PLOTO’S OBJECT TO ARISTOTEL’S POETRY

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 NAME :- PIPAVAT GOPI 

 CLASS :- M.A PART -1

 ROLL NO :- 31

 TOPIC : PLOTO'S OBJECT TO ARISTOTEL'S POETRY

 PLOTO’S OBJECT TO ARISTOTEL’S POETRY

*Plato’s main three questions to poetry, are that:

 

-1) poetry are not ethical ,philosophical and pragmatic , in words,

-2) he objected to poetry from the point of view of education

-3) from moral point of view

 

-what were his objection?

-why is his theory of mimesis?

-what is his theory of mimesis?

 

INTRODUCTION : 

*Ploto was a gret poet, a mystic and a philosopher. Aristote -  the most distinguished disciple of Ploto was a critic, scholar, logician and practical philosopher .The master was  an inspired genius every greter than the disciple except in logic , analysis and common sense. He is known for his critical treatise : (!) the poetics and (!!) the rhetoric, dealing with art of speking ,resp.

*For centuries during roman age in Europe and after renaissance , Aristotel was honored as a law –giver  and legislator.Even today his critical !theories remain largely relevant ,and for this he certainly deserves our admiration and esteem.

*THE NATURE OF POETRY; POETIC INSPIRATION: THEORY OF INSPIRATION:

            Aristole agrees with ploto in calling the poet an imitator and creative art , imitation.he imitates one of the three objects – things as they were/are , things as they are said/thought to be or present, what is commonly believed and what is ideal. Aristotel believes that there is natural pleasure in imitation that enables the child to learn his earliest lessons in speech and conduct from those round him, because there is a pleasure in doing so. In a grown up child – a poet, there is another instinct, helping him to make him a poet the instinct for harmony and rhythm.

            He does not agree with his teacher in – poet’s imitation is twice removed form reality and hence unreal/illusion of truth. to prove his point he compares poetry with history the poet and the historian differ not by their –medium, but the true difference is that the historian relates ‘what has happened? The poet, what may/ought to have happened?- the ideal. Poetry ,therefore , is more philosophical and higher thing than the history. Which expresses the particular,while poetry tends to expressthe universal. Therefore the picture of poetry pleases all and at all times.

            Aristotel does not agree with ploto in function of poetry to make people weaker and emotional/too sentimental.For him, catharsis is ennobling and humbles human being.

So far as moral nature of poetry is concerned , aristotel believed that the end of poetry is to please;however ,teaching may be given.Such pleasing is superior to the other pleasure      

 because it teaches civic morality.so all good literature gives pleasure which is not divorced from moral lessons.

        

*PLATO’S VALUABL CONTRYBUTION TO THE STUDY OF ART LITERATURE

          

                   He was the first who inquired into the nature of imaginative literature and put forward  theories which are both illiuminating and provocative.he was poet. His dialogues  are full of poetic beauty.

 -His objections =”the imitator or maker of the image  knows nothing of true existence ;he knows appearance only….

 -The imitative art is an inferior who marries an inferior and has inferior  offspring”

  -Ploto felt that poetry, like all forms of art , appeals to the inferior part of  the soul , the irrational , emotional cowardly part.the reader of poetry is seduced in to feeling undesirable emotions.

 -  to  plato , an appreciation of poetry is incompatible  with an appreciation of reason ,                                                           

     Justice , and the search for truth.

  - in the lon he suggest that poery causes needless lamentation and ecstasies at the imaginary events of sorrow and happiness.

CLASSIFICATION OF VARIOUS ART FORMS : TRAGEDY, COMEDY AND  EPIC :

 

   * Object , medium and manner of imitation decides type of poetry;    

       

     Object : which subject is imitated ? life of great people is imitated ?this will make that work tragedy/epic or comedy/satire.

     David  daiches writes explaining the classification of poetry according to the aspect of life and the kinds of  people it represents- they are either better than they are in real life, or worse, or the same. 

     One could present characters that is on the grand or heroic scale ; or could treat ironically or humorously  the petty fgollies of men ;or one could aim at naturalism presenting men neither heightened nor trivialized…Tragedy deals men  on a heroic scale , men better  than  they are In every day life , where as comedy deals with the more trivial aspect of human nature, with characters worse than they are in real life.

      Medium : what sort of medium is used to imitate life? Colours , words, music ?when words are used , how are they used, I mean ,what meter /verse  are  used as medium ?that makes tragedy different from other fine arts as well as  comedy also

      The types of literature ,says  aristotel can again be distinguished according to the medium of representation.the different of medium between a poet and a painter is clear ; one uses word with their denotative , cannotative ,rhythmic and musical aspects ;the other uses forms and colours.likewise tragedy writer may make use of one kind of meter , and the comedy writer of another.

      Manner(mode) :  In what manner is imitations of life presented ? by action of narration ? this differentiate tragedy from epic..

