plato, aristotle, and the poets

PLATO, ARISTOTLE, AND T H E POETS BY ROBERT K. S H E R M A N

I1 IS A h I N 1 R I G U I > 7 G QUESrION W H Y P L A r O A N D AKISTOTLE VIEW POETS APVD POI‘TRY

rv D I F F E R E N I ‘ I \ A Y S . Plato and Aristotle lived during the same time, the latter a student of the former, and they were products of a culture that was grounded in poetry; yet they react to poetry in antithetical ways. The views of poetry by these philosophers have come down to the present day; and if one is concerned with how a true Platonic and Aristotelian education could be implemented, he might get the keenest insight by considering these philosophic views of poetry. In this sense, the appeal to yet another analysis and criticism of the writings of these philosophers may have a meaningful application to modern education.

The purpose of this essay is to show that a key to understanding the different views of the poets as seen by Plato and Aristotle might lie in their interpretation of ‘‘imitation.” Both conceived that poetry was imitation, but an analysis of what was the function and limit of this imitation should show why each philosopher viewed the poets differently. More preciselv, the thesis of this essay is that Plato attacks and Aristotle defends the poets (and poetry) to the extent that the poets portray a view of reality that is the same as the philosophers’ theories of truth. Specifically, poetry is imitation to both Plato and Aristotle, but to one i t is imitation of the “vulgar” world, while to the other i t is imitation of the “real” world.

I In the Republzc Plato attacks the poets vigorously because of their short-

comings. Generally, poetry is unsuitable to Plato for two reasons: i t misrepresents the gods (and the great heroes) and it contributes to an exhibition of moral weakness in men. An indictment of the poets on these counts reminds one of the same indictment which led to the death of Socrates. An indictment of this sort seems to have a long history; i t seems to be a general way of disposing of the force of an adversary’s argument.

For the most part, the Repudltc is an exposition of a perfect society. If such a society did exist, it should exist as outlined in his dialogue, Plato implies; or perhaps i t would be better to say that a perfect society, if achieved, would have to be achieved through a program of education and a plan of government as outlined in the Republic. In such a society there is no place for imperfection; consequently, there is no place in the perfect society (e.g., in the Republic) for the religious and moral imperfections of poetry. We might forgive the poets for mis- understanding the gods and the great heroes, for the poets are not yet philosopher- kings and thus do not understand completely the true nature of the gods. But to misunderstand the qods is one thing, to ridicule them is another. The poets cannot be forgiven for heaping ridicule and laughter on the gods-as Homer does when he attributes shortcomings, evil, ugliness, or caprice to the gods, and when he ridicules them through stories and verse, causing one to laugh at their fumblings and bumblings. Ridicule and laughter of this sort is ugly, and Plato insists that such imperfection is not to be tolerated in his society.

Such indictments are still heard in modern society.

ROBERT R. SHERMAN is an instructor in History and Philosophy of Education, University of Alabama, University, Alabama.

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P L A T O , AKISTOTLE, A N D ’THE P O E T S 25 1

Neither is there any excuse to contribute to man’s moral weakness, as the poets do, for the poet himself is a man who should understand the necessity of acting in a reasonable manner. 7‘0 be superficial, to be ignorant of many things, to appeal not to reason but to emotions, to jest, to be gloomy, and to portray the ugly and the bad rather than the good and the beautiful is to contribute to moral weakness; and this is what the poets do when dealing with other men. In short, men are portrayed as acting in an unreasonable manner, of pursuing ends that are unworthy of men. The logic of storytelling contradicts the very harmony, justice, and beauty that the perfect state seeks to maintain. And so the storytellers are condemned.

