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Name : Nirali
dungrani
Roll no : 30
Enrollment
No:-2069108420180012
Year: 2017-19
M.A. semester :1
Paper no : 3
Literary theory & criticism
Email id :
dungraninirali@gmail.com
Assignment topic :
Ploto’s objection on poetry
Submitted
to : smt.S.B.Gardi, Department of English.
Introduction
Plato
is one of the world's best known and most widely read and studied philosophers.
He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle.
Wise men talk because they
have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
Only
the dead have seen the end of war.
The
measure of a man is what he does with power.
Ploto was the most distinguished disciple
of socretes.The 4th BC to which he belonged was an age inquiry and
as such Plato’s chief interest was philosophical investigation which form the
subject of his great work in form of dilouges. He was not a professed critic of
literature and his critical observation are not found in any single book. They
lie scattered in seven of his dialogues more particulary in The Ion,The
Symposium,The republic and The laws.
He was the first systemic critic who
inquired into the nature of imaginative literature and put forward theories
which are both illuminating and provocative.he was himself a great poet and his
dialogues are full of his gifted dramatic quality.his dialuges are the classic
work of the world literature having dramatic,lyrical and fictional elements.
Acprding to him all arts are imitative
or mimetic in nature.he wrote in Republic that ‘ideas are the ultimate
reality’.things are conceived as ideas befor they take partical shapes.so,idea
is original and the thing is copy of that idea.
Example:-
Carpenter’s chair is the result of the
idea of chair in his mind.thus chair is once revmoved from reality.but painter’s
chir is imitation of carpenter’s chair.so it is teice removed from reality thus
poet takes man away from reality rather than towards it.thus artist deals in
illusion.
Plato’s
objection:-
Plato’s three main
objections to poetry are that poetry is not ethical, philosophical and
pragmatic, in other words, he objected to poetry from the point of view of
education, from philosophical point of view and from moral point of view.
· The arts deal with illusion or they ar imitation
of an imitation.twice removed from reality.
· As a moralist Plato disapproves of poetry
because it is immoral as a philosopher he disapproves of it because it is based
in falsehood.
· Philosophy is better than poety because
philosopher deals with idea and truth,and poet deals with what appears
him/illusion.
It is not ethical
because it promotes undesirable passions.it is not philosophical because it
does not provide true knowledge’and it is not pragmatic because it is inferior
to the practical arts and therefore has no educational value.
Plato than makes a challenge to poets to defend themselves against
his criticism.ironically it was Plato’s most famous student,Aristotle,who was
the first theorist to defend literature and poetry in his writing
poetics.throughout the republic Plato condemns art in all forms including
literature or poetry.
Despite the fact that
he wrote plato advocates the spoken word over the written word.he rank
imitation on a lower plane than narrative’even though his own works read like
dramatic scripts.it appears as though his reasoning is that imitation of
reality is not itself bad but imitation without understanding and reson is.
Plato felt that
poetry, like all forms of art, appears to the inferior part of the
soul, the irrational, emotional comedy part. The reader of poetry is
seduced, in to feeling undesirable emotions. To Plato, an apparition of poetry
is incomparable with an apparition of reason, justice and the searchfor
truth. He suggests that poetry causes needless lamentation and ecstasies at the
imaginary events of sorrow and happiness. It numbs are faculties of reason for
time being, paralyses the balanced thought and encourages the weaker part of
soul constituted of the baser impulses. Hence poetry has no healthy function,
and it cannot be called good.
To him drama is
the most dangerous form of literature because the author is imitating thing
that he/she does not understand. Plato seemingly feels that no words are strong
enough to condemn drama. Plato felt that all the world’s evils derived from one
source: a faulty understanding of reality. Miscommunication, confusion and
ignorance were facts of a corruptedcomprehension of what always strives
for truth.
Plato is,
above all, a moralist. His primary objective in The Republic is come up with
the most righteous, intelligent way to live one’s life and to convince others
to live this way. Everything else should conform in order to achieve this
perfect state. Plato considers poetry useful only as a means of achieving 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 question in Book 10
is the intellectual status of literature. He states that the good poet cannot
compose well unless he knows his subject and he who do 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 says this because he believes that
Homer speaks of many things of which he has no knowledge, just as the painter
who paints a picture of a chair does not necessarily know how to make a chair.
His point is that in order to copy or imitate correctly, one must have
knowledge of the original. Plato says that imitation is twice removed from the
truth. Stories that are untrue have no value as no untrue story should be told
in the city. He states that nothing can be learned from imitative poetry
.
Plato’s
commentary on poetry in The 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 misrepresentations of the truth.
As stated in Book 2, for 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 thought. He
is essentially saying that children cannot tell the difference between fiction
and reality and this compromises their ability to discern right 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 scene 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 world
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 views on the value of literature, he also states 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 praises to
famous men. Plato does not want literature to corrupt the mind; he wants it do
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 years ago. He
probably wrote The Republic with the best intentions for the people of his
time. While his views on censorship and poetry may even seem outland today,
Plato’s goal was to state what he judged 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
festering evil habits were in children. Homer’s epics were part of studies.
