Plato's Objection and Aristotle's Defence to POETRY.

Republic.

               ‘Injustice anywhere is threat to justice everywhere’

                                                                      Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Republic is a work written in a Socratic dialogue form around 380 BC in Ancient Greek by Plato, the pupil of Socrates. It is considered to be one of the Plato’s best known works which is deeply intellectual and historical rooted in philosophy and political theory. The whole work of Republic is written in ten books in a dia. Socrates is used as the mouthpiece by the author. Though Plato mainly tried to define and defend Justice in The Republic, it also gives us a view of theories in the field of epistemology and metaphysics.  

 

                                ‘Justice is the excellence of the Soul.’

                                                                                                  Socrates.

 

Plato creates an ideal and efficient state which habitats people of three classes. They are guardians, auxiliaries and craftspeople. Each and every class has its own role to play for the well-being and the uplift meant of the society. In book I, Plato tries to define the word Justice. There are different arguments that come up on the screen. But, all have some or the other loop holes. Finally, we see the apt definition given by Socrates in book II. In book III, Plato throws light on the system of education and he also gives some space for art. In all the other books except the last one, there is a discussion on the welfare of the state, the then prevailing issues regarding the government, and the possible solutions. Now, in book X, Plato raises the issue of the imitative poetry.

 

The views of Plato on the poet’s imitative poetry are not accepted by many of the critics. Even the disciple of Plato, Aristotle does not accept his view points. Thus, as a reply to his allegations against the poets and the poetry, he wrote the treatise named Poetics. The greatest defect in the Plato’s Republic is the absence of free will and freedom. When both are not given to a person, he would not be able to think in an innovative way. Thus, there won’t be new inventions and all great studies would go futile.  They are merely the puppets in the hands of the ruler. Hence, the nation described by Plato in Republic is deeply flawed and would fail to prove itself as a republic nation.

Poetics.

Poetics is the first philosophical treatise of dramatic theory written by Aristotle the pupil of Plato, as a defence on poetry. It mainly focuses on literary theory. He has tried to differentiate the two types of drama – Tragedy and Comedy. He gives us the account on how they came into existence. This book has laid the canons for writing the Tragedy. The Greek tragedies qualify themselves as the tragedies as they follow all the rules. They are called Classical works. Hence, Poetics is a classical work. 

 

Aristotle mainly deals with Tragedy in this Greek work of his. It is believed that Poetics originally was written in two books. The former one dealt with Tragedy and Epic whereas, the later dealt with Comedy and other subjects. But, the book on comedy seems to be incomplete and unrevised. Poetics gave us different literary terms like catharsis, hamartia, hubris, purgation etc. Aristotle stresses on the need of Theory Of Unities in the work of Art. Hence, he says Plot is the SOUL of Tragedy.

 

 Aristotle had some issues with the Plato just because he gave the picture of poets in a derogatory manner in his Republic. So, Aristotle stepped forward to lay the primary canons for the literary work of art. But, many of the descendants also had issues with the canons that were laid by him. So, new canons were made so that all the new form of art also got place in literature. 

Example: Shakespeare’s drama never qualified the Canons laid by Aristotle. So, the high class never went to appreciate his dramas as they believed that his dramas were specially to entertain mass rather than class. So, John Dryden had to come forward with new set of Canons in his work named, Essay on Dramatic Poesy which gave name and fame to both, William Shakespeare as a creative writer and John Dryden as a critic.

 

Plato’s Objection to Poetry.

 

Plato in his book Republic puts many allegations on the poets. He says that the poets should be discarded from the society. Plato says 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 emotions 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 bad light and the real world is an unchanging world. For example, Gods are shown equal to or lesser then 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. They brought the change in the unchanging 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 give immoral depictions to the people. Plato objects poetry because of three primary reasons. They are,

Education.

Philosophy.

Morality.

 

Education.

Plato believes that the literature celebrates all the vices and evil habits. It shows 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 accept the virtue and reject the vice by themselves.

For Example:- 

1.      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.

2.     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 of 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 believed that poetry would disable the Greek children in the aspect of reasoning and would make them more emotional. Hence, he did not want students to read poetry.     

  

Philosophy.

Plato says that there are four types of world. The very first one is Truth. We do not know what this world is like. We just can imagine this world. Hence, this world just 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 qualifies all the criteria set by the True world. Then comes the Real/Phenomenon 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 comes the Literary world.

 

                        ‘ Literature is the mirror of the Society.’

                                              Or

                       ‘ Literature is the X Ray of the society.’

Literary world is created by the poets in their literary works. It is the imitation of the real/phenomenon 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 argument, it is clear that Literature is an imitative art. In fact, it is an imitation of imitations. Hence, Plato calls the Literature to be an inferior art. He says,

‘The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior and has inferior offspring.’

He further says that poets write the poem in the frenzy state of mind. They depict the world with all the flaws or in other words, they portray the world as it is. They do not colour the world with morality or rather preach the public by imparting a valuable message. Through their work, they hence pass on the madness to the public.

 

The other issue that Plato has is, he wants the poets to depict the world which is unchangeable. He believes that the true world is a stable world. It would not change like this mortal world of that is pictured by the poets.  But, poets imitate the Real /Phenomenon 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 For him, imitation was a sin. .   

 

Morality.

Plato is a philosopher by profession. He tries to give a philosophical argument here. He says, the works should have some moral thoughts and moreover, some morality also should be present 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.