The criticism that Plato makes of the poets i n the Republzc is not new, nor is i t isolated. Plato is a scathing critic not only of poets and poetry but also of rhetoricians, orators, and sophists in general. In the Gorgias Socrates opposes the orators, while in the Lnws Plato laments that the poets seek to give pleasure, both bad and good, rather than make the hearers better men. In the Ion Socrates holds that a true criticism of poetry must stem from a knowledge of poetry as a whole-perhaps a reference to the shallowness of the Sophists and a reminder that one can never truly know or criticize a thing until he understands wholes, or universals, rather than isolated bits of information. True poetry, Aristotle is to say later, concerns itself with universals, while the recording of particular events is merely the writing of history. Also, Plato’s criticism is not the first directed at the poets. As early as 500 B.C., both Xenophanes and Heraclitus criticized Homer for telling untrue and immoral stories of the gods.‘ The charge is quite severe; and the criticism does not stop with the mere enumeration of incidents, for the damage is much worse than that. Heraclitus suggests that because Homer attributes to the gods those things that “bring blame and shame; theft, adultery, and deception,” Homer “should for this reason be excluded from competitions and thrashed.”z

I t should not seem odd that Plato criticizes the poets as vigorously as he does, then, for the criticism is directed toward the place of poets and poetry and storytelling in the perfect state. Even in the perfect state there might be a limited role for the poet to play, but for the moment one might consider Plato’s relationship with the poets in the society in which he actually lived. I t is perhaps true that the very actions of the poets that Plato decries and limits i n his Republic must have been prevalent in his own society. That is to say, Plato’s relationship with the poets of his own day must have been less than satisfactory; perhaps he conceived that the downfall of the “Golden Age” was due in part to the irre- sponsibility of the poets. But Plato was not unaware of the merits of poetry, for he himself was a product of a poetic society-one that based its education and perhaps all its culture on views established, preserved, and passed on through the poets. Until the fifth century B.C., around the time of Socrates, Greek culture was passed on by the poets--by Homer especially, the greatest of all the poets, and by Hesiod and others of that sort. Poetry also contributed to the upholding of morals-to the perpetuation of the family, the state, and even reli-

’See G. M. A. Grube, “Aristotle As A Literary Critic,” Introduction to Aristotle, On Poetry and

2Ibid.

Style (The Poetics and Rhetoric) (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958), p. ix, n. 1.

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gion. (Lee’s note in the text of the Republic tells that what the Bible has been to Christianity, the poets were to the G r e e k ~ . ~ ) Homer as a poet, dramatist, historian, and mythmaker contributed far more than story-telling: he gave an education and fostered an appreciation for things moral and beautiful. Plato could hardly have been unaware of this heritage; and, in fact, he was not, for he recognizes that the poets were a source of moral and theological learning, and he counts Homer as the educator of Greece, the “best of poets and first of tragedians.””

MacKail says that the great day of Greek poetry lasted until the end of the Peloponnesian War (404 B.C.)5; after that, Greek poetry went into a decline. Poetry (and drama) became, in the fourth century B.C., a family sinecure and industry, falling to all the tricks of composition and subject to many of the Sophistic practices of the day. Poetry was used to amass wealth, to please base sensualities, to win rhetorical arguments, or to flaunt particular bits and pieces of knowledge, rather than being used to praise the gods and heroes or to lay the foundation for a perfect education for men. Poetry had been influential from a t least the time of Homer (the ninth century) to the fourth century, and i t was during the latter days of this period that Plato analyzed and criticized the place of the poets. One conclusion might be that he had his feet in both camps: he knew the influence and the possibilities of the great poets, but he also could trace the breakdown of Greek society to poetic influence.

Perhaps Sophocles, a contemporary of Socrates, was a lasting influence on Plato. I t must have been an odd influence that Sophocles exerted on Plato, for the poet was non-theoretical and non-critical. He did not concern himself to justify things but rather set life before his audience and allowed it to draw its own conclusions, thereby refraining from pointing out morals. But the influence of Sophocles may be explained in another way. one that is often overlooked. Plato’s own nature contradicts his criticisni of the poets, for he tells stories and uses language as skillfully as any of the great poets. His dialogues, especially the Republic, in which he systematically attacks the poets, are outstanding examples of literature a t its best; and many of the dialogues portray perfection as opposed to imperfection, goodness opposed to evil, beauty opposed to ugliness, and truth opposed to appearances. I t is in this sense that Plato himself stands as a poet, and we might expect to hear him say with Sophocles that he “made his characters as they ought to be, while Euripides made them what they were.”’ One cou!d hardly ask for a better statement of perfection, and it could be because of such a feeling that Plato regarded Sophocles as a poet of some talent. MacKail believes that Sophocles does not mean by

MacKail seems to believe SO.^

3See explanatory note by H. D. P. Lee in Plato, The Republic, trans. H. D. P. Lee (Baltimore Penguin Books, Inc., 1955), p. 113.

