Classical Criticism

Second Year

Dept. of English Language& Literature

Benha University
 Contents

Nature& Function of Criticism .......................................... 1 – 4

Greco-Roman Criticism .................................................... 5 – 7

Classical Criticism: Historical& Political Background ..... 8 – 13

Plato (427- 347 B.C) .......................................................... 14 – 59

Aristotle (384- 322 B.C) .................................................... 60 – 80

Plato and Aristotle ............................................................. 81 – 88

Longinus (1st c. A.D) ....................................................... 89 – 105

Horace (65- 8 B.C) ............................................................ 106 – 122

Works Cited ....................................................................... 123

 Literary Criticism—Nature and Function

The term criticism derives from the Greek term Kritikos, which
was used in the 4th century B.C. It is ―a judge of literature.‖ In the
second century A. D. its place was taken by the term criticus, aimed
at the interpretation of texts and words and improvement of the
works of writers in Greek or Latin. In English, Dryden used it in the
modern sense in his preface to the State of Innocence (1677). He
writes: ―criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant a
standard of judging well.‖ So, in its strict sense, criticism means
judgment.

A critic is a person who expresses opinions about the good and

bad qualities of books or the works of literature or poetry or the art
of an artist or a painter. It can be said that criticism is the play of the
mind to observe the merits and the defects in the works of literature,
as Victor Hugo points out, ―Is the work good or bad is the critic's
domain? Thus, the objective of literary criticism is to determine the
artistic values, poetic beauty, or the features being regarded as
inadequate existing in the works of literature that in turn may help
the writer or poet to improve the skills and ultimately the literary
works could in this way attract and delight the readers.

While discussing literary criticism, it is important and interesting

to know the qualities of a critic in brief. To begin with, first and
foremost, a critic must have a sound commonsense and clear

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thinking in order to judge or evaluate the works of literature in an
efficient way. He is well-read person to exercise judgment on
literary works in a way as it should be. He must know the fact that to
understand the works of literature, he needs to put himself in the
place of a writer so to that he can appraise the work from the
viewpoint of a writer as well. In order that the excellence or
shortcomings may be examined properly, he does not perform
opinion, but interprets literary values on the basis of his knowledge
and experience - without an aggressive and unreasonable belief or
without any prejudice. And finally, a sound knowledge of human life
and nature is a plus point to a critic to pass judgments on the literary
works accordingly.

As regards the function of literary criticism, considering the

saying of Atkins who says the chief functions of literary criticism
are, evaluation, interpretation and explanation or elucidation, it may
be said that literary criticism involves various aspects to examine the
literary work in order to conclude good qualities and the defects in
the works of literature which successively can facilitate the writer to
achieve the merits while allowing him to overcome the flaws if any.

It must be noted that the ultimate objective of any work of

literature or art is to attract the readers or the viewers or observers
with excellence while delighting them aesthetically. It is thus by
means of criticism to determine whether an artist or a writer has
been able to create distinctive values in his work or not. At this
stage, it would be appropriate to say that criticism is not just fault-

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finding but helping the writers or poets or artists in achieving the
excellence in their works that the ultimate objective which is wanted
must be attained. At this point, the saying of T.S. Eliot is worth
mentioning, “The end of criticism is the elucidation of works of art
and the correction of taste.”

When we talk about literary criticism, we evidently include under

the term criticism, the whole mass of literary works, which are
written about literature whether the object is analysis, interpretation,
evaluation, or all these combined. Poetry, drama, or novels deals
directly with life whereas criticism deals with poetry, drama, and
novel. So if the different forms of creative literature are regarded an
interpretation of life, literary criticism is defined as an interpretation
of that interpretation.

But this distinction between the work of art that deals directly
with life, and that which deal literature, though fundamental, is a
superficial one. As criticism deals with life, criticism also does
because personality is one of the chief facts of life. The critic‘s work
is to reveal the personality of great writers as it is shown in their
works in all its varied aspects. This is just as truly dealing with life
as was the poet, the dramatists, and the novelist. True criticism also
draws its matters and inspiration from life and therefore it is
creative.

Moreover, criticism is a form of literature. Although critical work

is dealing with other work or other author, it has a real value in itself
as an expression of the critic‘s personality, thoughts, methods, and
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goals. Thus, criticism is not to be considered as second hand
knowledge or a substitute for the study of literature criticized. It is
itself a piece of art and it deserves to be considered for its own sake.

Thus, our desire to be better about a work of art, to understand

the methods of its author, and to examine and evaluate its methods
of its author, and to examine and evaluate its merits, is best found in
the works of their critics. This does not mean that criticism should
be a substitute of the original work. Of course not, because the virtue
of the literary work is found in our direct contact with it. So, not
even the best critical interpretation of a book can be an adequate
substitute for our own reading of the book itself.

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 Greco-Roman Criticism: An Introduction

Greek criticism is the body of critical works written in ancient

Greece. It is regarded as the first phase of literary criticism and
forms the background to all subsequent criticism. This phase covers
the fifth and fourth century B.C. In these centuries, Athens has been
the centre of literary and critical activity. Plato and Aristotle are the
most outstanding Greek critics.

Plato is the first literary critic who has put his ideas and views on
art and literature in a systematic way in his Republic. Plato lays
down one of the most important theories of poetry, the theory of
"Imitation". In his theory of "imitation", Plato argues that the poet
gives an imitation of imitation. In his poetry, the poet imitates
earthly beings such as beauty, goodness, and justice, which are mere
types or copies of the ideal beauty, goodness, etc., which exist in
heaven. In this way, he is concerned only with appearance or
rather appearance of appearance. He is twice removed from reality.
Thus, his subjects and methods are false. Furthermore, he does not
appeal to reason but to emotion; he excites, feeds, and strengthens

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the most worthless part of the soul. As a result, Plato condemns
poetry and banishes poets from his Utopia.

