Drama on Trial

Gorgias; Arguing Two Sides to a Question; Plato Republic; Aristotle Poetics

PlatoSocrates

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Midterm

Genre irrelevant?• The what of plays to their original audiences

Quotes• generic answers• overlooked issues

Essay (i.e., critical thinking)• accurate grasp of “lenses”• unreflective dismissal• superficial critique

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Agenda

Critique in Action, Or,• What Would Plato Say?

Introduction to Readings• Evolution of a Debate

Debate: Drama in the Classroom• Pros and Cons …

Critique in Action, Or,What Would Plato

Say?

Plato Republic: Book 3 (opening), Socrates speaking:

“But if they [young Guardians-to-be] are to be courageous, must they not learn … lessons of such a kind as will take away the fear of death?”

“And can he be fearless of death … who believes the world below to be real and terrible?”

London Telegraph: “Disney’s hags drawn into ageism debate”

“A study by American researchers at Brigham Young University, Utah, looked at 93 characters who appeared to be aged 55 or older from 34 Disney films going back 70 years.” ...

“But a significant minority were portrayed as unintelligent, nasty, bad-tempered or useless, giving children a bad impression.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/31/wdisney31.xml

School systems across U.S. challenge books on reading lists

<www.freedomforum.org>

Each school year as teachers and administrators decide which books are appropriate for their students to read, they may exclude or ban certain books such as The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird and Song of Solomon because of their mature themes. . . .

Many books that have been banned, such as The Catcher in the Rye, teach tolerance, self-worth and individuality, Krug wrote. . . .

In Georgia, after hearing complaints from some parents, the Glynn County school board discussed banning The Catcher in the Rye from the high school’s curriculum.

http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=14624

“We may state the matter thus: Imitation imitates the actions . . . on which human beings imagine a good or bad result to have ensued. And human beings will be glad or

grieve accordingly. . . . But in all this variety of circumstances is . . . is there not strife and inconsistency in

a person’s life? . . . For he indulges the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great and at another small — he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed

from the truth.” (Plato Republic, in “Drama on Trial” pp. 36-38)

MEDEA: “I know indeed what evil I intend to do, But stronger than all my afterthoughts is my

fury (thumos), / Fury that brings upon mortals the greatest evils.”

(Euripides Medea p. 35, trans. Warner)

Introduction to Readings

Evolution of a Debate

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Gorgias (483-376 BCE)

from Helen:• “Speech is a mighty potentate”

from another work:• “Tragedy is a form of deception in

which the deceiver is more righteous than the non-deceiver, and the deceived wiser than the undeceived”

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Your thoughts…

how? [comments]

“Tragedy is a form of deception in which the deceiver is more righteous than the non-deceiver,

and the deceived wiser than the undeceived”

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Plato’s (429-347 BCE) Republic (ca. 475)

Justice, via… “City of Words”

• guardians• craftsmen• farmers

BOOKS 2-3• (a)moral myth• administrative lies• (a)moral imitation• “noble lie”

BOOK 7 (opening)• Myth of the Cave

BOOK 10• (meta)physical

imitation• challenge to

poetry

myth of cave

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Ethics, Aesthetics, Metaphysics, Paedeutics

forms/ideas(originals)

instances(copies)

imitations(copies of copies)

philosophers crafts-persons artists/poets

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Imitation: Aristotle v Plato

Emotional dimensionPlato: “[We] delight in giving way to sympathy. ... Few

persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of others something of evil is communicated to themselves.”

Aristotle: “Tragedy … is … imitation … with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions.”

Educational dimensionPlato: “Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the

imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he imitates.”

Aristotle: “Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements relate to things of universal import, whereas those of history relate to particulars.”

Debate: Drama in the Classroom

Pros and Cons …

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Arguments pro and contra…

pro-Plato artists don’t represent

life• real professions

better embody the false

anti-Plato acting allows people

to feel emotionally outside your life

acting can promote empathy