4Plato. The Republic, np. cit., X, 607 (p. 384).

”. W. MacKail, Lectures On Greek Poetry (New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1910)’ p. 178 and parsim.

61bid., p. 139E.

?Aristotle, Poetics, trans. G. M. A. Grube (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958), 1460b (P. 56).

PLATO, ARISTOTLE, A N D THE POETS 253

this statement that he idealizes men (a notion which would be anathema to Plato) hut that the men that he makes are more real than real it^.^ The distinction is good, but the inference that a thing is “more real than reality” is confusing and can be understood in various ways. In a t least one sense, Plato would have to object to such a statement (that is, in the sense that there can be anything more real than the world of Forms); but the interpretation is hlacKail’s, not Plato’s, and the philosopher should not be held responsible to make it consistent with his theories. The point to be made is that Plato’s own poetic talents and his regard for Sophocles show the possibilities that a true poet can achieve and the place that he can fill in society. In both instances Plato has a fine awareness of the poetic mission.

We have seen that Plato was the product of a poetic culture and that he recognized some merits to the poetic endeavor. Even more, he was one of the best dramatists, poets, and orators of his time, and he had a fine sense of the importance of, and a feeling for, the poetic enterprise. Though a critic of poetry, Plato was, as Gruhe says, more in sympathy with the work of the poets, and he had more of a fee!ing for poetry, than was A r i ~ t o t l e . ~ Though the latter wrote a work of poetic criticism, he was more detached from poetry and was more dis- passionate in his feeling for that about which he wrote. All this leads to another conjecture concerning Plato’s criticism of the poets: that he was anti-art or anti- intellectual; but that position can hardly- be argued with force when the sum of Plato’s works are taken into consideration. One is forced to conclude that his criticism of poetry was controlled by philosophic principles. A preview of this philosophic criticism has been given, but it might be well to treat in more detail the specific nature of Plato’s criticism of the poets.

It has been shown that Plato criticizes the poets for violating the true idea of gods and men. What Plato does, i t seems, is castigate the poets for not keeping their minds on the real world a t all times. The poets are taken to task for allow- ing themselves to fall, as Athens fell, into a concern with the worldly, the particular, the pleasurable-thus, into a state of decay and moral wretchedness. The poets plunge from the Olympian heights of virtue by first misrepresenting the nature of the gods, and then by ridiculing the gods, and finally by divesting the gods of their power and vesting it in men. In the Republic, in the first stage of education, literary education, Plato reveals how the poets represent God as capable of change and deceit and as the possessor of evil as well as good. He concludes, ‘ I . . . We cannot allow Homer or any other poet to make this stupid mistake about the gods . . . ,”lo ‘ I . . . nor can we let our children hear from Aeschylus that God implants guilt in man . . .,” for “God is the .rowce of good onIy.”ll I f God is good only, he is the very Form of Forms, the most universal, perfect, and real entity, a Form which the poets must not bring into disrepute.

SMacKail, op. cit., p. 157.

SGrube, op. cit., p. x.

loplato, The Republic, 11, 379 (p. 117).

“Ibid., 11, 380 (p. 118).

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Neither can the poets be allowed to portray the gods as using magic disguises or fraud to deceive men, nor should the poets be the cause of ridicule and laughter, for in art, as in the perfect state, the thing to be ridiculed is that which falls short of true virtue. The poet too often succumbs to the audience; when the audience laughs, he will forget his mission, and the more laughter and praise one receives, the more will the poet use unstable and irritable materials for his dramas. There are lines in Homer that may be used in the perfect state, but when the poet tells that “a fit of helpless laughter sei7ed the happy gods as they watched Hephaestus bustling up and down the he is in error on many counts (the gods are never heipless, nor would they bustle up and down a hall), and he must be denied the forum in the perfect state.