Aristotle is the second great Greek critic. His Poetics is regarded

as the first important critical treatise and the most influential. In
his Poetics, Aristotle attempts to defend poetry against the attack of
his master Plato who reduces poetry to mere imitation or rather an
imitation of imitation. Aristotle defends poetry by defining it as an
idealized representation of human action. Plato argues that poetry
appeals to people's emotions rather than to their intellect. Aristotle's
reply is demonstrated in his theory of "Catharsis", where he defines
tragedy as a serious, dramatic representation or imitation of some
magnitude, arousing pity and fear wherewith to accomplish a
catharsis of such emotions. He stressed that tragedy should have
unity and completeness of plot, with beginning, middle, and end. In
addition, he treats the elements of character in tragedy, the relation
of tragedy to epic poetry, and the relation of imaginative literature to
other forms as history and philosophy. Unfortunately, Aristotle's
treatise on the Homeric epic has not survived. The great influence
of Poetics began in the Renaissance.

Around the first century B.C., the centre of literary and cultural
activity shifted from Athens to Rome, the capital of the ancient
Roman Empire. With the Graeco-Roman phase, there was a golden
age of literary criticism and literature. The Roman scholars of this
period were inspired by the ancient Greek masters, more especially;

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Aristotle, Longinus and Horace were the most penetrating critics of
the Graeco-Roman phase.

Longinus was considered one of the most important Graeco-

Roman critics. He was well-known for his significant work On the
Sublime. Despite the fact that it was very different from the Poetics
in content and spirit, it was regarded as an important Greek
document. In On the Sublime, Longinus acclaimed sublimity, height,
and imagination in an enthusiastic and eloquent style. He considered
the sources of the Sublime to be great conceptions, noble ideas, and
elevated diction.

The Latin critic, Horace was the second great Graeco-Roman

critic. Horace's most significant critical work is Art of Poetry, a work
which was written as an informal epistle in verse. In this treatise,
Horace discusses types of poetry and character, the importance of
Greek models and the importance of decorum. He also advised the
prospective poet to write both for entertainment and
instruction. Many of Horace's phrases entered into the common
language of criticism such as; at piclura poesis "poetry is like
painting", labor limae "the labor of the file i.e. revision", out prodess
out delectore "either to profit or to please". In the sixteenth century,
the influence of Horace's criticism was especially great to England.

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 Classical Criticism: Historical and Political Background

Literary criticism goes at least as far back as archaic Greece,

which begins around 800 years before the birth of the Christ. This is
the era of epic poets Homer and Hesiod, and of the lyric poets
Ibycus and Sappho. What we call the ―classical‖ period emerges
around 500 BC, the period of the great dramatists Euripides,
Aeschylus, and Sophocles, the philosophers Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle, the schools of rhetoric, and the rise of Athenian democracy
and power. After this is the ―Hellenistic‖ period, witnessing the
diffusion of Greek culture through much of the Mediterranean and
Middle East, a diffusion vastly accelerated by the conquests of
Alexander the Great, and the various dynasties established by his
generals after his death in 323 BC. Over the Hellenized domains
there was a common ruling class culture, using a common literary
dialect and a common education system. The city of Alexandria in
Egypt, founded by Alexander in 331 BC, became a center of
scholarship and letters, housing an enormous library and museum,
and hosting such renowned poets and grammarians as Callimachus,
Apollonius Rhodius, and Zenodotus.

The Hellenistic period is usually said to end with the battle of

Actium in 31 BC in which the last portion of Alexander‘s empire,
Egypt, was annexed by the increasingly powerful and expanding
Roman republic. After his victory at Actium, the entire Roman
world fell under the sole rulership of Julius Caesar‘s nephew,
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Octavian, soon to become revered as the first Roman emperor,
Augustus.

During this span of almost a thousand years, poets, philosophers,

rhetoricians, grammarians, and critics laid down many of the basic
terms, concepts, and questions that were to shape the future of
literary criticism as it evolved all the way through to our own
century. These include the concept of ―mimesis‖ or imitation; the
concept of beauty and its connection with truth and goodness; the
ideal of the organic unity of a literary work; the social, political, and
moral functions of literature; the connection between literature,
philosophy, and rhetoric; the nature and status of language; the
impact of literary performance on an audience; the definition of
figures of speech such as metaphor, metonymy, and symbol; the
notion of a ―canon‖ of the most important literary works; and the
development of various genres such as epic, tragedy, comedy, lyric
poetry, and song.

The first recorded instances of criticism go back to dramatic

festivals in ancient Athens, which were organized as contests,
requiring an official judgment as to which author had produced the
best drama. A particularly striking literary-critical discussion occurs
in Aristophanes‘ play The Frogs, first performed in 405 BC. This
fact alone is testimony to the highly literate nature of the Athenian
citizens, who were expected to recognize many allusions to previous
literary works, and to understand the terms of a critical debate, as

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well as its broader political and social implications. In fact, the
chorus in the play itself commends the erudition of the audience,
claiming that the citizens are so ―sharp‖ and ―keen‖ that they will
not miss ―a single point.‖

Political and Historical Contexts

―Classical‖ Athens in the fifth century BC – just prior to the time

of Plato – was a thriving democratic city-state with a population
estimated at about 300,000. However, this democracy differed
considerably from our modern democracies: Only the adult male
citizens were eligible to participate in the decision-making process.
The rest of the community composed of women, resident aliens, and
a vast number of slaves, formed a permanently excluded majority.
This circumstance, widespread in the Greek world, was responsible
in part not only for class conflict but also for a perennial struggle
between different forms of government. The philosophies and
literary theories of both Plato and Aristotle were integrally shaped
by awareness of these political struggles.

By this stage of her history, Athens was not only a democracy but
also an imperial power, head of the so-called Delian League of more
than a hundred city-states, from whom she exacted tribute. Her rise
to such predominance had been relatively recent and swift, though
democracy itself had taken some centuries to evolve, displacing
earlier systems such as oligarchy or tyranny and monarchy where
power had resided in the hands of a small elite or one man. By 500
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BC the tyrants had been overthrown in all the major Greek cities.
The ideals of social equality and democratic structure were furthered
in Athens by leaders and lawgivers who made the law courts
democratic and organized the political structure. In this period,
democracy is a system in which power lies in the hands of ―the
whole people,‖ ―everyone is equal before the law,‖ and public
responsibility is determined not by class but by ―actual ability.‖

What propelled Athens into prominence was largely her leading

role in repelling two invasions of Greece by Persia, liberating the
Greek cities of Asia Minor (now Turkey) from Persian rule. These
postwar years were the years of Athens‘ power, prosperity, and
cultural centrality: the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides were
staged; the city was host to professional teachers of philosophy such
as Protagoras, and to schools of rhetoric, which taught young men of
the nobility the art of public speaking and debate. The city was alive
with free political discussion and intellectual inquiry.