Heroes of epics were not examples of sound or ideal morality. They were lusty,
cunning, and cruel war mongers. Even Gods were no better (Troy- Achilles
beheading Apollo’s statue, oracles molested… insults of Gods, Gods fight among
themselves, they punish instead of forgiveness…Ahalya- Indra, Kunti’s children,
narad’s obsession to marry, Hercules son of Zeus and Almene, Hera’s jealousy-
shakes-Frenzy to kill children…)
b) Plato writes:” if we mean our future guardians
to regard the habit of quarreling among themselves as of all things the bests,
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 citizen….These
tales (of epics) 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:
In “The Republic” Book 10:
poetry does not lead to, but derives 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 twice removed from original.
c) Plato says:” The imitator or maker of
the images knows nothing of true existence; he knows appearance only… The
imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior has inferior
offspring.”[Dorothea’s ideal in Middle march shattered, Kshtriya drama-not to hit
enemy without weapon, Tess’s providence, evil wins and God is silent,
unrewarded virtue…]
3) Objection from the Moral point of view:
a) In the same book in “The Republic”: soul
of man has higher principles of reason. (Which is the essence of its being) as
well as lower constituted of baser impulses and strengthens the rational
principle is good and emotional 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 popular is not by nature made, nor is his art intended, to please
or to affect the rational principle in the soul; but he will prefer the
passionate and fitful temper, which is easily limited. And therefore we shall
be right in refusing to admit him into a well-ordered state, because he awakens
and nourishes and strengthen the feelings and impairs the reason…poetry feeds
and waters the passion instead of drying them us; she lets them rule, although,
if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue. There are Plato’s
principle 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:
1) Plato says that art being
the imitation of the actual is removed from truth. It only gives the likeness
of a thing in concrete and the likeness is always less than real. But 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 representation of
selected events and characters necessary in a coherent action for the realization
of artist’s purpose (Namesake: Jhumpa Lahiri and Mira Nair). He even exalts
idealizes and imaginatively recreates a world which has its own meaning and
beauty. These elements, present in art are absent in the raw and rough real.
R.A Scott-James rightly observes:”but though he creates
something less than that reality. He also creates something more. He puts an
idea into it. He gives his intuition of certain distinctive and essential
qualities.
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
teaching the function of the art? Is it the aim of the artist? The function of
art is to provide aesthetic, express emotions and life. It should never be confused
with the function of ethics which is simply. If he fails in doing so, he is a
bad artist. There is no other criterion to judge his worth. R.A Scott-James
observes: “Morality teaches art does not attempt to teach. It merely asserts it
is thus or thus that life is perceived to be. That is my bit of reality, says
the artist. Take it or leave it- drew any lessons you like from it- that is my
account of things as they are- if it has any value to you as evidence or
teaching, use it, but that is not my business: I have given you my rendering,
my account, my vision, my dream, my illusion- call it what you will. If yours
is any lesson in it, it is yours to draw, not mine to preach.”
Similarly Plato’s charge that needless lamentations and
ecstasies at the imaginary events of sorrow and happiness encourage weaker part
of soul and numbs faculty of reason. This 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 gives new knowledge, yields aesthetic
satisfaction and produces a better state of mind.
3) Plato judges poetry now from
the educational standpoint, now from the philosophical one and then from the
ethical one. But he does not care to consider it from 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 and
demerits. We cannot fairly maintain that music is bad because it does not
paint, or that painting is bad because it does not sing. Similarly, we can not
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 subject? To denounce poetry because it is not philosophy or ideal is
clearly absurd.
1) Plato’s Valuable Contribution to Literary
Criticism:
In spite of Plato’s prejudices against poetry and art in general
he remains the first great philosopher of arts. His findings about the nature
of imaginative literature and representational fine arts remain valid even
today. He has laid the first foundation brick of systematic literary criticism.
His valuable contributions are following:
1) According to Wimsalt and
Brooks: In Ion, Plato has drawn our attention to two principles (1)
being able to compose poetry is not the same as to give rational of it; (2)
Poetry is not concerned with making scenic statements.
2) He is the first critic to
point that literature represents in a refined version the raw material supplied
by life itself. Poetry may be called imitation of recreation. But the basic
fact is that it derives its subject from life itself and from the world. It
cannot invent anything that is never observed. R.A Scott-James is quite right
when he says: “To him we owe the first statement of the mimetic or imitation
character of art.”
3) Plato also right in saying
that the only aim of the poet is to please the people, though his disapproved
and denounce of the poet on this account is not fair.
4) It was Plato’s insight that
discovered for the first time that all the fine arts have common aims although
they employ different media. Scott-James observes: “Having got thus far, we
observe that he has discovered a real community between all the fine arts. A
poet who makes a poem and a painter who points a picture are engaged in the
same sort of activity. They do not use4 the same medium, but otherwise they are
engaged on the same task.”
Thus, as a moralist, he made some errors but he gave some important
starting points to judge literary art.
Works Cited
<www.online.literature.com>.
<englishliterature24.blogspot.in>.
<http://www.iep.utm.edu/>.