In many other ways do the poets err in their portrayal of the gods--they shear the gods of power, giving the power to men; they cause the gods to imitate men or lesser beings; they attribute to the gods base passions and sexual immoral- ity; and they see the gods as being capricious and spiteful. But we might pass to the second fundamental criticism that Plato makes of the poets, realizing that the errors the poets make concerning the gods are duplicated, on a lesser level certainly, by the errors they make concerning men and their activities. When concerned with men, the charge against the poets is that they contribute to moral weakness-and this is done in many ways. Basically the poets contribute to moral weakness when they do not seize the opportunity to portiay man in the most reasonable manner. Once again, this criticism is based on the failure to see man in the truly real way, as a person possessed of reason and following virtue in all things. Honier relates the suffering, the wailing, and the crying of men in many passages of the Iliad and the 0dyssey,l3 but reasonable inen do not do such things. Rather, reasonable nien bear in silence all the suffering that is their lot. To succumb to great sadness or pleasure, to cry in grief or to shout in ecstacy, is to fall short of being a man. Wherever the poets portray such actions as being the nature of man, the poets are to be asked for the same privilege that we must ask of Homer: “to excuse us if we delete all passages of this kind.”14

Equally as bad as the way the poets represent the nature of man is their portrayal of the afterlife. The poets give too gloomy a view of the afterlife; their portrayal of life a t all costs, as when they say with Homer “I would rather be a serf in the house of some landless man, with little enough for himself to live on, than king of all dead inen that have done with life,”15 is unworthy of the mind of a reasonable man, for i t is often better to prefer death to slavery, as free men should. One of the easiest ways to corrupt a fighting spirit-a spirit which is needed to preserve the perfect state-is to portray this gloomy view of death. To make death a fearful thing would contribute to the downfall of the state in much the same way as the tragic poets do more directly when they “sing the praises of tyranny.”16

121bid., 11, 389 (p. 126); Homer, Iliud, I, 599.

laP1ato, The Republic, 111, 388 (pp. 124-125) cites particular instances.

141bid., 111, 387 (p. 123).

I51bid., 111, 385 (p. 122); Homer, Odyssey, XI, 489.

16Plato, The Republic, VIII, 568 (p. 342).

P L A T O , ARISTOTLE, AND THE P O E T S 255

Finally, not the least of the corrupting influences of the poets is their tendency to mistake a change in modernity for a change in kind. That is to say, when the poets sing that “it is always the latest song men care for most,” they should not be thought to mean that the perfect state needs any inn0vati0n.l~ If children come to believe that the poets mean that new kinds of songs are most appealing, rather than merely new songs w i t h the same (perfect) theme, then such innova- tion should not be recommended, and the poet must be asked to practice his ar t elsewhere.

Such is the indictment against the poets, but certainly poetry is not without some merit. ,4t its best, poetry can be tolerated in the perfect society; but when it is less than the best, the poets must be orderrd beyond the pale. This, of course, means a program for censoring the poets and, on occasion, driving them from the city. \Ire have already seen that Homer and the other poets have been asked to excuse certain passages from their works from being published and from being made available through the cycle of education, for only the philosopher- king could deal with such corruption and then only after a long program of training. But while the training is in effect, while the guardians and the philosophers are being readied for the task they are to perform in the perfect state, a rigid censorship must control all literature. I t is not enough to say, as Plato does in his first stage of education, that the production of stories for children-and the telling of these stories-must be supervised, and “the greater part of the stories current to-day we shall have to reject.”18 All literature is subject to corruption by the unperceiving poet, and so all literature must be censored and controlled. For even though the poet gives rare pleasure and is nimble with his art, trans- forming himself into all sorts of characters and representing all sorts of things, there is no place for such activity in the perfect city, and the poet will be for- bidden by the code of the city and sent elsewhere. If the poet objects, his ar t will be set beside that of the painter, whom he resembles, because both their work has a low degree of truth and because they appeal to the lower elements of the mind. Consequently, the poet will be refused admission to the properly run state because he has abandoned reason and deals in images far removed from reality. Finally, though poetry be banished from the state, those who accuse the city of insensitivity and bad manners must be reminded that “there is an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry.”lg This quarrel arises from the deprecating of reason, as when one says that a certain person has “a reputation among empty-headed fools.”2o Whatever vitiates against reason itself must be stricken from the state.