In all of these historical circumstances, there were at least two

developments that profoundly influenced the nature of literature and
criticism, as well as of philosophy and rhetoric. The first was the
evolution of the polis or city-state. The Greeks differentiated
between themselves and the non-Greeks known as ―barbarians‖
primarily by this political structure, the polis, which alone in their
view could allow man to achieve his full potential as a human being.
When Aristotle defined man as a ―political animal,‖ it was this

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structure that he had in mind. As the scholar M. I. Finley puts it, the
polis was comprised of ―people acting in concert, a community,‖
where people could ―assemble and deal with problems face to face‖
These assumptions are common to the otherwise differing literary
theories of Plato and Aristotle, who are both obliged to consider
literature as a public or state concern. Finley states that ―religion and
culture were as much public concerns as economics or politics . . .
the great occasions for religious ceremonial, for music, drama,
poetry and athletics, were the public festivals, local or pan-Hellenic.
With the state thus the universal patron, Greek tragedy and comedy .
. . were as much part of the process of faceto- face discussion as a
debate in a legislative assembly‖ It is clear that literature and poetry
had a public, even political, function, which was largely educational.
T. H. Irwin states that ―Athenian dramatic festivals took the place of
some of the mass media familiar to us.‖

The second political development pertinent to literature and

criticism lay in the fact that Athens‘ predominance in the Greek
world did not go unchallenged. The other major power in the Greek
world was Sparta, who counterbalanced Athens‘ leadership of the
Delian League with her own system of defensive alliances known as
the Peloponnesian League. The struggle between these two
superpowers was not only military but also ideological: Athens
everywhere attempted to foster her own style of democracy, whereas
Sparta everywhere encouraged her own brand of oligarchy. This
struggle convulsed the entire Greek world and eventually led to the

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Peloponnesian War, which lasted twenty-seven years, beginning in
431 BC and ending with the utter defeat of Athens in 404 BC. The
first twenty-four years of Plato‘s life were lived during this war, and
the issues raised by the conflict affected many areas of his thought,
including his literary theory. Even before Athens‘ defeat, she had
witnessed a brief coup at the hands of the oligarchical party in 411–
410 BC (the regime of the ―four hundred‖). It was during this
repressive period that Socrates was tried and executed in 399 BC on
a charge of impiety. The Spartans imposed another oligarchy in 404
BC, the so-called regime of the ―thirty,‖ which included two of
Plato‘s relatives, who were also friends of Socrates. In 403,
however, democracy was restored after a civil struggle. The struggle
was effectively between two ways of life, between the ―open-minded
social and cultural atmosphere‖ of Athenian democracy, and the
―rigidly controlled, militaristic‖ oligarchy of Sparta. It was this
struggle which underlay the opposition between Plato‘s anti-
democratic and somewhat authoritarian philosophical vision and the
more fluid, skeptical, and relativistic visions expressed by poetry,
sophistic, and rhetoric. It is in this struggle, as we shall see, that
Western philosophy as we know it was born.

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 Plato

(427- 347 B.C)

Plato was born in Athens in 427 BC to a well-established

aristocratic family. His father, Ariston, could trace his lineage back
to the old kings of Athens; his mother, Perictione, was a sister of
Charmides and the cousin of Critas, two prominent figures in the
Athenian oligarchy of 404-403 BC. Plato also had two brothers,
Glaucon and Adeimantus, who are portrayed in his masterpiece, The
Republic. Given this illustrious background it is almost certain that
Plato, as a young man, was groomed for a life of public service.

Only a few years before Plato was born, Athens entered into a
drawn-out war with Sparta (the Peloponnesian War), that eventually
led to the decline of Athens‘ power in the Mediterranean world.
Although he grew up during Athens‘ great experiment with de-
mocracy during the Fifth Century, it was certainly evident at this
time that democracy was failing, and that some other type of
political system was needed.

Around the age of twenty, he became a disciple of Socrates, the

father of Western philosophy. Socrates, as you may recall from
reading the Apology, made it his mission to examine the beliefs of
his fellow Athenians in order to help them and himself attain
wisdom. Socrates‘ tenacious style of philosophical examination
earned him a number of powerful enemies. In 399 BC he was tried

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on the charges of impiety and corruption of the city‘s youth, found
guilty, and eventually forced to take his own life. The influence of
Socrates on Plato‘s philosophical career cannot be understated. Plato
was so taken by the character and ideas of Socrates that he used
Socrates as the central figure in all his philosophical dialogues, and
made considerable use of Socrates‘ method during his early part of
his career.

Disillusioned by the manner of Socrates‘ death, Plato gave up all

thoughts of a political career, dedicating himself instead wholly to
philosophy. He left Athens and for the next twelve years traveled
around the Mediterranean, studying philosophy, geometry, religion,
and other sciences.

Eventually Plato returned to Athens in 387 to found his Academy,

the aim of which was to philosophically educate the future leaders of
Greek society. The Academy has been called the first European
university, since its studies included, not just philosophy, but all the
known sciences. Plato himself was said to have delivered many of
the lectures at the Academy, although the notes from these lectures
were never published. Among the most famous students of the
Academy was Aristotle, who would later go on to found his own
school, the Lyceum. Plato‘s Academy would continue to educate
Athenian noblemen for several centuries until 527 A.D., influencing
most of the major philosophical schools of the Western world. Plato
died at the age of 80 in 347 BC.

