Plato: The Republic, From “Book X”

1. Poetry is a mimetic art form, and is thus far removed from the truth.
For Plato, mimesis means imitation. But unlike Aristotle, here this has a pejorative connotation.
According to his doctrine of the ideas, reality is divided into two realms:
a) The world of forms:
● Divine and inaccessible through direct perception.
● Where the ideal (truthful/essential) firms of concepts and things inhabit.
● We can only begin to approximate these ideal forms intellectually through reason. To this end,
philosophical discourse is a main vehicle.
● Most of Plato’s hierarchies are based on how close a given discourse/position/activity is to the
world of forms, to the truth.
b) The world of appearances:
● Earthly; basically our world.
● Things/concepts as we perceive them, as they appear; not as they really are.

Poetry is thrice removed from the truth; it is an imitation of appearances:

-The example of the bed. The bed exists at three levels:
● God makes the idea of the bed (the world of forms)
● The artisan makes the (image/appearance of a) bed based on the idea.
● The painter/poet imitates the bed based on the image/appearance.
-These can also be applied to abstract concepts:
● War, beauty, justice, government.
● God makes the idea of these concepts.
● The warriors, philosophers, politicians deal with them in accordance to their knowledge of the
idea.
● Poets, such as Homer, imitate these concepts in accordance to their image/appearance; they do
not really have a knowledge about any of them.

2. Poetry works with and appeals to the inferior part of the soul.
For plato, the soul is tripartite:
a) Rational: driven by reason and logic; seeks wisdom and the truth.
b) Spirited: driven by courage; seeks honour.
c) Appetitive: driven by desire; seeks pleasure.

In their aim to be popular, and since the appetitive (irrational) part of the soul is easier to imitate, most
poets deal with and appeal to it to the detriment of the rational part.

3. Because of this, poetry is capable of corrupting the citizens. Therefore, in Plato’s republic,
poets should be banned from writing with the exception of hymns to the gods and odes to
leaders.
● Poets seen as both removed from the truth and morally dangerous.
Aristotle: From the Poetics

1. The Nature of Tragedy: what makes a well-crafted tragedy?

Tragedy is “a representation of a serious, complete action which has magnitude, in embellished
speech, with each of its elements used separately in the various parts of the play… accomplishing
by means of pity and terror the catharsis of such emotions”.
● Serious: in terms of tone, themes, and people being represented (kings, war heroes, important
politicians; not ordinary people)
● Complete action: the play is an organic, self-contained whole, to which all individual parts
conform.
● Embellished speech: the use of rhetoric and linguistic adornments is fundamental.

● Unity of time: the action in a tragedy should occur over a period of no more than 24 hours.
● Unity of place: a tragedy should exist in a single physical location.
● Unity of action: a tragedy should only have one principal action.

2. Catharsis: The effect of tragedy.

-It is achieved by means of pity and terror, the catharsis of such emotions.
-All the individual elements of the play, coming together in the catastrophic resolution, contribute to
its achievement.
-Three possible translations and interpretations of the term:
● Clarification: the tragic incidents are clarified, revealing how the tragedy unleashes.
● Purification: our emotions get tempered as we discover the proper object of pity and fear.
● Purgation: therapeutic function; fear and pity are expelled from our bodies and we feel relief.

3. Mimesis as verisimilitude.
-For Aristotle, mimesis is the representation of human actions and passions in a verisimilar way.
-Verisimilitude: mimesis is not a mere reflection of our world (appearances) as Plato thinks, but a
representation of events that are plausible rather than factual, presented in accordance with a series
of internal mechanisms that create cohesion.
Accordingly, poetry can reveal universal truths about human nature; it is not in opposition to reason,
wisdom and truth, as Plato argues.
Horace: “Ars Poetica”

1. Decorum as the driving aesthetic principle of poetry.

-”What is fitting or proper”.
-Associated concepts: harmony, balance, appropriateness.
-There are certain principles in writing that, as tradition has taught us, are universal.
-Link to imperial decorum.
-In line with Aristotle’s unities: poetry as a craft.
a) The contents of a poem (its subject matter) should match its form (style, language, generic
conventions, tone, metre, etc).
● Tragedy= lofty style, serious tone.
● Comedy= lighthearted style, playful tone.
b) Language:
● A poet must say what needs to be said, and no more. Against “purple prose” (prose that is
overly ornate)
c) Characters:
● They should be life-like.
● They should be consistent.

