How did Plato feel about poetry and rhetoric?
Plato saw Philosophy to be opposed to Poetry and Rhetoric. In fact, he alludes to the "ancient quarrel" between these two sides, as he saw them. One of the ironies concerning Plato is that despite his unremitting hostility towards poetry and rhetoric, he is famous for his own poems and rhetoric.
Is Plato poetic or poetry?
Plato is (perhaps paradoxically) known for the poetic and rhetorical qualities of his own writings, a fact which will also be discussed in what follows. 1. Introduction 2. Ion 3. Republic, Books II, III, X 4. Gorgias 5. Phaedrus 6. Plato’s Dialogues as Rhetoric and Poetry 1. Introduction
What is the purpose of poetry according to Socrates?
As already noted, Socrates classifies poetry (dithyrambic and tragic poetry are named) as a species of rhetoric. Its goal is to gratify and please the spectator, or differently put, it is just a kind of flattery. Strip away the rhythm and meter, and you have plain prose directed at the mob. It’s a kind of public speaking, that’s all (502a6–c12).
What is the role of the poet?
That is, the poets are rhetoricians who are, as it were, selling their products to as large a market as possible, in the hope of gaining repute and influence. The tripartite schema of Idea, artifact, and imitator is as much about making as it is about imitation.
What is the main function of poetry?
The view of the aesthetes is that the function of poetry is to give pleasure to its reader irrespective of the moral ideas.
What is poetry in Plato's Republic?
According to Plato, poetry has no place in education (especially the education of guardians) because it is deceptive and harmful. He gives the example of how gods are depicted in poems: human-like, with humane emotions, quarrels, evil motives, and actions. Gods were moral role models for the citizens of the time.
What are Plato's objection to poetry?
Plato's three main objections to poetry are that poetry is not ethical, philosophical and pragmatic, in other words, he objected to poetry from the point of view of Education, from Philosophical point of view and from Moral point of view.
What is the function of poetry according to John Dryden?
According to Dryden, the poet is neither a teacher nor a bare imitator – like a photographer – but a creator, one who, with life or Nature as his raw material, creates new things altogether resembling the original. According to him, poetry is a work of art rather than mere imitation.
How did Aristotle and Plato define poetry?
According to Plato, poetry imitates only superficial appearance like a painter. But Aristotle believed that poetry not only imitates the external but also internal emotions. Plato condemned poetry on moral, intellectual and emotional grounds. Aristotle justifies poetry on moral, intellectual and emotional grounds.
What is poetry according to Aristotle?
He defines poetry as an art that imitates: “imitation . . . is one instinct of our nature” and “the objects of imitation are men in action.” He considers “Comedy . . . an imitation of characters of a lower type;” tragedy is “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude;” Aristotle ...
Why did Plato banish poetry?
He banished them because they produced the wrong sort of poetry. To rebut Plato's critique of poetry, what is needed is not a defence of poetry, but a defence of the freedom of poets to write as, and what, they wish.
What are the four objections raised against poetry?
1.8 FOUR CHIEF OBJECTIONS TO POETRY First---poetry is useless---a waste of time, second—poetry is deceptive the mother of all lies, third—poetry is immoral—the nurse of abuse, fourth—Plato would have none of it and so banished poets from his republic.
What is the function of poetry according to Sidney?
According to Sidney, poetry teaches and delights but that is not all. he also points out the power of poetry to move the mind and to stir the heart. It can influence the reader's behavior and conduct. After reading Homer's “Odyssey”, everybody would like to perform a deed of similar virtue.
What according to Coleridge are the nature and function of poetry PDF?
Coleridge considers poetry as the fragrance of all human knowledge and thoughts. It is the scent of human passions, emotions and language. He thinks that no man was ever a great poet without being a profound philosophy. A great poet should attempt and achieve a union between the high finish and the appropriateness.
What is the aim of poetry according to Sidney?
The ultimate aim of this kind of poetry is moral: the poet imitates, says Sidney, in order “both to delight and teach.” The object of both teaching and delighting is goodness: by delighting, the poet moves people to welcome goodness; and by teaching, he enables them to “know that goodness whereunto they are moved.” And ...
What are Socrates rules for poetry in Plato's Republic?
Socrates requires that poets present the gods as models of virtue – models that men desire to imitate; for “imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature.”
What Socrates says about poetry?
Socrates' criticism that poetry feeds the weakest part of the soul is obviously not an argument that Plato can fully agree with, because otherwise any reader reading that dialogue would be feeding the bad part of their soul. The Republic, of course, utilizes mimetic poetry.
What are the arguments against poetry by Plato?