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 Socrates was Plato‘s greatest philosophical influence. He taught
Plato the intellectual humility of recognizing that our supposed
wisdom amounts to nothing when carefully scrutinized. To that end,
Socrates also inspired Plato by exhibiting an unprecedented level of
scrutiny to the assumptions and prejudices of his age. Socrates‘
penetrating mind always aimed at the heart of a given matter,
insisting that the people he debated with give precise definitions of
the terms they used.
There are a number of intellectual currents which formed the
background of the philosophies of Plato. The first of these was
sophistic, which arose in fifth-century Athens, and whose major
exponents such as Protagoras and Gorgias were contemporaries of
Plato. The second was rhetoric, the art of public speaking, an art
vital to the effective functioning of Athenian democracy. While the
two currents, sophistic and rhetoric, were so closely connected that
the Sophists were indeed the first teachers of rhetoric, there was a
distinction between them: rhetoric was, strictly speaking, restricted
to the techniques of argument and persuasion; the more ambitious
Sophists promised a more general education extending over the areas
considered by philosophy: morality, politics, as well as the nature of
reality and truth.

Plato was opposed to both sophistic and rhetoric. He objected to

sophistic accounts of the world, which were essentially secular,
humanistic, and relativistic. These accounts rejected the authority of
religion and viewed truth as a human and pragmatic construct. In

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other words, there was no truth which ultimately stood above or
beyond human perception. What Plato rejects in rhetoric is also
based on its alleged exclusion of truth: rhetoric is concerned not with
truth but merely with persuasion, often preying on the ignorance of
an audience and merely pandering to its prejudices rather than
seeking a moral and objective foundation. So profound was Plato‘s
opposition to sophistical and rhetorical ways of thinking that his own
philosophy is internally shaped and generated by negating their
claims.

The sophists used a similar question-and-answer method that

reduced their opponents to perplexity, but they did so to score
rhetorical points rather than to seek the truth. Many of these
sophists, most notably Protagoras, were respected philosophers in
their own right. Protagoras is most famous for his Measure Doctrine
that ―man is the measure of all things.‖ He believed that truth is
relative and that whatever seems so to a person is so for that person.
Plato‘s investigations of virtue aim precisely at replacing this
dangerous relativism with a solid basis for moral values.

Plato‘s influence would be difficult to overestimate. It would not

be an exaggeration to say that Plato is primarily responsible for
inventing what people in the West think of as ―thought.‖ Plato
succeeded in formulating his ideas into a general approach to
thought that emphasizes dialogue, critical thinking, and an
appreciation of the power and distinctiveness of abstract ideas. The

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only other philosopher who has had an influence to rival Plato‘s is
Aristotle.

Plato’s Dialogues
Most of Plato‘s philosophical writing takes the form of dialogues.
It is believed that all forty-two of the dialogues that Plato wrote have
survived. These dialogues were written for educated laymen (as
opposed to the elite in his academy) in order to interest them in
philosophy (Taylor 10). To sum up their common characteristics,
Plato‘s dialogues:
 are philosophical discussions between two or more
participants.
 usually focus on a specific theme: e.g., justice, friendship,
piety.
 are written for the most part like regular conversations,
which often include digressions and frequently are
inconclusive.

Plato‘s dialogues are not just great works of philosophy; they are
also recognized as great literary works as well. He goes to much
effort to carefully set the scene of each dialogue and to develop the
personalities of each of the characters in them. One is frequently
amazed at just how dramatic many of these dialogues are,
considering their lofty topics.

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 Plato‘s dialogues can be divided into three periods: early
dialogues, middle dialogues and late dialogues. As has already been
pointed out, Plato uses Socrates as the main interlocutor in his
dialogues. The specific way that Plato makes use of the character of
Socrates varies somewhat during the different periods in which Plato
wrote.

In the early dialogues the Socrates that Plato presents to the

reader is probably close to the historic Socrates. Socrates is
portrayed in these dialogues as precisely what he was in real life—a
gadfly, whose aim was to make people recognize that many of their
beliefs are baseless. The Socrates of these early dialogues claims to
be ignorant of everything except his own ignorance, and as such
rarely presents his own position on the topics being discussed.
Plato‘s aim, then, in these early dialogues primarily, is critical: that
is, to tear apart the inadequate moral views of others.

In the middle dialogues, Plato is coming into his own as a

philosopher and is starting to develop some of his own metaphysical
and epistemological positions. It is during this period that Plato
begins to introduce his theory of the forms into his writings. In the
late dialogues, Plato uses Socrates almost exclusively to advance his
own views. His approach in these dialogues is essentially
constructive—that is, to develop his own mature philosophical
system.

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 The Republic is an interesting work because in it we get the best
of both the early and later dialogues. Book one is written as a
traditional dialogue in which Socrates is represented in a fairly
historical way, critically reacting to the views of others in the
dialogue. But the rest of the text (Books 2-10) is much more of a
monologue in which Socrates serves as little more than a mouth-
piece for Plato‘s own political views.

Plato's Metaphysics: Theory of Ideas

To understand Plato‘s worldview, it is important to grasp the

distinction that he makes between sensible ―things‖ and ―forms.‖

Things are those aspects of reality which we perceive through our

senses: a tree, a car, a table, chair, a beautiful model, etc. Everything
that we experience in the world of sensation is constantly changing
(the table will start to get worn down, the beautiful model will age
with time), imperfect and often fleeting. This is the realm of
appearances, and we all know that appearances can be deceptive.

Whereas things change, decay, and ultimately fade away, the

Forms (the Greek term is Eidos which is sometimes translated as
Ideas) are eternal and unchanging. This is the realm of perfect
concepts and is grasped, not by the senses, but by the reason.

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 Thus, for Plato there are two fundamental aspects or realms of
reality—the realm of the senses and the realm of the forms. These
two realms can be contrasted in the following way:

Sensible World World of the Forms

appearance (seems real) appearance (really real)
immanent (within space and transcendent (beyond space and
time) time)
becoming (ever changing) being (eternal and unchanging)
particular and imperfect absolute and perfect
many instances (copy; imitation) one essence (archetype)
perceived by senses known by reason
subjective (dependent upon my objective (exist independently of
perception) my mind)
eg., a table, a just act, a beautiful e.g., Table, Justice, Beauty,
model, a circle, Sue Circle, Man

For Plato it is the world of the Forms (the realm of non-being)

that is ―really real‖ world; the world that we perceive with our
senses (the realm of becoming) is little more than an imitation of this
ultimate reality. He believes that for particular and imperfect thing
that exists in the sensible realm (a table, a just act, a beautiful model,
a circle) there is a corresponding absolute and perfect Form (Table,
Justice, Beauty, a Circle).

