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Imaginative Representation
Plato and Aristotle

Plato believes that art is a way off the essential truth because art is an imotati9n of
the objects and life events which, in turn, are an imitation of the ideal forms. However,
Aristotle disagrees with Plato, saying that the main principle of all arts is imitation, and
imitation is the way of the human being to learn.

Plato, in The Republic, considers the art is a way off the essential truths, because art
imitates the objects and events of life which in turn are imitations of the ideal forms. Art,
for Plato, is an illusion, so it is in the bottom of his Line of cognition ladder. Plato believes
that there are four stages of cognation: the lowest which is the images, shadows and
reflection. For example, the shadow of a pen may seem different according to the direction
of light. The second stage is the material things in the world such as animals and what is
made by human beings. it is related to faith or belief. And these two stages come under the
sphere of opinion. The third stage is our understanding of the ideal forms. It is the
hypotheses of the form of Goodness which come in the highest stage and it has to do with
reason. Those two last stages come under the realm of intellectuality. Plato also speaks
about poetry and his rejection of the imitative poetry because poetry is ruinous to the
understanding of the hearers, and it is dangerous because it provokes wrong feelings such
as anger and pity . According to Plato, the poet imitates the objects which in turn are copy
of the ideal forms. The poet can do anything since he only imitating part of them(the
objects), even though he does not know anything about the objects and how they are made.
So, a good poet may deceive a simple person or children, because he only shows them his
own view of thing and in turn they will think that what they are looking at is the truth.

However, Aristotle does not speak in general about art, but he distinguishes
between the kinds of art: Epic poetry, Tragedy, Comedy ,Dithyrambic poetry, and song. He
differs them according three ways: The means, the object, and the manner of imitation. By
the means of imitation, he distinguishes visual representation (painting) and the art of
poetry(literature, music, and dance). He says that poetry includes three means that can be
combined in different ways; rhythm, harmony and language. For example, a musical piece
contains rhythm and harmony while dance might contains only a rhythm. Within the
language, Aristotle makes distinction between prose and verse. He says that not all the
things that can be found in verse and prose, can be found in poetry. That is because the
“object” they imitate, not the means they use. To distinguish just by means is not enough
because you can not distinguish between philosophy and history since they use the same
means(language). To differ art by the object of imitation means “Men in action.” Those
actions include a good men or bad men. The man(agent) must be either better than
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ourselves or worse or just as we are. For example, the character of Oedipus, in Oedipus the
King, is better than the average man and this is the Tragedy, the protagonist is some one
who is better than the average man. While in the comedy, the protagonist is foolish, witless,
or clown which is worse than the average man. The third way To differ art is by the manner
of imitation in which the object is presented. First, if the two arts use the same kind of
means and object, then the poet may present a course of events as a story, either assuming
the perspective of another character or speaking directly to the audience in his or her
person. This is to be found in epic poetry and it is called narrative presentation. The second
manner of imitation is called dramatic presentation which means a course of events is
placed before us by actors who present the events by taking on the role of different
characters involved. Aristotle also argues that tragedy contains six parts: Plot, Characters,
Diction, Thoughts, Spectacle and Melody. The most important part is the incidents of the
story (Plot). He argues that there is no tragedy without action but there might be one
without characters. Also, to make a successful tragedy, it must contain plot and a
combination of incidents. Two elements of attraction in tragedy are Discoveries, which
mean a changing from ignorance to knowledge, and Peripeteia which causes fear and pity.

Plato, being more in favour of science, neglected the benefit of the art which is, in
my opinion, a means to better understanding of the world. Plato concerns in the ideal world
while Aristotle concerns the world we live in . Also, the main principle of all the arts, to
Aristotle, is imitation and imitation is simply a human nature because we learn by imitation
and throughout imitation we get pleasure since we see a perfect imitation of the world and
of human experiences. Aristotle agree with Plato about that art is a imitative, but he
disagreed with him in that poetry help us to understand the truths about the world.