Plato was a great moral philosopher and his primary concentration was to induce moral values in the society and to seek the ultimate Truth. So when he examines poetry his tool is rather moral and not aesthetic. He confused aesthetics with morality and ultimately concluded poetry as immoral and imitative in nature.
How is poetry thrice removed from reality?
According to him, a real artist is more concerned with realities and not with the imitations of it. He says, hence, the poets mere imitators, like the artists and merely imitate things without having much knowledge about it themselves. And hence, Plato says that poets, like artists, are thrice removed from reality.
What is the meaning of poetry?
A tolerable definition of poetry, on its formal side, might be found in this: that poetry is speech in which the instrument counts as well as the meaning—poetry is speech for its own sake and for its own sweetness.
Why is poetry more philosophical than history?
If poetry in its higher reaches is more philosophical than history, because it presents the memorable types of men and things apart from unmeaning circumstances, so in its primary substance and texture poetry is more philosophical than prose because it is nearer to our immediate experience.
What does poetry break up?
Poetry breaks up the trite conceptions designated by current words into the sensuous qualities out of which those conceptions were originally put together. We name what we conceive and believe in, not what we see; things, not images; souls, not voices and silhouettes.
How does poetry break up the prosaic picture of experience?
As verse breaks up the prosaic order of syllables and subjects them to recognizable and pleasing measure, so poetry breaks up the whole prosaic picture of experience to introduce into it a rhythm more congenial and intelligible to the mind.
Why is metaphor the basis of dogma?
A metaphor here is the basis of a dogma, because the dogma rises to the same subtle region as the metaphor, and gathers its sap from the same soil of emotion. Religion has here rediscovered its affinity with poetry, and in insisting on the truth of its mystery it unconsciously vindicates the ideality of its truth.
What is the meaning of the word "numbers" in poetry?
Although a poem be not made by counting of syllables upon the fingers, yet "numbers" is the most poetical synonym we have for verse, and "measure" the most significant equivalent for beauty, for goodness, and perhaps even for truth. Those early and profound philosophers, the followers of Pythagoras, saw the essence of all things in number, ...
When song is given up, there still remains in speech a certain sensuous quality, due to the nature and order?
When song is given up, there still remains in speech a certain sensuous quality, due to the nature and order of the vowels and consonants that compose the sounds. This kind of euphony is not neglected by the more dulcet poets, and is now so studied in some quarters that I have heard it maintained by a critic of relative authority that the beauty of poetry consists entirely in the frequent utterance of the sound of "j" and "sh," and in the consequent copious flow of saliva in the mouth. But even if saliva is not the whole essence of poetry, there is an unmistakable and fundamental diversity of effect in the various vocalization of different poets, which becomes all the more evident when we compare those who use different languages. One man's speech, or one nation's, is compact, crowded with consonants, rugged, broken with emphatic beats; another man's, or nation's, is open, tripping, rapid, and even. So Byron, mingling in his boyish fashion burlesque with exquisite sentiment, contrasts English with Italian speech:—
What is Plato's discussion of poetry?
Plato’s discussions of rhetoric and poetry are both extensive and influential. As in so many other cases, he sets the agenda for the subsequent tradition. And yet understanding his remarks about each of these topics—rhetoric and poetry—presents us with significant philosophical and interpretive challenges. Further, it is not initially clear why he ...
Why is poetry important?
A good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him —Dylan Thomas[ 1] When we think of a philosophical analysis of poetry, something like a treatise on aesthetics comes to mind.
What is the bitter dialogue between Socrates and Plato?
The Gorgias is one of Plato’s most bitter dialogues in that the exchanges are at times full of anger, of uncompromising disagreement, plenty of misunderstanding, and cutting rhetoric. In these respects it goes beyond even the Protagoras, a dialogue that depicts a hostile confrontation between Socrates and the renowned sophist by the same name. [ 25] The quarrel between philosophy and rhetoric shows itself as an ugly fight in the Gorgias.
What is Plato's dialogue?
Plato’s Dialogues as Rhetoric and Poetry. Plato’s critique of writing on the grounds that it is a poor form of rhetoric is itself written. Of course, his Socrates does not know that he is “speaking” in the context of a written dialogue; but the reader immediately discerns the puzzle.
What is Plato's polemic against the Sophists?
Plato’s polemic against the sophists was so persuasive that, in conjunction with a well established and ongoing popular hostility towards sophistry (a hostility of which Socrates was, ironically, also the object), we have come to use “sophist” as a term of opprobrium meaning something like “mere rhetorician.”.
What is the thrust of Socrates' initial questioning?