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In order to explain how sensible things come into being, Plato relies
on the idea of participation. A table comes into being, he believes,
because it participates in the form of Tableness. In the Phaedo Plato
uses the metaphor of participation to explain the existence of
particular beautiful things:

It seems to me that whatever else is beautiful apart from absolute

beauty is beautiful because it partakes of that absolute beauty, and
for no other reason. Do you accept this kind of causality?

Yes, I do.
Well, now, that is as far as my mind goes; I cannot understand these
other ingenious theories of causation. If someone tells me that the
reason why a given object is beautiful is that it has a gorgeous color
or shape or any other such attribute, I disregard all these other
explanations—I find them all confusing—and I cling simply and
straightforwardly and no doubt foolishly to the explanation that the
one thing that makes the object beautiful is the presence in it or
association with it, in whatever way the relation comes about, of
absolute beauty. I do not go so far as to insist upon the precise
details---only upon the fact that it is by beauty that beautiful things
are beautiful. This, I feel, is the safest answer for me or anyone else
to give, and I believe that while I hold fast to this I cannot fall; it is
safe for me or for anyone else to answer that it is by beauty that
beautiful things are beautiful. Don‘t you agree?

But why did Plato need to devise such an elaborate metaphysical

system to ground his ethics? The answer seems to be that he is trying
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to respond to the relativism of the Sophists, who were persuasively
arguing that true and false, good and bad, were simply matters of
opinion. Plato clearly recognized that if this kind of relativism was
accepted that it would lead to the death of philosophy and all
legitimate attempts at moral discourse.

To save the philosophical enterprise, Plato had to devise an idea

of truth and goodness that was independent of individual perceptions
of truth and goodness. Thus he needed to anchor these concepts in a
transcendent realm—the world of the forms.

While the Sophists, then, would maintain that there potentially

could be as many legitimate ideas of justice or beauty as there are
individuals, for Plato there is Justice and Beauty—objective and
transcendent realities that have nothing to do with my individual
perceptions or opinions.

Plato’s Analogies: The Sun, The Divided Line and the Cave

If Plato‘s metaphysics strikes you as being difficult to grasp,

you‘re definitely not alone. The highly abstract nature of Plato‘s
theory has probably frustrated students since he first developed it.
Perhaps recognizing this, in the Republic Plato resorts to using three
analogies to illuminate his philosophy. A brief examination of these

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 analogies is definitely in order before examining Plato‘s discussion
of them in the Republic.

In the first of these analogies, Plato compares the Form of the

Good with the sun. Just as the sun provides the light that is necessary
for us to see things in the sensible realm, so does the Form of the
Good provide the intellectual light that enables us to know the
Forms. This comparison can be summed up in the following way:

Source Provides… Where? In Order to… What?

in the sensible visible things

The Sun light see
world (the sensible)

The intellectual in the intelligible Invisible things

know
"Good" light world (the forms)

Plato also believes that just as the sun causes things in the
sensible world to exist and sustains them, so too does the Good
cause the forms to be. Plato‘s Form of the Good, then, is the ultimate
principle of reality and truth and is the source of all order, harmony,
beauty and intelligibility in the universe.
The Two World‘s Theory lays the foundation for understanding
the two realms of reality—the sensible world and the world of the
forms—that are at the heart of Plato‘s metaphysics. In Book 6 of the

24
 Republic, however, Plato goes one step further by dividing each of
these realms into additional subdivisions:

The sensible World The World of Forms

images of mathematical
sensible things sensible things forms (table, higher forms
circle, human)

reflections, a chair, a table, a table, circle, Justice, Beauty

paintings, just act, a beautiful human (based on (purely
photos person sensible things) abstract)

Plato argues that each of these four aspects of reality—images,

things, mathematical forms and higher forms—must be grasped by a
different faculty of the mind. We now move from metaphysics (the
study of the nature of reality) to a different but related branch of
philosophy—epistemology. Epistemology seeks to understand how
we know or grasp that which exists in reality.

In an attempt to illustrate his epistemological system, Plato gives

us his famous image of the divided line. The line is divided into four
parts signified by the main horizontal and vertical lines:

25
 Metaphysics Metaphysics

Higher Forms Understanding

World of Knowledge
the Form
Mathematical Reason
Forms

Sensible Things Perception

Sensible
World Opinion
Images of Things Imagination

According to Plato‘s understanding, everything below the horizontal

line represents the sensible world; everything above it, the world of
the forms. Plato means us to proceed from the bottom to the top,
from images to higher forms, from the lowest level of reality to the
highest.

Plato divides the image further by introducing the vertical line.

Everything on the left-hand side of the vertical line represents
particular dimensions of reality within the sensible world and the
world of the forms. Everything on the right hand side represents the
particular faculties one uses to grasp the corresponding dimension of
reality. Thus one uses imagination to grasp images, perception to
grasp sensible things, and so on. The higher up one goes on the
right-hand side of the image the greater the degree of intellectual

26
certainty one attains. Thus the highest degree of certainty is attained
by using our understanding which enables us to grasp higher forms.

In some ways, Plato‘s entire philosophy can be summed up in his

most famous analogy—the allegory of the Cave. In the Allegory of
the Cave, Plato described symbolically the predicament in which
mankind finds itself and proposes a way of salvation. The Allegory
presents, in brief form, most of Plato's major philosophical
assumptions: his belief that the world revealed by our senses is not
the real world but only a poor copy of it, and that the real world can
only be apprehended intellectually; his idea that knowledge cannot
be transferred from teacher to student, but rather that education
consists in directing student's minds toward what is real and
important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves; his
faith that the universe ultimately is good; his conviction that
enlightened individuals have an obligation to the rest of society, and
that a good society must be one in which the truly wise (the
Philosopher-King) are the rulers.

The Allegory of the Cave (also titled Analogy of the Cave, Plato's
Cave or Parable of the Cave) is presented by the Greek philosopher
Plato in his work The Republic (514a–520a) to compare "...the effect
of education and the lack of it on our nature". It is written as a
dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates.
As you read the Allegory, try to make a mental picture of the cave
Plato describes.