Even with all the charges against the poets, with the relating of how far they fall short of virtue and how they might be asked to refrain from participating in the organization of the state, i t is not certain that Plato meant to exclude all

”Ibid., IV, 424 (p. 115).

‘Elbid., 11, 377 (p. 115).

‘Dlbid., X, 607 (p. 385).

2QIbid.


poets from his perfect state. I t may seem odd, but the poet might be welcome, and Plato recognizes that the state might be unable to do without all poetry. Homer was the best poet, but even he should not be trusted with the education of the citizen. Jf poetry must be allowed, the perfect state must only know poetry in the form of hymns to the gods and those in praise of good men. \Then the poet tells tales of heroic deeds, he should be given an audience; but to allow other poetic license is to allow reason itself to be corrupted. Plato hints that there is something inherently bad in poetry-at least for education: “It is not that they [the passages of Homer and other poets] are bad poetry or are not popular; indeed the better they are as poetry the more unsuitable they are for the ears of children or grownups . . . .”21 Nevertheless, where the poets represent God as good, man as reasonable, and true reality in all its beauty and justice, they will be admitted to the state. At the beginning of the Republic, Plato praises a man for having “the poet’s wisdom and inspiration”;*Z but, of course, a less noble character will not be allowed in the state. “. . . If drama and poetry written for pleasure can prove to us that they have a place in a well-run society, we would gladly admit them, for we know their fascination only too ~e11.”2~ Otherwise, the stories of the poets, if they must be told, should be repeated at religious rites, under oath, or a t a costly ceremony, for in this way they will corrupt only a few persons.

A summary of Plato’s criticism of the poets might show that his ideas hinge on the notion of “imitation.” Part of Plato’s antipathy to the poets is a t the level of imitation; that is, he considered the poets to represent a type of education and knowledge that was a t best one step removed from conjecture. What the poets saw in nature, or what they portrayed, was an image not of truth but of appearance. To the extent that this imitation was unrefined, the poets must be banned from the state. In the Laws, one of the criticisms of good ar t is the correctness of its imitation.24 I t seems to be overlooked by Plato, though it is implied by his criticism, that logically the poets, as well as all artists, cannot portray true reason, or a knowledge of the world of Forms, for poets and artists practice their trades by using particular modes and objects of expression, and the universal can never be known through the particular. This is as much as saying that, logically, the perfect state has no place for the poet, as i t would have no place for the artist, or the orator, or the man who preaches about God. But perhaps the poet would be like the nian in the story of the cave: after seeing true reason he must return to the cave, to the world of particulars, only to find that if he talks in universal terms he is not understood. Consequently, the only alter- native-if he is to practice his art in the service of man-is to speak in the language of “imitation,” hoping to draw others closer and closer to reality. And if the poet accomplishes this task, perhaps he can look to Plato for approbation, in spite of the fact that his representations are “at the third remove from reality.”25

*11bid., 111, 387 (p. 123).

*lbid., I, 331 (p. 56).

231bid., X, 607 (p. 385).

24Plato, Laws, 11, 653c-654a.

26Plato, The Republic, X, 598 (p. 3 7 9

PLArO, ARISTOTLE, A N D THE POETS 257

Plato’s conception of the poets’ raison d’etre-and the reason for them not accomplishing this being-is tied to his notion of reality, which is as much to say that the poet truly must be a philosopher-king. Greece had entrusted the education of youth to the poets, but Plato will entrust this education in the perfect state only to the philosopher-king. If the poet is to continue to educate, he must, then, grasp this reality; he must be a philosopher-king.