2. The main objective of poetry is to teach and delight.

-Bringing together sweetness (dulce) and the useful (utile). To be pleasurable and to instruct; an
individual and a social/pragmatic aim.
-This is achieved if the poet follows the aforementioned principles of decorum.
-There is also a focus on reception: the audience’s expectations should be taken into account when
writing poetry (connected to its relation to rhetoric).
Longinus: “On the Sublime”

1. Definition of the sublime.

-For Longinus, the sublime is both a style and the emotional effect of that style:
● “The effect of elevated language upon an audience is not persuasion but transport [ekstasis, to
transcend oneself]”.
-Effectis: loss of rational faculties, an alienation leading to identification with the creative process,
awe and pleasure.
-“The soul is uplifted by the true sublime”
● The sublime not as a mere moment of evasion, but a lasting, repeated effect that shapes us.

2. How to achieve the sublime in writing.

-The power of forming great conceptions:
● Innate.
● A lofty style requires lofty thoughts/ideas; imagination and observation are key.
-Vehement and inspired passion:
● Innate.
● The lofty style should inspire a strong emotional response as to achieve awe and pleasure.
-Figures of thought and figures of expression (tropes):
● Product of the art, learned.
-Noble diction; choice of words, metaphors and elaboration of expressions.
● Product of the art, learned.
-Dignified and elevated composition [product of the art, crafted]
● Product of the art, learned.
● The conclusion of all the aforementioned features.
-Longinus emphasises certain “faults” that can occur in trying to achieve the sublime:
● Faults of commission: trying too hard; bombast.
● Faults of omission: frigidity of tone.
Dante: From “Convivio” & “Letter to Can Grande della Scalla”

1. Literary (and biblical) texts are inherently polysemous and so, should be understood in four
main senses: the literal, the allegorical, the moral and the anagogic.
-An elaboration upon biblical hermeneutics (mainly Aquinas), central in mediaeval criticism.
-The problem of figurative language in the bible: how can the discrepancies between the Old and New
Testaments be accounted for? Allegory is key and the idea of superimposed layers of meaning that
must be undercovered is key.
In the case of Dante an approach to writing is more than an analytical framework.
-The literal: the letter of text.
-The allegorical:
● “Allegoria”–to imply something else; illustrate an idea with some other image/narrative.
● The truth hidden underneath the surface.
-The moral: the ethical (prescriptive) content of the text: abstract and intellectual symbols.
-The anagogic: the spiritual meaning of the text. Deals with matters of eternal glory and the mysteries
of the afterlife.

2. To understand a specific excerpt of a text, it is necessary to comprehend some general notions

of the entirety of the work said excerpt is part of: subject, form, title of the book, branch of
philosophy, agent, and end.
-Subject: both literally and allegorically, what is the text about?
-Form: genre, metre, internal division, tone/atmosphere (poetic, descriptive, digressive, transumptive
[metaphorical], etc)
-Agent: Author
-End: what is the text attempting to do (moral and anagogical levels).
-Title
-Branch of philosophy: the text deals with ethics (morality), metaphysics (existence), epistemology
(knowledge), aesthetics (beauty), political philosophy, etc-
Cristine de Pizan: From Book of the City of Ladies

1. In order to dismantle the prevailing misogyny in male author’s writing, de Pizan employs the
allegorical form of the dream vision, crafting the city of ladies along with Ladies Reason,
Rectitude, and Justice.
-The Dream Vision: an allegorical form of non-epic narrative poetry that consists of a character falling
asleep, having a dream (usually sent by god as a revelation) and narrating afterwards.
-Why does de Pizan employ it in Book of the City of Ladies?:
● As Plato argues in one of his early dialogues, Ion, in antiquity, poetry was not seen as a
technique or skill one could learn as we nowadays do, but as a natural gift, as divine
inspiration. Poets had to be able to listen to the Muses’ chants and be possessed by them, only
then could they write. The dream vision is the mediaeval reinterpretation of this idea: through
its allegory, it acts as justifying framework for fiction before fiction as such had even
been conceptualised.
● The vision also offers creative freedom to imagine a utopian society that challenges existing
social structures and discourses and allows for feminist praxis to take place, as well as a
licence to criticise and satire literary misogyny.

2. In the Pizan’s exchange with Lady Reason, several misogynist tropes about women are
logically debunked.
-“I beg you, tell me why this is, and what is the cause that explains that so many different authors
have spoken against women in their books”
-Some of them are said to have good intentions. In their attempt to instruct men away from “certain
corrupt and dissolute women”, they have fallaciously generalised these negative traits to all women.
-However, these purported good intentions do not excuse these male authors from their responsibility
in spreading misogynistic rhetoric. Moreover, many of them are said to engage in motivated
reasoning, they start from the conclusion (their preconceived biases towards women) and work
backwards to justify it.

