Literary Critism - Plato
Literary Critism - Plato
Literary Critism - Plato
Literary Criticism
In other words, literary criticism is the method used to interpret any given
work of literature.
In the Republic, Plato views poetry as a falsifying rhetorical activity and a danger to his
ideal city.
In this text, Plato introduces his theory of Forms.
According to Plato, the physical world is not independent or real.
It is dependent upon another world, the realm of pure Forms or ideas.
Thus, any object in the physical world are derived from the ideal Forms.
Plato makes it clear that the cave in which men are imprisoned represents the physical
world, and that the journey toward the light is the “soul’s ascension” to the world of Forms.
Thus, everything in our world, from objects to ideas, is but a pale copy of the perfect,
unchanging originals (Forms) of these objects and ideas that dwell above in the unseen
world.
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2. Poetry appeals to the weaker, inferior
side of our mind/soul (or psyche).
In the Republic, Plato attacks poetry for being fanciful.
Thus, Plato concludes that only hymns to the gods and praises of
state heroes will be allowed; all other forms of poetry must be
censored.
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4. Poetry is a kind of madness or
contagion.
In Ion, Socrates cross-examines a rhapsode (a singer and interpreter) called Ion
on the nature of his art.
Plato asserts that poets do not write nor rhapsodes speak by art or skill, but by
“divine possession”.
Socrates points out that the rhapsode, like the poet himself, speaks not with his
own voice which is merely a medium through which a god speaks.
In this way, the poet conveys and interprets the utterances of the gods, and the
rhapsode interprets the poets.
2. Poetry does not arouse the irrational side of our psyche, but it
purges it;