I1

Unlike Plato, he wrote no criticism of the poets, though he did, again unlike Plato, write a treatise on poetry--the Poetics. Since the Middle Ages, the Poetics has been viewed as a handbook on poetry; though recently the trend has been to revise this conception of the work and place it in a more proper position. Now it is more generally held that the Poetics is an analytic treatment of its topic-in much the same way that other writings of Aristotle are analytic in nature. This means that the Poetics approaches poetry not in the critical manner that Plato did, and not in the manner of a moralist, but rather in an effort to analyze what constitutes good and bad poetry or literature. But because the Poetics is not a moral treatise, i t does not follow that poetry is amoral. The few criticisms that Aristotle does offer are moral in nature, and there is a correct way-a moral way-to produce poetry, as there is all other art. The reservation that must be made along this line is that poetry need not meet the rigid moral standards set up by Plato; indeed, i t must be judged on its own merits.

Aristotle’s concern with the poets is quite different.

In the sense of meeting the rigid moral criteria that had been set up for poetry by Plato, one can perceive a strong moralistic flavor in the poetry and literature of the mediaeval years. That is to say, poetry and literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was based on a strong Platonic sentiment. On the rediscovery of the Poetics during the mediaeval years, Aristotle had to battle the notion that poetry was falsely imitative. Too, there still existed a mixture of Alexandrian-Socratic, as well as almost Horacian, notions that poetry pleased only by accident, but must instruct. The Aristotelian influence that poetry’s first task was not to moralize, but to please, tended to rationalize poetry to a set of rules by which the pleasing quality could be brought forth in any composition. Ultimately, poetic theory was rationalized in the Middle ‘4ges to an extent un- dreamed of by Aristotle.25 But though the Aristotelian utterances in literary criticism ultimately were rationalized almost to the point of absurdity, they held sway during much of the Middle Ages, and even when other “dogmatic” utterances of Aristotle came under assault by the intellectual opponents of Aquinas, by such thinkers as Duns Scotus and Abelard, the Poetirs and the Rhetoric con- tinued to exert a dictatorial influence.

In spite of all the other things it has been considered to be, the Poetics is more correctly described as being a musing on tragedy, and in this sense i t concerns itself mainly with ar t as “imitation.” A case can be made quite cogently that the Poetics is also a defense against the Socratic attacks on Homer and the other

26Lane Cooper, The Poetics of Aristotle: Its Meaning and I f l u f n r e (Roston: Marshall Jones Com- pany, 1923), p. 104.

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poets; the last two chapters (XXV and XXVI) are considered to be a reply to such criticism. It should be kept in mind, though, that while Aristotle defends the poets he does not defend them for empathetic reasons, for he had a very poor sense of the poetic feeling. Consequently, we are left with the idea that con- traries reign in these treatments of poetry. Though the Poetics is not sympathetic to poetry as a moral science, neither does i t have the poetic quality that is evident in much of the writings of Plato. Artistotle wrote a treatise On Poets, which is extinct, but which has been held, nevertheless, to reflect a more literary character. Any aesthetic sympathy he had with poetry might have been contained in that work.

A. E. Taylor tells that modern students (perhaps under the influence of the mediaeval tradition) have attempted to make a place for the Poetics and the Rhe- toric as a science, by adding it as a third branch of phil0sophy.2~ Such a branch of philosophy might be called ‘‘productive’’ and would stand with the theoretical and practical sciences. This notion seems to be evident in the writings of McKeon, for instance, who holds that while ar t is a practical science, i t basically is productive in its effect; that is, it teaches skills and habits and causes and consequences of acting and association.28 But Taylor insists that such a notion does not follow from Aristotle, and i t would be difficult for Aristotle to rationalize the position- on the basis that the inference is not his. The Rhetoric and Poetics are not con- tributions to philosophy; rather, they are collections of practical rules, not dogmatic or necessarily critical, as they were taken to he in the seventeenth century. Taylor concludes that if Aristotle had a philosophy of art, it forms part of a more general theory of education, and must be found in the Politics.29 Poetry, then is not a science-as ar t is not a science-for i t is not deductive, and it lacks a structure from which first principles can be known. Rather, to Aristotle, poetry is an art ; i t “is nothing more or less than a productive quality exercised in com- bination with true reason.”30

