Abstract
Plato’s rejection of poetry and poetic style is notorious among scholars and is a recurrent theme in the area of Platonic studies from the beginning of the 20th century onwards. There are important reasons that justify Plato’s critique of poets and tragedians. First, Plato regards poetry as a kind of mimetic art and worries about the life-changing powers of mimesis, i.e. the skill of the imitative art to shape the minds of its listeners. Moreover, Plato deplores the morally degrading influence that epic poetry and tragedy bring about in the audience’s souls through the pleasure they afford. This paper discusses the following three points: a) the kind of pleasure epic poetry and tragedy afford; b) the peculiar psychological identification that poetry instills in the audience; c) finally, the reform of dramatic style advocated by the philosopher in order to turn poetry into a useful (ὠφελίμη) practice.
Ego autem non urbe, sed orbe tales [poetas] exterminandos fore existimo.
I think [poets] should be expelled not only from the city but also from the world.
Boccaccio Giovanni, Genealogia deorum gentilium, liber XIV, caput 19.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See Petraki 2011, 18–26.
- 3.
Gordon 1999, 157.
- 4.
- 5.
Petraki 2011, 10.
- 6.
All references to Plato’s R. are from the edition of the Greek text established by Slings 2003.
- 7.
Destrée 2012, 126.
- 8.
- 9.
- 10.
Petraki 2011, 7.
- 11.
My discussion of the attacks Plato addresses against dramatic poetry is greatly indebted to Pierre Destrée 2012, 125–141.
- 12.
For a discussion about Platonic attacks on poetic lexis see Nussbaum 1986, pp. 1–21 and 122–135; Cook 1999, especially Chap. 4.
- 13.
Homer is called by Plato ‘the primary teacher and leader of all those beautiful tragedians’ (τῶν καλῶν ἁπάντων τούτων τῶν τραγικῶν πρῶτος διδάσκαλός τε καὶ ἡγεμὼν γενέσθαι; R. 595c1-2), because he is the main source from which all tragic playwriting stems. Thus, the negative judgment against poetry is directed, at the same time, at epic poetry and tragic performance. See also R. 598d9.
- 14.
Palumbo 2008, p. 243 n.21.
- 15.
Destrée 2012, p. 126.
- 16.
The Lg. start from the continuum between theater and life to build the educational constitution of the city (Lg. III 700b-701c). See also Phlb. 50a-54c and Cra. 408b-d.
- 17.
Palumbo 2008, pp. 168–171.
- 18.
On the mythical background of Ancient Greeks, see Palumbo 2008, pp. 82–85, 123, 168–171, 287.
- 19.
All translations of Plato’s Republic quoted in this chapter are taken from Reeve 2004.
- 20.
Destrée 2012, p. 130.
- 21.
See R. 603b1: πόρρω δ’ αὖ φρονήσεως. R. 603a10: πόρρω μὲν τῆς ἀληθείας ὂν τὸ αὑτῆς ἔργον ἀπεργάζεται.
- 22.
Destrée 2012, p. 129.
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
Destrée 2012, p. 130.
- 26.
See LSJ sv I, II and III.
- 27.
Petraki 2011, particularly p. 15 n.28 and 17 n.31.
- 28.
Petraki 2011, p. 22.
- 29.
A little later, Plato adds: ‘Then isn’t it necessary for these people to live with pleasures that are mixed with pains, mere images and shadow-paintings of the true pleasure? And doesn’t the juxtaposition of these pleasures and pains make them appear intense, so that they give rise to mad erotic passion in the foolish, and are fought over in just the way that Stesichorus tells us the phantom of Helen was fought over at Troy by men ignorant of the truth?’ (R. 586b7-c5). See also R. 585a-587a and Phlb. 51b-52a. Aristotle defines this passion in the Po. in the following way: ‘the pleasure coming from pity and fear through mimesis ’ (1453b12).
- 30.
Plato uses the term σκιαγραφία five times in the R.: once in book II, 365c4; once in book VII, 523b; twice in book IX, 583b and 586b-c; once in book X, 602d. On the use of the term in the R. and in the other dialogues see Petraki 2011, pp. 246–263.