3. De Pizan argues for women’s education.

-The same men who depict women as deceitful and evil are also the first to deny them access to
education. This is a contradiction, as women who pursue formal education are more virtuous and
knowledgeable.

-de Pizan lists examples of notable men that were for women's education, including her father, who
consistently supported her in that regard. By doing this, she wants to avoid falling into the same
generalisation as her opponents “not all men (and specially the wisest) share the opinion that it is bad
for women to be educated).
Philip Sydney: “The Defence of Poesy”

1. Poesy is a mimetic field that has the potential of incentivising virtuous behaviour. The
imitation going on in poetry should be probable, rather than actual (verisimilitude).
-Poesy has been present in virtually all cultures throughout history, playing a fundamental role to
develop all other fields of knowledge (aristotelian, “universal truths” theory)
-Aristotelian theory of mimesis: probable, plausible, not actual.

2. According to Sidney, the defining characteristic of poetry is its ability to represent human
vices and virtues. In this sense, the role of the poet is to teach and delight through their creative
endeavour.
-Poetry is subdivided into heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, satiric, iambic, elegiac, and pastoral, and is
usually written in verses and rhymes, but these elements are not what makes a poem a poem, it is
about its function.
-The function of poetry is to teach and delight (identical to Horace). Poets achieve this by going
beyond imitation through imagination.

3. Sidney responds to three common criticisms levied against poesy

a) The idea that there are better fields of knowledge than poetry:
● The fields of moral philosophy and history pose the main challenges to poesy as a study field,
though they ultimately both fail. On one hand, philosophy is good at teaching, but not at
delighting. On the other hand, history is good at delighting, but not teaching. Poesy, in
contrast, is good at both of these functions.
b) The idea that poetry is the “mother of all lies” (Plato)
● Poets (unlike writers from other fields) never affirm anything, meaning there is no truth nor
lie behind their words.
c) Poesy can induce to lustful actions and abuse “men’s wit”
● The potential for corruption is the fault of the individual poet, and not poetry as a concept
(analogy of the sword: it is not inherently bad, it depends on its use).
John Dryden: “an Essay on Dramatic Poesy”
Dryden offers a comparison between two neoclassical forms of drama: the English tradition (more
modern and flexible) and the French tradition (more classical and fixed). He explores their similarities
and differences in terms of their:

1. Approach to tragicomedy.
-Tragicomedy: the combination of tragic and comedic elements in a play.
-In Dryden’s time, this genre began to gain prominence in both English and French drama.
-The French perspective was that the tragic and comedic elements should not be mingled abruptly,
since “we cannot so speedily recollect ourselves after a scene of great passion and concernment as to
pass to another of mirth and humour and to enjoy it with any relish”
-The English perspective, defended by Dryden, argues for the opposite: “A continued gravity keeps
the spirit too much bent; we must refresh it sometimes, as we bait in a journey that we may go on
with greater ease. A scene of mirth, mixed with tragedy, has the same effect uppon us which our
music has between the acts… relief”

2. Abiding by the three Aristotelian unities: time, place, and action.

-While French drama strives for strict abiding by the three units, English drama is more flexible and
varied.
-Unity of time: the action in a tragedy should occur over a period of no more than 24 hours.
● Dryden argues against it: “How many beautiful accidents might naturally happen in two or
three days which cannot arrive with any probability in the compass of twenty-four hours?”.
-Unity of place: a tragedy should exist in a single physical location.
● He criticises the absurdities that come as a result of the French’s obsession with forcing
uninterrupted scenes.
-Unity of action: a tragedy should have one principal action
● English drama includes multiple subplots, characters and themes.
-Due to their different degrees conceptions of compliance with the unities, two distinct conceptions of
mimesis emerge:
● For the French, mimesis is the imitation of nature (close to Plato).
● For the English, mimesis is the creation of a lively (life-life) effect by representing the
passions of the human spirit in a way that is plausible and emotionally impactful (closer to
Aristotle’s verisimilitude).

Ultimately, Dryden argues for the superiority of English drama, due its variety and liveliness.
Alexander Pope: “An Essay on Criticism”

1. Poetry as abiding by the laws of nature (classical mimesis).

-Nature is a central idea in Pope’s writing and criticism. However, his concept of nature is a bit
different from others we have seen.
-His idea of mimesis implies the mimesis of an orderly natural world, taking the classics as an
inspiration.
-Closer to the pastoral than to Romanticism’s wilderness:
● Depicts an idealised form of the shepherd’s lifestyle.
-Close to the French’s view on imitation of nature in Dryden’s text.
-Associated with Horace’s decorum: nature as harmony and balance.