We have denied that Aristotle is a critic of poetry, and have asserted that the Poetics, if it considers criticism a t all, is a defender of the poets against Socratic attack. But one ought not to make the mistake of believing that there is no criticism of poetry as such in this work. Poetry, it seems, can be criticized for two reasons: because i t does not meet the standards of good poetic composition and because i t violates some moral principle. We know, of course, that Plato was concerned with the latter criticism, and Aristotle offers criticism on the same grounds. In one place, Aristotle tells that if one desires to he ambiguous he will turn to producing poetry, for this is a way that one can say a certain thing and mean another. Ariphades ridiculed the tragic poets in his comedies because they used language which no one would ever use in conversation; and if the use of

*‘Alfred E. Taylor, Aristotle (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., [original publication, 19191 ), p. 20.

28Richard McKeon (ed.), Introduction to The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random

ZSTaylor, op. cit., p. 21.

3’JAristotle, Ethics, trans. J. -5. I(. Thornson (Baltimore: Penguin Books, Inc., 1955), VI, 4 (p. 175).

House, Inc., 1941), p. xxix.

language in such a way violates a moral precept, then i t must be condemned. In the moral sense, the Sophists are recognized as using words to trick people, and some poets are observed to have said silly things.31 Children must be guarded against unseemly words and spectacles, the latter being a reference to ostentatious plays and language whose only intent is to sway the audience. Spectacles where the writers of tragedy use the gods to extricate themselves from difficulty or to make appeals to the supernatural ought not to be produced. The gods can only affect the past and the future; the present is man’s to do with as reason dictates.

Reason should dictate not only the morality of poetry, but also the composition itself. If poetry is an art, and ar t is concerned with true reason, it follows that wherever a composition does not meet the standards of true reason, i t should be subject to criticism. One should condemn irrationality when it serves no purpose, though if there is a good purpose for taking hold of reason loosely, it will not be condemned. In this sense, Aripliades’ ridicule of the poets for using uncomnion language may be unjustified if the poetry needs such language to lift i t above the mundane. Along the same idea, Aristotle believes that “what is impossible but can be believed should be preferred to what is possible but unconvincing,” for this regards poetic effect.32 The purpose of poetry is to entertain-in a reasonable way-to delight, to portray beauty; if a thing is unconvincing (though possible) it will fail i n these attempts.

This is the reason by which beauty is portrayed.

On the other hand, Aristotle would not allow “evil on the stage.”33 H e means by this “unnecessary” evil, for i t is clearly recognizable that some evil must be portrayed-it is in the nature of things. 7’0 judge the difference between evil and “unnecessary” evil, it is necessary to look beyond the particular incident and try to relate the incident to the character and the circumstances of the whole play..34 We can say here that the general public is a better judge of works of music and poetry: some individuals judge certain parts, while others judge different parts, but in general their joint pronouncement is a reflection upon the whole work.35

Poetry indeed is imitation. Poetry as imitation was not a new notion to the Greeks, nor was i t peculiar to any one poet or group. Xenophon and Aristophanes and other Greeks of the time were quite aware of this notion. Comedy, for instance, is imitation of a ludicrous sort, while tragedy is the imitation of an episode i n the life of a hero or a man, and the epic is an imitation of a larger scope of history. Plato, too, held that poetry was imitation, but to him the imitation was not morally good. But imitation means a different thing to

31See Aristotle, Rhetoric, trans. G. M. A. Grube (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958), 1404n,

32Aristotle, Poetics, 1460a (p. 53).

33See Grube, op. cit., p. xx.

albid.

=.4ristotle, Politics, trans. J. A. Sinclair (Baltimore: Penguin Books, Inc., 1962), 111, 11 (p. 123.)