For Example: - When the readers read Hamlet, there is the absence of morality in the play. He does not have any moral lessons 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 do not find even a pinch of morality. Oedipus marries his own mother after killing his own father. Hence, he is the murderer of his father. When his mother comes to know about this fact, she kills herself.

                             If we come to 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 extents the whole thing into an epic poem. He adds many imaginary flavours in the work.       

 

Hence, in all the above points, we have seen all the objections raised by Plato. Now, let’s give a look to Aristotle’s defence.

 

Aristotle’s defence.

As many allegations have been put on poets by Plato, Aristotle, the disciple of Plato comes forward in the defence of the poets. He agrees to the fact that art is an imitation of the real world imitated from ideal world which is further imitated from the world of Truth. But, Aristotle says that art gives something more which is actually absent in the real world. It is not simply the imitation of the world but, it is the imitation of selected events and characters in a coherent manner.

For instance, Plato says art is simply the imitation. Aristotle says that we all have the image of chair in our mind. It is a thing with four legs and two arms. It has a back to rest and seat to sit upon. Now, when an artist is told to imitate a chair, he will draw the chair as described above. But, he will further add some shades, or colours to the image. The shades or the colour added to the chair is the creativity. Hence, Aristotle says that Literature is an imitation with creativity.

 

Now, the world created by God himself is not a pure creation of his. It is also the imitation of the ideas that he got in his mind. When God created the world, he had an idea in his mind. When he sat to create it, he was in fact imitating the idea that prevailed in his mind. When he created the world, he was dissatisfied as he felt there is something which is lacking in his creativity. This means, all that which is in the form of an idea in our mind, cannot be imitated. Most of them, but yet something is left out to be imitated. Same happens with the poets. Hence, they say that they are not satisfied with their creative writing as they cannot find the place for all their emotions.

 

Plato now raises the issue that literature is not preaching to the public as it should have been its core idea. But, Aristotle says that the core idea of writing literature is just to amuse or rather give aesthetic pleasure to the readers. Just as Samuel Taylor Coleridge says, if literary work is able to give the aesthetic pleasure at the end and the whole journey has been enthusiastic then it is a true work of Literature. Moreover, Aristotle says, it is not the duty or literature to preach lessons or give some moral thoughts. It is in fact a wrong question to the literature. Teaching is the duty of morality and Philosophy. Literature is an art and hence, it has to be judged with the artistic parameters. Plato believes in ‘Art for Life sake’ whereas Aristotle believes in ‘Art for Art sake.’

 

Plato also feared that students may loose the mental ability of reasoning and start being more emotional if they were taught poetry. But,  Aristotle through the theory of ‘Catharsis’ (purgation of feelings) proved that people tend to clear excess emotional feelings in them after reading poetry rather than becoming more emotional. When people read a work, they sometimes tend to become more emotional and start crying. When they undergo this process, they cleanse off the excess of emotions in them. This therefore gives them a relief and further makes them feel more comfortable.

 

The main point that Plato forgot while making his arguments is that Literature is a subject which is quite different from Philosophy. The main object of Philosophy is to give some philosophical views which might also preach people. But, it is not fare to expect the same thing from literature. If literature also does the same duty of Philosophy, then what is the difference between the two subjects ? Literature has its own criteria and canons from where the works have to be judged. If we reject a song just because it is not a painting and we reject a painting just because it does not sing, it is simply ridiculous. Hence, all the arguments of Plato were futile.

 

Conclusion.

 

Apart from the allegations that Plato has put on the poets, the literary world is  very much thankful to him as he is the one who laid the foundation stone for all the critics. As Alfred North Whitehead says, “… all subsequent philosophy is merely a footnote to Plato…”  So, it is because of whom, Aristotle had framed canons for the literature. Plato did not want the poets to imitate because, the period In which he was living in, was full of issues. There was political instability in the state. This can also be one of the prime reasons behind penning down the book, Republic. Education was in a poor condition. Hence, Plato wanted the children to study Philosophy because, it gives knowledge and lessons for life. Women were considered to be an inferior. There was no equality in the state. All this is because of poor education. Plato was slapping all the allegations on the poets because; the son of Greek literature had set down. Hence there were no innovative thoughts. Even the innovative thinkers were imprisoned and were harassed. Thus, confusion prevailed all over the world of Greek. 

Aristotle had the objection with the interpretation of Imitation that was done by Plato. Hence, he wanted to give an another interpretation of Mimesis which means imitation. Poetry is not copying but making. It is from the Greek word ‘Poien’ that the word poet has emerged. Poien means to make. Hence, it means that a poet does not copy but make a poem. Logically, Mimesis means making not copying. Now, the process of Mimesis, leads to Mathesis. Mathesis is a Greek word which means to understand. Now, the process of making something leads to the understanding of different aspects of the world. Now, this knowledge is to be passed on. So, according to Aristotle, poets are simply passing on their understanding to the world.

 

 If Plato said that poets are imitating wrong things, which influences people in a negative manner, then the point that was overlooked by him is, poetry not only depicts the wrong things in the world, but it also gives place to the moral and worthy actions.

For Example: - As we have already seen in the above example about the Epic poem the Ramayana, there was the depiction of wrong and immoral things. But, the noteworthy fact of the poem in the Ram Rajya. Even now, people talk about the rajya being the most ideal one under the kingship of Shri Ram.  

If there was bad which was present in the poetry according to Plato, then there was also some place for good in the poetry. Aristotle saw the poetry as the medium through which Catharsis was done. The very much excessive emotions were washed away through the process and moreover we were fully balanced with the apt amount of emotions which were present in our body. Hence, our body became a healthy one which had equal amount of all the four fluids in it.