2. Laws of criticism and characterisation of the critic.

-This text marks the beginning of a criticism of criticism: a self-conscious understanding of what the
critical is.
-Criticism as a fundamental part of literary production: it is better to write bad verse than bad
criticism.
-Criticism as decorum:
● Abiding by principles, traditions (classical criticism as a model), and natural limits is key.
-Characteristics that make a good critic:
● Honesty, tact, good breeding; personal emotions should be eclipsed by the critical process.
● Fairness: meet the work where it’s at, understand its aim.
● Critics should read holistically and not get distracted by showy prosody.
Edmund Burke: From On The Sublime
-On the category of the sublime: Pope’s position
Burke seeks to establish a conceptual division between the sublime and the beautiful, focusing under
his empiricist framework on the psychological processes behind that experience.
-Pope directly mentions Longinus in his text.
-He is critical of the contemporary vogue of the sublime and its obsession with “elevation”.
-In his essay, “Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry”, Pope introduces the concept of bathos.
● “Shallow”/“Depths”/“Profundity”
● To describe an amusingly failed attempt at presenting artistic greatness. Anticlimax; ways to
“sink”.
● One of the main ways is to follow serious matters with trivial ones.
-This is in line with his opposition to Romanticism (a literary movement that embraced, developed,
and practised the sublime) and his view of nature as a decorum.

1. Taste.
-Consists of a three-level system of mind-rooted faculties that occur at three consecutive levels:
pleasure of the senses [a universal faculty], pleasure of imagination, and reason/judgement [can
be learned/exercised], the last one being the most important and variable one.
-Ultimately, a great taste is determined by the faculty of reason.

2. The sublime.
-The sublime derives from terror, obscurity, power, physical size (vastness or smallness) , infinity,
extremes of light and contrast, God.
-It constitutes the greatest and deepest emotion the mind is capable of conceiving. Mere beauty, in
contrast, os a social quality made of mixed passions that produces a feeling of affection and that ought
to be delicate rather than grandiose; it focuses on small things and pleasing things (domestic
affections, love, tenderness, pity, etc).
-It implies a loss of rationality.
-The ultimate passionate effect of sublimity, in its highest degree, is the feeling of astonishment.
-Other effects: admiration, reverence, respect, and delight (if experienced from a distance)

3. Words
-The best way of achieving sublimity is by words (over painting) and stylistic choices aimed at
provoking a sense of obscurity, vastness, infinity, and a balanced use of power.
-Words are divided into three main categories: aggregate, abstract, and compounded abstract. This last
type, corresponding to abstract concepts (justice, liberty, virtue, beauty, ect), has the potential to evoke
sublimity in the mind through relational information that goes beyond the representation of an image
(things we do not have a material reference of in the world).
-Poetry is more than a merely imitative art form, as it implies a process of substitution to make
impressions. In this sense, poesy is more associated with strong expressions (description of things as
they feel) rather than clear expressions (description of things as they are).
-Ultimately, the sublime is a psychological, subjective process. No object is inherently sublime.
Mary Wollstonecraft: From A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

1. Men and women are both rational and they should strive for the same virtues.
-Context: discussion around the French Revolution and its consequences.
● Proclamation of “universal” rights: women left behind
-The individual should be treated as a rational agent, and society should be ordered rationally.
-Women’s education is key, both to women and to society as a whole.
-Refutes the innocence that Rosseau values in women: it is appropriate for children but not adult
women.

2. Individual (rational) education vs. private education.

-According to Rousseau, women should learn domestic skills (private education) and not gain the
rational education of men. They should learn to be “passive and weak”, “put up little resistance”, and
“made specially to please men”.
-Wollstonecraft argues for a rational/individual model of education for women derived from
Rousseau’s model:
“The most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an exercise of the understanding as is best
calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to
attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent. In fact, it is a farce to call any being
virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason [criticism tradition for
tradition’s sake). This was Rousseau’s opinion respecting men: I extend it to women”.

3. False consciousness.
-A marxist term not directly employed by Wollstonecraft: a way of thinking that prevents a person
from perceiving the true nature of their social or economic situation. It is determined by the
superstructure (hegemonic ideology, culture)
-For Wollstonecraft, women live in a state of false consciousness, they are unaware of their own
subjugation.
-The reason behind this is two-fold:
a) Women’s exclusion from rational education.
b) The way men describe and treat women, which reinforces and makes them internalise this
patriarchal ideas.