1 4 0 5 ~ (pp. 68, 70).


Aristotle. Imitation is based on what is real, that is, on the particular experiences of life that can be talked about and represented. Imitation is an attempt to present things “as they are, as they were, as they ought to be, or as men thought they were.”36 Imitation is, in short, an attempt to idealize, an attempt to find the universal essence of things. Poetry is born from an inherent part of man’s nature, and i t attempts to imitate that nature in action; that is, poetry attempts to show the essential quality of natural man. Imitation may be better or worse: tragedy imitates the better man while comedy portrays man as inferior. Thus, it is not the poet’s job merely to relate events as they happen-this is the duty of the historian. Rather, it is the poet’s job to universalize things, to idealize them, to deal with essences-but always on the basis of particulars. There is no place for mere fantasy on the stage; poetry and drama and music must be grounded in reason. The poet deals in imitation in such a way that he relates what might happen or what could happen in probability or by necessity. In this sense, poetry is like philosophy.

To Aristotle, the main value of poetry is as a cathartic. We have seen him say that i t should not be “unnecessarily” evil, and his greatest admiration is reserved for the most cathartic poetry, tragedy. Poetry has a kind of frenzy, a sort of emotional pitch, that will purge the soul of irrational actions. If drama is to be produced in the state, i t might be for this reason, that the audience will not act on the irrational elements in the soul but will, rather, loose them in a final moment of horror. The Oedipus of Sophocles is valued mostly for this reason; its final triumph of purging power overwhelms irrationality and leaves the soul limp from the cathartic. The beauty of the idea, or the insight, or the noble language, is incidental to the horrible purge that does its work.

One might draw a summary here by asking what is the true purpose of poetry. Poetry must represent the ideal or the universal; or, if untrue in fact, it may represent the typical. Poetry must be reasonable; or if unreasonable (in the sense that it is impossible) it must be believable. I ts aims are varied: Aristotle does believe that poetry should delight and should be concerned with portraying beauty, consequently it must be concerned with the skillful use of language and meter and rhyme; but its chief aim, perhaps, is to purge the soul. Poetry must be judged on its own basis, it must relate the past, present, and future-or what was, what is, and what ought to be. Essentially poetry represents the Aristotelian search for essences, though it does so in a manner in keeping with his view of reality rather than the Platonic view. Essences are known through particular actions and objects; the universal is an attempt to idealize these things, or it is a t least an attempt to show the typical. Though the particular events (the past and the present) are the subject matter of poetry, poetry excludes all such acci- dents when it directs itself to the universal-future. Good poetry is that which most accurately describes the reasonable nature of man in action. Though the general consensus will be the better judge of poetry, true reason being the same in all men, ali should come to assent to the truth of great poetry.

W r u b e , op. cit., p xix.

PLATO, ARISTOTLE, A N D THE POETS 26 1

I11 Perhaps there is little point to making a (yet another) summary of the two

positions as stated. The point of the essay is made if we accept the analysis as given and agree that in their treatment of the poets Plato and Aristotle appear to be arguing for a certain view of reality. These views of reality are more precisely given in other works, but even in the writing on poets the views permeate the thinking of these philosophers. To Plato, the poets can only approach truth but can never portray it fully, for imitation is by nature imperfect. But for Aristotle, the universal essences of things can only be known through particular objects, so i t is a virtue that poets exist to show the character of these essences. An analogy may be drawn by the use of a statement that is often employed to show the difference between Platonic and Aristotelian thinking. I t is said that Plato conceived that one must know good before he could be good, while Aristotle believed that one must be good before he could know good. To draw an analogy with poetry: Plato might say that poetry, if i t is to portray universal essences, must first be in command of the universal principles and only afterwards poetize about them; while Aristotle might hold that the very act of creating poetry will tend to draw the universals from diverse elements. In each case, the universal essences are not yet fully known to the poet, but how the poets come to know these essences is a subject that may be discovered in many of their writings.

plato, aristotle, and the poets

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