27
 Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived
chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall.
The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing
in front of a fire behind them, and begin to designate names to these
shadows. The shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing
reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who
is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on
the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true
form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

The allegory is probably related to Plato's Theory of Forms,

according to which the "Forms" (or "Ideas"), and not the material
world known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most
fundamental kind of reality. Only knowledge of the Forms

28
constitutes real knowledge or what Socrates considers "the good."[3]
Socrates informs Glaucon that the most excellent people must follow
the highest of all studies, which is to behold the Good. Those who
have ascended to this highest level, however, must not remain there
but must return to the cave and dwell with the prisoners, sharing in
their labors and honors.
Plato, simply stated, believed that universal ideas of things -- like
justice, beauty, truth -- had an objective existence all their own.
What this means is that these things existed whether men perceived
(apprehended) them or not. They had an independent reality which
Plato believed men could come to grasp as knowledge. These ideas
exist that is, they exist prior to experience and hence, transcend
experience. For Plato, our senses are deceptive and what we
experience in our daily lives is not reality but the shadow of reality.
This is one of the messages of Plato's Republic, specifically THE
ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE. Plato'sdoctrine of the Forms (Ideas,
or Universals) concerns itself with innate ideas -- ideas which exist
before men have experience of them. This philosophical school has
come to be known as rationalism.
So, between 384 and 330 B.C. in Athens, the two major western
philosophical traditions of thought were born. For 2000 years,
philosophers had to choose whether they followed Plato and his
rationalism, or Aristotle and his empiricism. Indeed, Plato comes off
as the first philosopher and Aristotle as his first critic. One of the
first empiricists was Aristotle (384-322 B.C.). In fact, it's safe to say
that it was Aristotle who made the empirical point of view a reality.

29
Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander the Great. Aristotle had also
been the pupil of Plato (c.427-347 B.C.), who was in turn, the
student of Socrates (c.469-399 B.C.).
Toward the end of the 18th century, a German idealist
philosopher published a number of important philosophical treatises
-- treatises which he called critiques. The Critique of Practical
Reason, The Critique of Pure Reason and The Critique of Judgment
were the workof Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). The great question
which plagued Kant, as well as all philosophers before or after him,
was this: what is knowledge? This is an epistemological question
and is often joined by other questions: what is reality? what is
illusion? What can we know? What does it mean to know
something? In the INTRODUCTION to the first edition of his
Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Kant began with the following
words: There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with
experience.
This, of course, is the credo of the empiricist. John Locke (1632-
1704) was an empiricist. So too were Galileo (1564-1642), and Isaac
Newton (1642-1727). In fact, most scientists are empiricists by
nature.

Plato on the Good Life

While all this discussion about the world of the forms vs. the
sensible world and knowledge vs. opinion might seem fairly
esoteric, it actually serves a fairly practical function in Plato‘s

30
philosophy. You see, Plato was convinced that as long as human
beings remained fixated on the sensible realm with imperanance and
imperfections, there really was no hope that they‘d ever attain true
happiness in life. Only by using philosophical understanding could
we break free of the illusions perpetuated by sensible things and
grasp higher forms such as Beauty, Truth, and Goodness that are the
source of both morality and happiness.
In a sense, what Plato was doing in his philosophy was building
upon the insights of his intellectual mentor, Socrates. Socrates, as we
have seen, believed that virtue was the key to the good life. Plato‘s
insight—or mistake, depending upon how you view it—was to
reason that true virtue was impossible as long as one was fixated on
the transient goods of the sensible realm. The World of the Forms
was his way of ensuring that virtue and goodness remained grounded
in a Good that was beyond space and time and, therefore, eternal and
incorruptible.

The Theory of Imitation

Plato takes the term ‗mimesis‘ with several meanings and

connotations in the dialogues and alters the meaning of the term
according to the context in which he uses it. He uses ‗mimesis‘ in
the context of the education of the youth; he discusses the function
of ‗mimesis‘ as likening oneself to another in speech and bodily
behavior and as addressing the lower part of man‘s soul; he also
refers to the epistemology and metaphysics of the concept. He takes

31
the word ‗mimesis‘ with pedagogic attributes and uses it in
educational and ethical context. In the third book of the Republic, for
instance, Plato provides further definitions of ‗mimesis‘, centering
on the relation between ‗mimesis‘ and poetry, ‗mimesis‘ and
education and also poetry and education.

According to Plato, imitative genres are dangerous because

imitations "at length grow into habits and become a second nature,
affecting body, voice and mind" (Republic29). Many of the themes
the poet will be dealing with will be unworthy. Only the imitation of
good men acting wisely is allowed. Therefore, Plato has indeed
divided poetry into good or bad and poets into beneficial or
pernicious. Plato admits that the poet creates the images neither by
seeing the idea nor from more substantive knowledge of the object
since he produces nothing but phenomena by holding up a mirror. In
this sense, the artist produces appearance and his work cannot
provide us with true insight.

Although Plato admits that every object in nature is a reflection of

the Idea, he doesn‘t object to the reflection of object in nature. Plato
uses mirror and water as constant metaphors to clarify the
relationship between reality and the reflection of idea. Plato argues
that the poet holds up mirror to nature and in his work we see the
reflection of nature not reality. He objects to the reflection of objects
in the mirror, since things are divided into two parts: visible and
intelligible. The first of the visible things is the class of copies,

32
which includes shadows and reflections in the mirror. The second
class of visible things is that of which the previous is a likeliness or
copy. Plato objects to the reflection of object in the mirror, since
mirror (poet) imprisons and limits the image. And he also objects to
the imitation, since the poet imitates without knowledge. Therefore,
it is not its imitative character but its lack of truth and knowledge,
which brings poetry to its low estate. Homer and all the poetic tribe
are imitators of images of virtue and other things but they do not rely
on truth. Poetry, after all, is a madness that seizes the soul when it
contemplates in true knowledge of goods.

