul; and therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into Plato's theory of government, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason. As in a city when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the way, so in the soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implans an evil constitution,k for her indulges the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another small--he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth" (605a, Book X).

"But we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in our accusation--the power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed), is surely an awful thing.
Hear and judge: The best of us, as I conceive, when we listen to a passage of Homer, or one of the tragedians, in which he represents some pitiful hero who is drawling out his sorrows in a long oration, or weeping, and smiting his breast--the best of us, you know, delight in giving way to sympathy, and are in raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most...
If you consider that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow by weeping and lamentation, and that this feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is satisfied and delighted by the poets;--the better nature in each of us, not having been sufficiently trained by reason or habit, allows the sympathetic element to break loose because the sorrow is another's; and the spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying any one who comes telling him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious and lose this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own...
In all affections poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in eudaimonia and virtue" (605c, 606a, 606e, Book X).

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Comedy: on the comic stage you are greatly amazed.

 

About lust and anger ; and all other affections , of desire , pain, pleasure, which are held to be inseparable from every action. Poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up he believes that if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue , the passions must be controlled.

 

Hymns to our gods and praises to them are the only poetry which ought to be admitted in our State.

He mentions the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry, we respect poetry and we are very conscious of her charms, but we may not on that account betray the truth.

 

Background

Time chart:

  • Aeschylus:     525-455
  • Sophocles:     496-406
  • Euripides:      486-406
  • Plato:              428-348 (student of Socrates, founded the Academy)
  • Aristotle:       384-322 (student of Plato, founded the Lyceum, tutor of Alexander the Great

Aristotle's Poetics, perhaps the most fundamental theoretical treatise on tragedy, must however properly be understood in context: as a reply to a challenge issued by his teacher, Plato, in the Republic

The Nature of Tragedy

The essential question to probe is: why do we enjoy, in some sense, watching tragedies, that is the suffering of people onstage?

  • popular use of "tragedy" as "disaster" ("the plane wreck was a tragedy"): this is very different from the technical sense of tragedy, which specifies a particular literary genre of drama in which people suffer
  • what is different between the experience of watching tragedy and
    • watching real suffering?
    • riding a roller coaster?
    • watching a horror film?
  • Fundamental to the view of tragedy in Plato and Aristotle (and indeed for me!) is the human need for pathos ("suffering")
    • pity (greek eleos) = compassion for the one undergoing the pathos
    • terror/fear (Greek phobos) = identification with the one undergoing the pathos
  • Pathos (cf. "Passion" as in the "Passion of Christ"):
    • a mysteriously agreeable sadness
    • but also a vital moment in religion in art, cherished by many and feared by some as enticement to the irrationality of deep emotion
      • Chorus in Oedipus Rex: the revelation of a pathos makes one shudder and want to turn away, even as it makes one yearn to look, to feast one's eyes, and to try to understand: for abhorrence and fascination go hand in hand with the sight of the blinded Oedipus
      • Similarly, in early Christianity, Paul (Philippians 3) tells his readers to concentrate on the cross, the terrible and utterly undeserved suffering of the blameless Christ, a painful injustice ordered by God himself for us to contemplate

Plato, Poetry, and Tragedy: Plato's Republic

The "Ancient Quarrel between Poetry and Philosophy"

  • Tradition has it that Plato wrote tragedies, epigrams, and songs called dithyrambs when he was young, but burned them when he met Socrates
    • Interesting since it suggests hostility by Socrates towards poetry: the "ancient quarrel"
  • Traditional versus newfangled education is roughly the antithesis between poetry and philosophy
    • Traditionally, students studied Homer and the other poets
    • The "new" education of Plato's Academy emphasized philosophy, rather than inspired poetry, as the correct means towards the truth
    • In Plato's view, poetry is the wrong method for trying to find the truth for any number of reasons, which he explains in his great work, the Republic

Background to the Republic

  • The basic question posed is "What is justice?" or more specifically "What constitutes a just state?" To answer this, Socrates and his friends try to infer logically what would constitute the most just state, that is, what would constitute a political utopia
  • In constructing the ideal Republic, Plato explores broadly the question of what is "just" and indeed what is "good", esp. what is the "good" ruler
  • But "good" in Plato's terms (which is linked to what is "just") is closely allied with pure reason, and therefore the "emotional" part of the state, or of the man, must be "purified" or eliminated if the state or the person is to be as "good" as possible
  • Ultimately, what is "good" is beyond this material world: for the best we can do is only a striving towards the perfect goodness that exists in the changeless, eternal world of the forms that lies beyond our material existence