        The kind of literatuere  can be distinguished and determined also according to the techniques they employ.david  daitches :“ the poet can tell a story in  narrative form and partly though the speeches of the character  ( as homer does) , or it can all be done in third – peson narrative , or the story can be presented dramatically,with no use of third person narrative at all.”

 

·       PLATO – THE PHILOSOPHER

  

       Philosophy is better than poetry because philosopher deals with idea / truth , whereas poet deals with what appears to him / illusion. He believed that truth of philosopher was more important than the pleasure of poetry. As a moralist plato

disapproves of poetry because it is immoral, as a philosopher he disapproves of it because it is based in falsehood. Plato’s chief interest was philosophical investigations which form the of dialogues. He was nut a professed critic of literature and his critical observation are not found in any single book. They lie scattered in seven of his dialogues, more particularly in the lon, the the symposium, the republic and the laws

     

       ART –TWICE REMOVED FROM REALITY-ILLUSION!

             

                According to him all arts are imitative or mimetic in nature.he wrote in the republic that ‘ideas are the ultimate reality’. Things are conceived as ideas before they take practical shapes. so, idea is original and the thing is copy of that idea.carpenter’s chair is the result of the idea of chair in his mind.  thus , the chair is once removed from reality. But painter’s chair  is imitation of  carpenter’s chair.so it is twice removed form reality. thus artist/ poet takes man away from reality rather than towards it. Thus artist deals in ilussion.

  

      NATURE AND FUNCATION OF TRAGEDY:

Definition: tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious. Complete, and of a certain magnitude: in the language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several, kind being found in separate part of the play : in the form of action, not of narrative: through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation-catharsis of these and similar emotions.”

The definition is compact. Ever word of it is pregnant with meaning. Each word from it can be elaborated into a separate essay.

Ali art is representation(imitation)of life, but none can represent life in its totality. Therefore, an artist has to be selective in representation.

He must him at representing or imitating an aspect of life or a fragment of life.

Action comprises of all human activities including deeds, thoughts and feeling. (so, soliloquies chorus etc is also action)

The writer of ‘tragedy’ seeks to imitate the serious side of life just as a writer of comedy seeks to imitate only the shallow and superficial side.

The tragic section presented on the stage in a drama should be complete or self contained with a beginning middle and an end. A beginning is that before which the audience of the reader does not need to be told anything to understand the story. If something more is required to understand the story than the beginning gives, it is unsatisfactory. From it follow the middle in their turn the events from the middle lead to the end thus the story becomes a compact and self sufficient one. It must not leave the impression that even after their end the action continues, or that before the action starts certain things remain to be knows.

It must have close-knit unit with nothing that is superfluous or unnecessary. Every episode every character and a dialogue in the play must carry step by step the action that is set into motion to its logical denouement. It must give the impression of wholeness at the end.

The play must have, then, a definite magnitude, a proper size or a reasonable length such as the mind may comprehend fully. That is to say that it must have only necessary duration, not longer than about three hour, or shorter than that. Longer duration may tire our patience and shorter one make effecting representation impossible.

 

 THEORY OF CATHARSIS:

    

 At the exact meaning and concept of catharsis, there has been a lot of controversy among scholars and critics down the centuries. Therefore  it deserved separate treatment.

“ In the meaning of catharsis  “ First  there has been age –long  controversy about aristotel’s meaning ,though it has almost always been accepted that whatever he meant was profoundly right. Many, for example , have translated catharsis as ‘purification’ , ‘correction or refinement’, ‘reinigung’ , or the like. It has been suggested  that our pity and fear are ‘purified’ in the theatre by becoming disinterested . it is bad to be selfishly sentimental , timid , and querulous ; but it is good to pity othelo or to fear for hamlet. Our selfish emotion has been sublimated. All this is most edifying ; but it does not appear to be what Aristotle intended.”

 F.L lucas observes :“one could , of course , argues that these good folks were instinctively  craving a catharsis. But I should have thought they were suffering in their daily lives, not from excess of emotion, but from deficiency; that wanted; not to be ‘purge’, but to be fed- that they were hungry and thirsty for emotions that the dull round of their days denied.”

  ARISTOTLE AGAINST PLATO ON POETRY AND DRAMA:

What led Aristotle to adopt this theory? It should be remembered that plato, his master, has attacked poetry in general including tragedy form moral and philosophical point of view. So Aristotle had to defend poetry against his master’s attack on the moral and philosophical ground. He has to refute plato’s charges. To quote f.L.Lucas

“poetry, said plato, makes men cowardly by its picture of the afterworld. No, replies Aristotle, it can purge men’s fear. Poetry, said plato, encourages men to be hysterical and uncontrolled. On the contrary, answers his pupil, it makes them less, not more, emotional by giving a periodic healthy out to their feelings. In short, Aristotle’s definition of tragedy is half a defence.”

*PLATO ON DRAMA :

To him drama is the most dangerous form of literature because the author is imitating things that he/she does not understand.

Plato seemingly feels that no words are strong enough to condemn drama.

Plato felt that all the world’s evils derived form one source: a faulty understanding of reality.

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