Things are conceived as ideas before they take practical shape as things. Thus the objects of the world are once removed from reality. Art (literature, painting, sculpture) being the reproduction of these things, is twice removed from reality.Therefore poetry takes men away from reality rather than towards it. So poetry helps neither to mould character nor to promote the well-being of the state-- the two things by which Plato judged all human endeavour.
The poet writes because he is 'inspired' not because he has thought long over a subject. According to Plato this sudden outpouring of the soul cannot be a reliable substitute for truths based on reason. Even if there is profound truth in poetry it needs to be subjected to a further test-- the test of reason. Poetry therefore cannot take the place of philosophy.
c)The emotional appeal to poetry
Poetry is a product of inspiration rather than of reason and therefore it appeals to the heart rather than to the intellect. Poetry is concerned about the beauty of form. An individual who is in search of truth, can never be guided by poetry. Plato illustrates this by referring to the tragic poetry of his age, in which weeping and wailing were indulged to the full to move the hearts of the spectators. So poetry ‘fed and watered’ the passions instead of drying them up and let them rule instead of ruling them as they ought to be ruled with a view to the happiness and virtue of mankind.
d) It’s Non-moral character
Finally, Plato
indicts poetry for its lack of concern with morality. In its treatment of
life it treats both virtue and vice alike, sometimes making the one and
sometimes making the other triumph indifferently, without regard for moral
considerations. It pained Plato to see virtue often coming to grief in
the literature of his time. The epics of Homer, the narrative works of Hesiod,
the odes of Pindar and the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Such literature,
according to Plato, corrupted both the citizen and the state.
a. Art (poetry) is twice removed from reality.
b. Poetic inspiration
c. The emotional appeal to poetry
d. It’s Non-moral character
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PLATO
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E x t r a r e a d i n g
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An extract from plato’s Ion
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:
Socrates, Ion
Socrates: Would you or a good prophet be a better interpreter of what these two poets say about divination, not only when they agree, but when they disagree?
Ion: A prophet.
Socrates: And if you were a prophet, would you be able to interpret them when they disagree as well as when they agree?
Ion: Clearly.
Socrates: But how did you come to have this skill about Homer only and not about Hesiod or the other poets? Does not Homer speak the same themes which all other p0ets handle? Is not war his great argument? And does he not speak of human society and of intercourse of men, good and bad, skilled and unskilled, and of the good conversing with one another and with mankind, and about what happens in heaven and in the world below, and the generations of gods
and heroes? Are not these the themes of which Homer sings?
Ion: Very true, Socrates.
Socrates: And do not the other poets sing of the same?
Ion: Yes, Socrates; but not in the same way as Homer.
Socrates: What, in a worse way?
Ion: Yes, in a far worse.
Socrates: And Homer in a better way?
Ion: He is incomparably better.
Socrates: And yet surely, my dear friend Ion, in a discussion about arithmetic, where many people are speaking, and one speaks better than the rest, there is somebody who can judge which of them is the good speaker?
Socrates: And he who judges of the good will be the same as he who judges of the bad speakers?
Ion: The same.
Socrates: And he will be the arithmetician?
Ion: Yes.
Socrates: Well, and in discussions about the wholesomeness of food, when many persons are speaking, and one speaks better than the rest, will he who recognizes the better speaker be a different person from him who recognizes the worse, or the same?
Ion: Clearly the same.
Socrates: And who is he, and what is his name?
Ion: The physician.
Socrates: And speaking generally, in all discussions in which the subject is the same and many men are speaking, will not he who knows the good know the bad speaker also? For if he does not know the bad, neither will he know the good when the same topic is being discussed.
Ion: True.
Socrates: Is not the same person skillful in both?
Ion: Yes.
Socrates: And you say that Homer and the other poets, such as Hesiod and Archilochus, speak of the same things; although not in the same way; but the one speaks well and the other not so well?
Ion:
Socrates: And if you knew the good speaker, you would also know the inferior speakers to be inferior?
Ion: That is true.
Socrates: Then, my dear friend, can I be mistaken in saying that Ion is equally skilled in Homer and in other poets, since he himself acknowledges that the same person will be a good judge of all those who speak of the same things; and that almost all poets do speak of the same things?
Ion: Why then, Socrates, do I lose attention and go to sleep and have absolutely no ideas of the least value, when any one speaks of any other poet; but when Homer is mentioned, I wake up at once and am all attention and have plenty to say?
Socrates: The reason, my friend, is obvious. No one can fail to see that you speak of Homer without any art or knowledge. If you were able to speak of him by rules of art, you would have been able to speak of all other poets; for poetry is a whole.
Ion: Yes.
Socrates: And when any one acquires any other art as a whole, the same may be said of them. Would you like me to explain my meaning, Ion?
Ion: Yes, indeed, Socrates; I very much wish that you would for I love to hear you wise men talk.
Socrates: 0 that we were wise, Ion, and that you could truly call us so; but you rhapsodes and actors, and the poets whose verses you sing, are wise; whereas I am a common man, who only speaks the truth. For consider what a very commonplace and trivial thing is this which I have said-a thing which any man might say: that when a man has acquired a knowledge of a whole art, the enquiry into good and bad is one and the same. Let us consider this matter; is not the art of painting a whole?
Ion: Yes.
Socrates: And there are and have been many painters good and bad.
Ion: Yes.
(The dialogue continues. Plato was highly poetic in his prose though he stood against poetry. Aristotle stood for poetry but his prose was rather dry.)
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