Attack on Poetry

  • interestingly, Plato raises the fundamental question of whether the pleasure produced by poetry is good for us
  • In books 2 & 3, Plato finds poetry unsuitable as a vehicle for understanding, and thus as a means to approach or insure what is "good" or "just" because:
    • the poet write not through understanding or reason but by inspiration
    • poetry teaches the wrong stuff: for instance, "god" is by definition all that is "good", thus the poets clearly do NOT represent the gods as they really are (poets not only lie, says Plato, but "lie in an ugly fashion"!)
    • poetry arouses emotions in a way that is not in accord with reason
      • poetry such as that in tragedy often has music, and we all know how irrationally affecting music can be: for the Greeks this was formalized in their ideas of musical modes (e.g. the "mixo-Lydian mode", a kind of musical scale, was associated by the Greeks with lamentation and dirges, thus evoked sad emotions)
      • poetry is inappropriate in the emotions it raises: we feel empathy for Oedipus, for example, when he is inappropriately wailing in public
        • "imitations practiced from youth become part of nature and settle into habits of gesture, voice, and thought": so we want to avoid imitations of bad actions!
        • for a good man to imitate a bad action is uncomfortable, for he "despises it in his mind, unless it's just done in play": what we would abominate in ourselves, gives us pleasure through pity for what is "on stage"!
  • In Book 10, Plato revisits the question of poetry in more detail, with astonishing results: for he finds poetry unacceptable altogether in his ideal Republic, and feels compelled to exclude poetry altogether
    • Poetry, as an imitation of a material world that already imitates the "really real", is at a second remove from the truth
    • poetry doesn't teach us anything: no one is better governed, or knows more about generalship, because of Homer: Homer conveys no practical or theoretical information
    • poetry is ignorant about the thing described (does the painter or smithy know the proper quality of reins and bits for horses?)
    • poetry is not only ignorant, but dangerous, because the spell of the rhythm and song is so convincing that this description, which in fact holds no truth but is simply an ignorant representation, seems like the truth itself
    • poetry is ignorant and dangerous to the soul, since it produces the wrong emotions, and interferes with the striving towards pure reason that is the proper conduct of the "good" soul
      • For Plato, the experience of pity is directly pleasurable, and inappropriately so in the context of tragedy
      • poetry "waters and fosters these passions when
  • In sum, Plato's 4 arguments are:

1.      Poets compose under inspiration, not by using reason

2.      Poetry is ignorant about what it teaches, and thus teaches the wrong things

3.      Poetry is a mimesis (imitation), at 2 removes from the "really real" (that is, from the world of the Forms)

4.      Poetry encourages the wrong emotions in the audience

  • Poetry is tossed out of the Republic, but with a challenge
    • Plato has now raised clearly the question of why representations of people suffering is a pleasurable experience
    • Moreover, he has clearly linked this to the irrational side of one's being, thus setting it in the context of the "ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy"
    • Since the irrational cannot be allowed into his utopian, philosophy-ruled state, Plato tosses poetry (esp. tragedy) out of the Republic
    • But at the same time, Plato issues a challenge to those who would care to make an argument to find a rightful place for poetry in the philosophical utopian state (pp. 832f)
      • "And we would allow [poetry's] advocates who are not poets but lovers of poetry to plead her cause in prose without meter, and show that she is not only delightful but beneficial to orderly government and all the life of man. And we shall listen benevolently, for it will be clear gain for us if it can be shown that she bestows not only pleasure but a benefit."
  • Aristotle, Plato's most famous student, now takes up this challenge, point by point!

Aristotle on tragedy: Aristotle's Poetics

Aristotle's answers to Plato's 4 principal arguments against tragedy:

(1) Poetry is a skill, with rational rules (like shipbuilding or any other skill), and not really a process of inspiration

·         The principles of poetic composition, set forth in detail in the Poetics, demonstrates that poetry is not simply inspired, but is a skill which can be learned, and has rules comprehensible by reason

(2+3) Poetry represents reality in a useful way from which we can learn: poetry represents universals (as opposed to history, which represents particulars); poetry represents the actions of good men [see handout, passage #2]
 

    • Note how powerful an argument this is against Plato's objection that poetry does not teach practical wisdom, and that, since the poet does not understand horse bits and reins, he is two removes from the truth
    • Instead, for Aristotle, the poet is the one who approaches the truth more directly by focusing on what is universal (rather than what is incidental or "particular") about human experience
       

(4) Poetry arouses the emotions in such a way as to increase our ability to control them: catharsis
 

    • Controversy over what is intended by catharsis, which in Greek means a "purification"
      • Old view: Bernays (Freud's uncle): catharsis is a process of psychological healing: we all have build-ups of undesirable emotions like pity and terror, which can be aroused and then released by watching tragedy
      • New view: Janko and others (including me!): catharsis is a process whereby you learn to control your emotions, thus "purifying" the soul of bad emotions in the same way that (in Plato and Aristotle) the good soul is "purified" of evil (that is, the good learns to keep evil under control)
        • Nichomachean Ethics: moderation (sophrosyne!) in all things: thus fear, for example, if we have too much of it we're cowards and if we have too little of it we're fools
        • tragedy provides a venue wherein people can experience in a controlled way potentially overwhelming emotions, and learn thereby to gain better control over these emotions
        • essentially like homoepathic medicine (which ruled in antiquity): in ancient medicine, for example, you pile on blankets to reduce a fever
           

(2+3, revisited) A good man is represented, but one who commits an error
 

    • hamartia = "error, mistake" NOT "character flaw"
      • the Greek does not mean this, and the context in any case is the plot: of the good man who undergoes a change of fortune not because of vice or wickedness but because of some error he has committed
      • Note that there is nothing in the Poetics about hybris: thus the High School English Teacher's version of tragedy, that of a hero who because of hybris and a "character flaw" (his "tragic flaw" as it's sometimes termed) suffers a reversal is a strange grab-bag of stuff from Aristotle, a couple of plays of Sophocles, and thin air!
    • Note how poorly this idea -- of a "good man" (hero) who makes a "big mistake" -- describes the tragedies we have read!
      • What is particularly good about many of these characters?
      • For those that are good men, is it really helpful to say that the downfall is occasioned by a "great error"?

But Aristotle, as we now see, makes this argument in this way because it is an essential part of his rebuttal to Plato: if we are not sympathizing with good men, then clearly the experience of watching a tragedy cannot be allowed into the ideal state