Literary Critism - Plato

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Plato – As literary critic

Literary Criticism

By- Aaradhya Singh


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What is Literary criticism ?
 Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of
literature.

 It includes the classification by genre, analysis of structure, and judgement


of value.

 It asks what literature is, what it does, and what it is worth.

 In other words, literary criticism is the method used to interpret any given
work of literature.

 The different schools of literary criticism provide us with lenses which


reveal important aspects of the literary work.

 Literary criticism helps us to understand what is important about the text:


its structure, its context (social, economic, historical), what is written, and
how the text manipulates the reader.
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Plato- As Literary Critic

 Plato was the student of Socrates.

 He was the Greek philosopher who laid the foundations of Western


philosophy.

 It is stated that Western philosophy is “a series of footnotes” to Plato.

 Plato gave initial formulation to the most fundamental questions of


literary criticism.

 Most of Plato’s philosophy is expounded in dialogue form.

 Socrates is usually the main speaker in these dialogues.


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Plato’s accusation against poetry.

 Plato levels four accusations against poetry:

1. The falsity of the claims and representations of poetry regarding


both gods and men;

2. Poetry appeals to the weaker, inferior side of our mind/soul (or


psyche).

3. Poetry has a corruptive effect on character.

4. Poetry is a kind of madness or contagion


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1. The falsity of the claims and representations of
poetry regarding both gods and men

 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.

 Philosophy or math engages our rational powers.

 Unlike philosophy or math, poetry, being fanciful, engages that part


of our psyche that is both illogical and irrational.

 This irrational part of the soul is not only unreliable in matters of


truth but is disorderly unstable, inducing us to partake in public
displays of emotion.
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3. Poetry has a corruptive effect on
character.

 In the Republic, Socrates, the speaking persona, stresses that poets


must not present the gods as deceitful since “there is no lying poet
in God”.

 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.

 Hence, the rhapsodes are “interpreters of interpreters”.

 Poetry, according to Socrates, is irrational and inspired


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A Response to Plato’s Accusations of
Poetry:
 Plato’s accusations levelled against poetry can be refuted:

1. Mimesis does not have to pull us farther away from truth;

2. Poetry does not arouse the irrational side of our psyche, but it
purges it;

3. If poets are indeed possessed, so the gods are trying to speak to


us through them;

4. Plato is himself one of the greatest of poets.


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