Topic: Plato’s Objection
Name: Krishna K. Patel
Course: M.A. English
Semester: 1
Batch: 2018 – 2020
Roll no:-20
Enrolment no.: 2069108420190035
Email Id: krishnadobariya08@gmail.com
Paper no.: 3 Literary Theory & Criticism
Submitted to: Smt. S. B. Gardi Dept. of English MKBU
Introduction:
Plato was born about 429 BC, close to the time when pericles. In 510 BC a man named Cleisthenes, who was an aristocrat in Athens, invented another new type of government, the democracy. Plato was born in Athens, to a very rich and powerful family. Many of his relatives were involved with Athenian politics though Plato himself was not.
Plato belongs to an age of inquiry and as such Plato’s chief interest was philosophical investigation which form the subjects of his great works in form of dialogues. According to Plato, all arts are imitative or mimetic in nature. He wrote in ‘The republic’ that ideas are the ultimate reality. Things are conceived as ideas before they take practical shape. Therefore, idea is original and the things is copy of that idea.
The Works of Aristotle and Plato:
Whereas most of Plato’s works have survived through the centuries, roughly 80% what Aristotle wrote has been lost. He said to have written almost 200 treatises on an array of subjects, but only 31 have survived. Some of his other works were referenced or alluded to by contemporary scholars, but the original material is gone.
What remains of Aristotle’s works are primarily lecture notes and teaching aids, draft- level material that lacks the polish of “finished” publications. Even so, these works influenced philosophy, ethics, biology, physics, astronomy, medicine, politics and religion for many centuries. His most important works, copied hundreds of times by hand throughout ancient and medieval times, were titled: physics; De Anima; metaphysics; politics; and poetics. These and several other treatises were collected in what was called the corpus Aristotellicum and often served as the basis for hundreds of private and teaching libraries up to the 19th century.
Plato’s works can be roughly divided into three periods. His early period featured much of what is known about Socrates, with Plato taking the role of the dutiful students who keeps his tutor’s ideas alive. Most of these works are written in the form of dialogues, using the Socratic Method as the basis for teaching. Plato’s The Apology, where he discusses the trial of execution and his teacher, is included in this period.
Plato’s second or middle period is compromised of works where he explores morality and virtue in individuals and society. He presents lengthy discussions on justice, wisdom, courage, as well as the duality of power and responsibility. Plato’s most famous work, The Republic, which was his vision of a utopian society, was written during this period.
The third period of Plato’s writings mainly discusses the role of arts, along with morality and ethics. Plato challenges himself and his ideas in this period, exploring his own conclusions with self – debate. The end result is his philosophy of idealism, wherein the truest essence of things occurs in thought, not reality. In The Theory of forms and other works, Plato states that only ideas are constant, that the world perceived by senses is deceptive and changeable.
The Republic:
Plato belongs to the classical Greek literature. He was a thinker, philosopher, and the reason was dominant in his personality. He, in his famous book the Republic talk about the nature of poetry and the functions of poetry as well. Plato thinks that the poets are inspired and inspiration is illogical. He says that the poet are possessed by the divine madness and their imaginative minds depict their experience of life in poems. Plato was also the lover of truth question ‘what is real?’ Plato says that poets are liars and they speak lie through their poems. They present false gods and goddesses in their poems and thereby encourage falsehood among people. He says that the poet misguided people and they provoked evil ideas in people’s mind. Hence, they should be banished from the ideal state. He classifies the two rulling powers as the visible and the intelligible. The former includes images, shadows, reflections etc. whereas the letter includes intellect. Plato says that ideas are real and physical things are unreal. He said that poetry was an imitation of an imitation twice removed from reality. He objects imitative nature of poetry. Plato was a well read scholar and when he commented upon poetry he had in mind there are two great epics of home entitled: ‘The Illiad’ and ‘The Odyssey’. Plato also read the Greek tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. He loved the classical works of these poets but for homer truth was of prime concern. He says that all fine arts imitative by nature. He gives the word mimesis for imitation. He says that idea of bed is created by the almighty god. So, god is real maker or created. The second type of bad is prepared by the carpenter’s from wood. According to plato, the carpenter’s bed is the imitation of the god’s idea of bed. The third type of bed is the painter’s bed. The painter paints the bed , looking at the carpenter’s bed so, it is the imitation of an imitation. Similarity, when the poet writes the poem, he takes the help of his imagination and writers writes the poem based on the experience of the physical world which is not real. He says that truth is notional or ideational. Plato defines poetry and poets and says that both are divoied of truth.Theory of Imitation:
Plato gave an example of imitative narration in Book-3 of the Republic. He took the example from Homer’s ‘The Illiad’ in which the priest chryses the random to Agamemnon. Thus, the narration becomes imitative. On the other hand, Homer used the direct method and told about the chryses to the reader directly, the narration would have become a simple one. Plato observes that in all epics and classical poetry narration tends to be imitative.Plato as Moralist