- 31.
See R. 602c7-d4.
- 32.
Halliwell 2009, p. 257.
- 33.
Petraki 2011, p. 45.
- 34.
Petraki 2011, p. 258.
- 35.
The passage is mentioned by André Luis Susin , ‘Mimesis e Tragédia em Platão e Aristóteles’, Dissertação defense UFMG University (May 2010, p. 41). The author finds a harmony between Shakespeare ’s tragedy and R. X 603c. I mention the passage with a different purpose in mind.
- 36.
Riccardo 2005, p. 100.
- 37.
For the comments on the Cra. and the related dialogues, see the beautiful and illuminating text by Riccardo 2005, 100–103. Interestingly, in the Plt., the Stranger of Elea asserts that a picture would be incomplete without the vivid colors (τοἶῖς φαρμάκοις) (Plt. 277c2).
- 38.
Petraki 2011, p. 26.
- 39.
- 40.
For a discussion on the connection between philosophical imagistic speech and painting, see Reeve 1998, pp. 220–231.
- 41.
The criteria Plato uses for defining the right human nature are the characteristics of the Platonic Forms (unity, homogeneity and stability), whose ethical counterparts are harmonia and symphonia. See Petraki 2001, p. 248.
- 42.
Destrée 2012, p. 128.
- 43.
Lessing , Laokoon § 1. (p. 16 of the Italian translation by M. Cometa. Palermo: Aesthetica 2000).
- 44.
Riccardo 2005, p. 103.
- 45.
Destrée 2012, p. 135.
- 46.
It’s important to remember that all kind of poetry is mimetic, because mimesis is an essential element of any poetic style. The problem, I believe, is connected with the meaning of the word mimesis . Linguistic researches have shown that in Plato’s works and in Ancient Greek literature, the term mimesis is not to be rendered as ‘imitation ’ but rather as ‘representation’. See Halliwell 2009, especially the Introduction; Palumbo 2008; 1990, pp. 23–42; 2012, 142–169; Kardaun (2014, p. 151 and n.12), who gives a summary of the interpretations.
- 47.
This technique produces images which hide their ontological difference from reality. To explain this phenomenon, Plato cites the tale of Chryses in the Homeric Iliad, where Homer impersonates Chryses speaking on his behalf (R. 392d; 393a; 393b).
- 48.
Teisserenc 2005, p. 74.
- 49.
- 50.
See Palumbo 2008, p. 142.
- 51.
- 52.
- 53.
As observed by Cook , ‘their frequency and range is so remarkable in Plato’s work, that more than a quarter of all the references in Denniston ’s Greek Particles are from his work’ (1966, 141, cited by Capra 2001, p. 47).
- 54.
‘This also has important bearings on the way that the external audience is engaged with the ideas that Plato’s Socrates propounds in the work, as it opens out to include all different kinds of responses to his philosophy’ (Petraki 2011, 27).
- 55.
Petraki 2011, p. 27 n.49.
- 56.
- 57.
- 58.
Thiele 1991, p. 35, cited by Capra 2001, p. 51.
- 59.
In order to achieve this purpose, Plato uses a complex narrative framework and offers substantial information about the cultural and psychological profiles of Socrates’ interlocutors. See Petraki 2011, 142–176.
- 60.
- 61.
An earlier, incomplete and different version of this paper was published in Portuguese in Endoxa v. 36 2015, pp. 31–53. I’m very grateful to Marcelo Boeri , Ivana Costa , Iván De Los Ríos , and Yahei Kanayama for their precious comments and remarks. Many thanks are due to Marcelo Boeri and Jorge Mittelmann , both of whom labored over the manuscript and saved me from numerous errors with the English. I am also very grateful to Professor Yahei Kanayama for his suggestions and revisions.
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Botter, B. (2018). The Influence of the ‘Honeyed Muse’ (ἡδυσμένη Μοῦσα) Over the Soul in Plato’s Republic . In: Boeri, M.D., Kanayama, Y.Y., Mittelmann, J. (eds) Soul and Mind in Greek Thought. Psychological Issues in Plato and Aristotle. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78547-9_2
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