There is also a difference between the knowledge of the poet and

the knowledge of the craftsman. Man makes things and makes
images. The craftsman makes the things following the original copy
or model; the poet follows the image of the model or copy; therefore
he gives only a proportion of reality. The proportion of knowledge
and opinion, truth and falsity plays a contrasting role in
distinguishing imitation as proportion of being to appearance. Plato
argues that to understand the image, one need to know the reality
and the path to reality is in philosophy and reason, not in poetry and
emotion. So, we have a scale going down from the Idea, through the
things in the world, to images of those things reproduced by artificial
means. The scale goes from God, through the artificer, to the artist
(painter, tragic poet, etc.). "And so, if the tragic poet is an imitator,
he too is thrice removed from the [philosopher] king and from the

33
truth, and so are all other imitators‖. Therefore, Plato‘s imitation has
metaphysical implications, and is used as a pejorative term.

In Book X, Plato starts with a reaffirmation of a main deficiency

of poets: their products ―maim the thoughts of those who hear
them.‖ And by means of the following image, this is now connected
to a development of the allegation that poets do not know what they
are talking about. Socrates posits that there are Forms (or Ideas) of
beds and tables, the maker of which is God; there are imitations
thereof, namely beds and tables, produced by craftsmen (such as
carpenters) who behold the Forms (as though they were looking at
blueprints); thirdly, there are imitators of the products of the
craftsmen, who, like painters, create a kind of image of these objects
in the world of becoming. The tripartite schema presents the
interpreter with many problems. Certainly, Socrates does not
literally mean that poets paint verbal pictures of beds and tables.
Subsequently, the scheme is elaborated so as to replace the
craftsmen with those who produce opinion in the city (legislators,
educators, military commanders, among others), and the painters
with ―the first teacher and leader of all these fine tragic things‖, that
is, Homer. The poets are therefore ―at the third generation from
nature‖ or three times removed from the truth.

Plato‘s objection to ‗mimesis‘ may also interpreted as a reaction to

the sophistic thinking that aims to produce images that the listener
will regard as real, all of which take place in the world of
phenomena. Image, thought, and opinion combine into a world of

34
appearance characterized by nonbeing, a phenomenal nature and
similarity. And as long as illusion and reality are not distinguished,
science, ignorance, and appearance merge together. Plato insists that
there are no phenomena without being, no images without reality, no
mimesis without a model. Yet reality and idea cannot be represented
without knowledge and images are not part of reality.

Plato on Poetry: the Ion

Plato makes comments on poetry in many of his dialogues. His

most systematic comments on poetry, however, occur in two texts,
separated by several years. The first is Ion, where Socrates cross-
examines a rhapsode or singer on the nature of his art. The second,
more sustained, commentary occurs in the Republic, some of which
is reiterated in a more practical context in the Laws.

The Ion is the shortest, or nearly the shortest, of all the writings
which bear the name of Plato, and is not authenticated by any early
external testimony. The grace and beauty of this little work supply
the only, and perhaps a sufficient, proof of its genuineness. The plan
is simple; the dramatic interest consists entirely in the contrast
between the irony of Socrates and the transparent vanity and
childlike enthusiasm of the rhapsode Ion. The theme of the Dialogue
may possibly have been suggested by the passage of Xenophon's
Memorabilia in which the rhapsodists are described by Euthydemus
as 'very precise about the exact words of Homer, but very idiotic
themselves.' (Compare Aristotle, Met.)

35
Ion the rhapsode has just come to Athens; he has been exhibiting in
Epidaurus at the festival of Asclepius, and is intending to exhibit at
the festival of the Panathenaea. Socrates admires and envies the
rhapsode's art; for he is always well dressed and in good company--
in the company of good poets and of Homer, who is the prince of
them. In the course of conversation the admission is elicited from
Ion that his skill is restricted to Homer, and that he knows nothing of
inferior poets, such as Hesiod and Archilochus;--he brightens up and
is wide awake when Homer is being recited, but is apt to go to sleep
at the recitations of any other poet. 'And yet, surely, he who knows
the superior ought to know the inferior also;--he who can judge of
the good speaker is able to judge of the bad. And poetry is a whole;
and he who judges of poetry by rules of art ought to be able to judge
of all poetry.' This is confirmed by the analogy of sculpture,
painting, flute-playing, and the other arts. The argument is at last
brought home to the mind of Ion, who asks how this contradiction is
to be solved. The solution given by Socrates is as follows:-
The rhapsode is not guided by rules of art, but is an inspired
person who derives a mysterious power from the poet; and the poet,
in like manner, is inspired by the God. The poets and their
interpreters may be compared to a chain of magnetic rings
suspended from one another, and from a magnet. The magnet is the
Muse, and the ring which immediately follows is the poet himself;
from him are suspended other poets; there is also a chain of
rhapsodes and actors, who also hang from the Muses, but are let
down at the side; and the last ring of all is the spectator. The poet is

36
the inspired interpreter of the God, and this is the reason why some
poets, like Homer, are restricted to a single theme, or, like
Tynnichus, are famous for a single poem; and the rhapsode is the
inspired interpreter of the poet, and for a similar reason some
rhapsodes, like Ion, are the interpreters of single poets.
Ion is delighted at the notion of being inspired, and
acknowledges that he is beside himself when he is performing;--his
eyes rain tears and his hair stands on end. Socrates is of opinion that
a man must be mad who behaves in this way at a festival when he is
surrounded by his friends and there is nothing to trouble him. Ion is
confident that Socrates would never think him mad if he could only
hear his embellishments of Homer. Socrates asks whether he can
speak well about everything in Homer. 'Yes, indeed he can.' 'What
about things of which he has no knowledge?' Ion answers that he can
interpret anything in Homer. But, rejoins Socrates, when Homer
speaks of the arts, as for example, of chariot-driving, or of medicine,
or of prophecy, or of navigation--will he, or will the charioteer or
physician or prophet or pilot be the better judge? Ion is compelled to
admit that every man will judge of his own particular art better than
the rhapsode. He still maintains, however, that he understands the art
of the general as well as any one. 'Then why in this city of Athens, in
which men of merit are always being sought after, is he not at once
appointed a general?' Ion replies that he is a foreigner, and the
Athenians and Spartans will not appoint a foreigner to be their
general. 'No, that is not the real reason; there are many examples to
the contrary. But Ion has long been playing tricks with the argument;