Plato’s Objection to Poetry
Plato in his book The Republic puts many allegations on the poets. He said that the poets should be discarded from the society. Plato said that poetry is inspirational and not rational. They are possessed because, the poetry that they give to the public is written by them in frenzy state of mind. The problem which Plato raises here is that this frenzy is passed on to viewers, listeners etc which is very harmful. Hence, it leads the activation of inappropriate emotioms which is ethically incorrect. Plato further says that the poetry implicates the wrong depiction. He accuses the poets to be liars because, Gods are presented in a bas light and the real world is an unchanging world. For example: gods are shown equal to or lesser than human beings. Therefore, gods are portrayed in a degrading manner which does not provoke their devotes to worship him. The world shown in the poetry is very much like a mortal world. Thus, he believed that it was harmful to follow such poets who spread inaccuracies and crook the soul of the period. Further, Plato believed that poets are imitators. Hence, they are immoral as they gave immoral depictions to the people. Plato objects poetry because of three primary reasons. They are:
Education:
Plato believed that the literature celebrated all the vices and evil habits. It showed god in a derogatory manner. Most of the greek works always had a plot ready. The plots were taken from myths. Myths always had place for gods. Gods were shown to be fighting and sometimes indulging in immoral activities. All such vices crept into the works of literature. Hence, Plato believed that such types of works should not be taught at schools.Plato further said that children would fail to differentiate between good and bad. They won’t be able to accept the virtue and reject the vice by themselves.
For example:
I. If the students are taught the Epic poem the Mahabharata in their schools, might be, there are chances that children may draw a conclusion that wars are indeed virtuous to be fought. They fail to understand the true intentions behind the war.II. When students are told about the Epic poem the Ramayana, students may make the misconceptions of Ravana’s abducting Seeta out of love for her. Hence, they may take a wrong lesson from it and there are chances that they may do anything for their love tomorrow.
From this, we can clearly understand what Plato meant by showing Gods in a bad light. He wanted the poets to make some type of renovation and show god as superior to human beings rather than depicting him to be equal or less than human beings.
Plato believed that poetry enriches the emotional side or our mind. Education is to enrich the mind of reason rather than the emotional mind. In those days, French people used to fight with the monstrous Spartans. To fight against them, Greeks needed not only courage but also mental stability. Plato believes that poetry should make them more emotional. Though, he didn’t want students to read poetry.
Philosophical view:
Plato said that there are four types of world. The very first one is truth. We don’t know what this world is like. We can imagine this world. Though, this world exists in our imagination. Then comes the second world named ideal world. This world is the imitation of the truth world. We can call the world to be an ideal one, only if it qualities all the criteria set by the true world. Then came the real world. This world is an imitation of ideal world. This is the world where we live in. It is hence a mortal world. We want this real world to live like an ideal world. Thus, we imitate it. Now, come the literary world.Literary world is create by the poets in their literary works. It was the imitation of the real world. The poets present the world as it is rather than modifying it and putting up a makeup of moralities and philosophy. Hence, literature is thrice removed from reality.
From the above arguments, it is clear that literature is an imitative art. In fact, it is an imitation of an imitation. Hence, Plato calls the literature to be an inferior art.
Plato wants the poets to depict the world which is unchangeable. He believed that the true world is a stable world. It should not change like this mortal world of that is pictured by the poets. But, poets imitate the real world which is a mortal or rather a changeable world. In a word, Plato had a problem with the imitation that was done in their works .
Morality:
Plato is a philosopher by profession. He tried to give a philosophical argument here. He said, the works should have some moral thoughts and moreover., some morality also should be presented in the work. The main theme of writing literary works is to preach the public. But, as he has already slapped the poets saying that they are imitating he objects the poets in all the above fields.Exa:
When the readers read ‘Hamlet’, there is the absence of morality in the play. He doesn’t have any moral lesson to take from the work. In fact, he is left with many questions. The reader may get baffled with the concept of to be or not to be.
When one reads, the Oedipus, we don’t find any pinch of morality. Oedipus married his own mother after killing his father. Though, he is the murderer of his father. When his mother come to know about the fact, she killed herself.
In Paradise Lost, the whole concept is taken from the Bible, chapter-1 named ‘Genesis’. It is not more than two or three pages. But, John Milton extend the whole things into an epic
Though, in all the above points, we have seen all the objections raised by Plato.
Conclusion:
References
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato)(http://janiriddhi1315.blogspot.com/2013/10/platos-objection-of-poetry-and-defence.html)
(http://kavitamehta16.blogspot.com/2016/11/plato-objection-to-poetry-and-aristotle.html)
(https://niyatipathak.blogspot.com/2017/11/sem-1-assignment-plato-and-aristotles.html)
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