The thrust of Socrates’ initial questioning is revealing. Essentially, he attempts to show that Ion is committed to several theses that are not compatible with one another, unless a rather peculiar, saving assumption is introduced. Ion claims that he is a first rate explicator of Homer; that he is a first rate explicator only of Homer, and loses interest as well as competence if another poet (such as Hesiod) is brought up (531a3–4, 532b8–c2; 533c4–8); and that Homer discusses his subjects much better than do any other poets (531d4–11, 532a4–8). Ion may justly be thought of as one of the “praisers” of Homer referred to in Republic X (see above, and Ion 542b4). Notice that Socrates’s first order of business is to get Ion to agree that a number of claims are being made by him; while this may seem obvious, it is an essential condition for Socrates’ inquiry, and is a distinctive characteristic of the sort of thing Socrates does as a philosopher.
What does Plato refuse to do?
Famously, or notoriously, Plato refuses to countenance a firm separation between the private and the public, between the virtue of the one and the regulation of the other. What goes on in the theater, in your home, in your fantasy life, are connected. Poetry unregulated by philosophy is a danger to soul and community.
What does Plato think of poetry?
Although Plato acknowledges the usefulness of poetry, in education, in civil celebrations etc, he regards it at all times with suspicion. Although he recognises poetry is a vital and necessary part of human society, he sees it as a mark of humanity's fallen state. Of course, his remarks must be read within the cultural framework of Plato's time, where the dissemination and spread of poetry was very different.
What is Plato's view of philosophy?
Plato saw Philosophy to be opposed to Poetry and Rhetoric. In fact, he alludes to the "ancient quarrel" between these two sides, as he saw them. One of the ironies concerning Plato is that despite his unremitting hostility towards poetry and rhetoric, he is famous for his own poems and rhetoric. Go figure!
What does Plato say about Homer?
He addresses his remarks at the "praisers of Homer who say that this poet educated Greece, and that in the management and education of human affairs it is worthwhile to take him up for study and for living, by arranging one's whole life according to this poet”. Plato seems to be setting himself up against the entire worldview that Homer and his followers have created and sustained. He argues that the influence of poetry is pervasive and often damaging, and that the ideas it presents about nature and the divine are often mistaken.
Was Plato opposed to poetry?
Like the other answer, in some ways Plato was opposed to poetry. In particular, he did not like the mimetic aspect of poety - namely that poetry imitated life. This aspect of poetry was seen as opposed to true reality. Plato had a robust idea that what one really needed to know was the eternal forms and one could only gain this knowledge ...
Introduction
Ion
- Ion is a prize-winning professional reciter of poetry—a“rhapsode”—and of Homer in particular.[7] Though he speaks his lines with the requisite conviction and emotion,he does not “imitate” his subjects in the sense of acttheir parts (of course, Homer did not write for the stage). He is aperformer but not a (stage) actor. Ion is depicted as superb at makingthe Iliad and Odysseyco…
Republic, Books II, III, X
- 3.1 Republic II
In order to respond to the famous challenge put to Socrates by Glauconand Adeimantus, it is necessary to define justice. Socrates suggeststhat the task would be easier if justice were first sought in a polis,where it is “writ large.” That strategy accepted, thepolis must be created in spee… - 3.2 Republic III
In book III Socrates expands the argument considerably. The concernnow is squarely with poetry that encourages virtue in the souls of theyoung. Courage and moderation are the first two virtues consideredhere; the psychological and ethical effects of poetry are nowscrutinized. The entire p…
Gorgias
- The Gorgias is one of Plato’s most bitter dialogues in thatthe exchanges are at times full of anger, of uncompromisingdisagreement, plenty of misunderstanding, and cutting rhetoric. Inthese respects it goes beyond even the Protagoras, a dialoguethat depicts a hostile confrontation between Socrates and the renownedsophist by the same name.[25] The quarrel between philoso…
Phaedrus
- Readers of the Phaedrus have often wondered how the dialoguehangs together. The first “half” seems to be about love,and the second about rhetoric. A slightly closer look reveals that anysuch simple characterization is misleading, because the first half isalso about rhetoric, in several different ways. To begin with, thefirst half of the dialogue contains explicit reflections on rhetori…
Plato’s Dialogues as Rhetoric and Poetry
- Plato’s critique of writing on the grounds that it is a poor form ofrhetoric is itself written. Of course, his Socrates does not know thathe is “speaking” in the context of a written dialogue; butthe reader immediately discerns the puzzle. Does the critique apply tothe dialogues themselves? If not, do the dialogues escape the critiquealtogether, or...