Plato’s Charges

against Poetry
&
Aristotle’s
Vindication
 Plato’s contribution to the study of Art:
His condemnation of art and the artists

• Plato’s theory of Mimesis (imitation): The arts

deal with (feed on) illusion or they are imitations
of an imitation -- (twice removed from reality).
• He was the first who inquired into the nature of
imaginative literature and put forward theories
which are both illuminating and provocative.
• He was a poet – dialogues full of poetic beauty
(dramatic quality). But all was attributed, as it
were, to Socrates.
 Plato – the philosopher
• As a moralist, Plato disapproves of poetry because
it is immoral; as a philosopher he disapproves of it
because it is based on falsehood.
• Philosophy is better than poetry because the
philosopher deals with ideas / truth, whereas the
poet deals with what appears to him / illusion.
• He believed that the truth of philosophy was more
important than the pleasure derived from poetry.
• Plato’s chief interest was in philosophical
investigation that would qualify the
philosopher to play the role the State
counsellor.
• He is not a professed critic or theorist of
literature and his critical observations are
occasionally delivered in some of his
Dialogues (particularly in Phaedrus, The Ion,
The Symposium) and in The Republic.
Plato's three main objections to poetry:
• Poetry is not ethical because it provokes base
feelings and promotes undesirable passions;
• It is not philosophical because it does not
provide true knowledge of man and the world,
and;
• It is not pragmatic because it is inferior to the
practical arts and therefore has no educational
value.
• Plato 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 into
feeling undesirable emotions.
• To Plato, an appreciation of poetry is incompatible
with an appreciation of reason, justice, and the search
for truth.
• In The Ion, he suggests that poetry causes needless
lamentation and ecstasies at the imaginary events of
sorrow and happiness.
• It numbs the faculty of reason for the time being,
paralyses the balanced thought and encourages the
weaker part of soul constituted of the baser impulses.
Hence poetry has no healthy function, and it cannot be
called good.
• 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 from
one source: a faulty understanding of reality.
 Aristotle’s Defense of Poetry and the Poets
His Theory of Poetry (Poetics):
Aristotle agrees with Plato that the poet is an imitator.
He believes that there is natural pleasure in imitation,
(mimesis) due to man’s inborn instinct.
All art forms (epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, poetry,
music) are modes of imitation, but they differ in
medium, objects, and manner of imitation, produced
through rhythm, language and harmony.
 Aristotle takes issue with Plato’s charges against poetry
• To prove his point he compares poetry to history. The poet, unlike the historian
differs in his choice of the medium, and in the way he relates reality. Whereas
the historian’s concern is with particular events (related to what happened), the
poet’s work deals with what may/should happen (the probable). Therein lies
lesson of general import and universal utility to humanity. Poetry, therefore, “is
more philosophical and more serious than history”.

• Aristotle does not agree with the Platonic function of poetry (to make people
weaker and emotional/too sentimental). For him, catharsis is ennobling and
enhances humility in human beings. The moral end of poetry is to please; but
also to instruct. Such pleasing is superior to the other pleasures because it
teaches civic morality. Therefore, all good literature gives pleasure that is not
divorced from moral lessons.
 Plato vs. Aristotle
PLATO:
• Poetry presents a copy
of nature as it is.
Poetry is twice
removed from reality
-- it is a ‘shadow of
shadows’.
• Philosophy as wisdom
is superior to poetry as
mimicry or a servile
copy of nature.
• Poetry is compared to
painting.
ARISTOTLE:
• Poetry may imitate
men as they are, or
better or worse.
Poetry gives us an
idealized version of
reality.
• Poetry could be
superior when turned
into a creative
process.
• Poetry is compared
to music.
 Conclusion
• Plato judges poetry from the educational, philosophical and
ethical standpoints, not in terms of its own objectives, or its own
criteria of merit.
• Aristotle stands in defence of the theory of art which Plato condemns
on epistemological and ethical grounds. We cannot fairly maintain
that music is bad because it does not paint, or that painting is bad
because it does not sing. Similarly, we cannot say that poetry is
bad because it does not teach philosophy or ethics. If poetry,
philosophy and ethics had identical functions, how could they be
different subjects?