37
like Proteus, he transforms himself into a variety of shapes, and is at
last about to run away in the disguise of a general. Would he rather
be regarded as inspired or dishonest?' Ion, who has no suspicion of
the irony of Socrates, eagerly embraces the alternative of inspiration.
The Ion, like the other earlier Platonic Dialogues, is a mixture
of jest and earnest, in which no definite result is obtained, but some
Socratic or Platonic truths are allowed dimly to appear.
The elements of a true theory of poetry are contained in the
notion that the poet is inspired. Genius is often said to be
unconscious, or spontaneous, or a gift of nature: that 'genius is akin
to madness' is a popular aphorism of modern times. The greatest
strength is observed to have an element of limitation. Sense or
passion are too much for the 'dry light' of intelligence which mingles
with them and becomes discoloured by them. Imagination is often at
war with reason and fact. The concentration of the mind on a single
object, or on a single aspect of human nature, overpowers the orderly
perception of the whole. Yet the feelings too bring truths home to
the minds of many who in the way of reason would be incapable of
understanding them. Reflections of this kind may have been passing
before Plato's mind when he describes the poet as inspired, or when,
as in the Apology, he speaks of poets as the worst critics of their
own writings--anybody taken at random from the crowd is a better
interpreter of them than they are of themselves. They are sacred
persons, 'winged and holy things' who have a touch of madness in
their composition (Phaedr.), and should be treated with every sort of
respect (Republic), but not allowed to live in a well-ordered state.
Like the Statesmen in the Meno, they have a divine instinct, but they

38
are narrow and confused; they do not attain to the clearness of ideas,
or to the knowledge of poetry or of any other art as a whole.
In the Protagoras the ancient poets are recognized by
Protagoras himself as the original sophists; and this family
resemblance may be traced in the Ion. The rhapsode belongs to the
realm of imitation and of opinion: he professes to have all
knowledge, which is derived by him from Homer, just as the sophist
professes to have all wisdom, which is contained in his art of
rhetoric. Even more than the sophist he is incapable of appreciating
the commonest logical distinctions; he cannot explain the nature of
his own art; his great memory contrasts with his inability to follow
the steps of the argument. And in his highest moments of inspiration
he has an eye to his own gains.
The old quarrel between philosophy and poetry, which in the
Republic leads to their final separation, is already working in the
mind of Plato, and is embodied by him in the contrast between
Socrates and Ion. Yet here, as in the Republic, Socrates shows a
sympathy with the poetic nature. Also, the manner in which Ion is
affected by his own recitations affords a lively illustration of the
power which, in the Republic, Socrates attributes to dramatic
performances over the mind of the performer. His allusion to his
embellishments of Homer, in which he declares himself to have
surpassed Metrodorus of Lampsacus and Stesimbrotus of Thasos,
seems to show that, like them, he belonged to the allegorical school
of interpreters. The circumstance that nothing more is known of him
may be adduced in confirmation of the argument that this truly
Platonic little work is not a forgery of later times.

39
 Ion

By Plato

Written 380 B.C.E

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

Persons of the Dialogue

SOCRATES
ION

Socrates. Welcome, Ion. Are you from your native city of Ephesus?
Ion. No, Socrates; but from Epidaurus, where I attended the festival
of Asclepius.
Soc. And do the Epidaurians have contests of rhapsodes at the
festival?
Ion. O yes; and of all sorts of musical performers.
Soc. And were you one of the competitors- and did you succeed?
Ion. I obtained the first prize of all, Socrates.
Soc. Well done; and I hope that you will do the same for us at the
Panathenaea.
Ion. And I will, please heaven.
Soc. I often envy the profession of a rhapsode, Ion; for you have
always to wear fine clothes, and to look as beautiful as you can is a
part of your art. Then, again, you are obliged to be continually in the
company of many good poets; and especially of Homer, who is the

40
best and most divine of them; and to understand him, and not merely
learn his words by rote, is a thing greatly to be envied. And no man
can be a rhapsode who does not understand the meaning of the poet.
For the rhapsode ought to interpret the mind of the poet to his
hearers, but how can he interpret him well unless he knows what he
means? All this is greatly to be envied.
Ion. Very true, Socrates; interpretation has certainly been the most
laborious part of my art; and I believe myself able to speak
about Homer better than any man; and that neither Metrodorus of
Lampsacus, nor Stesimbrotus of Thasos, nor Glaucon, nor anyone
else who ever was, had as good ideas about Homer as I have, or as
many.
Soc. I am glad to hear you say so, Ion; I see that you will not refuse
to acquaint me with them.
Ion. Certainly, Socrates; and you really ought to hear
how exquisitely I render Homer. I think that the Homeridae should
give me a golden crown.
Soc. I shall take an opportunity of hearing your embellishments of
him at some other time. But just now I should like to ask you a
question: Does your art extend to Hesiod and Archilochus, or to
Homer only?
Ion. To Homer only; he is in himself quite enough.
Soc. Are there any things about which Homer and Hesiod agree?
Ion. Yes; in my opinion there are a good many.
Soc. And can you interpret better what Homer says, or what Hesiod
says, about these matters in which they agree?

41
Ion. I can interpret them equally well, Socrates, where they agree.
Soc. But what about matters in which they do not agree?- for
example, about divination, of which both Homer and Hesiod have
something to say-
Ion. Very true:
Soc. Would you or a good prophet be a better interpreter of what
these two poets say about divination, not only when they agree, but
when they disagree?
Ion. A prophet.
Soc. And if you were a prophet, would you be able to interpret them
when they disagree as well as when they agree?
Ion. Clearly.
Soc. But how did you come to have this skill about Homer only, and
not about Hesiod or the other poets? Does not Homer speak of the
same themes which all other poets handle? Is not war his great
argument? and does he not speak of human society and of
intercourse of men, good and bad, skilled and unskilled, and of the
gods conversing with one another and with mankind, and about what
happens in heaven and in the world below, and the generations of
gods and heroes? Are not these the themes of which Homer sings?
Ion. Very true, Socrates.
Soc. And do not the other poets sing of the same?
Ion. Yes, Socrates; but not in the same way as Homer.
Soc. What, in a worse way?
Ion. Yes, in a far worse.
Soc. And Homer in a better way?

42
Ion. He is incomparably better.
Soc. And yet surely, my dear friend Ion, in a discussion about
arithmetic, where many people are speaking, and one speaks
better than the rest, there is somebody who can judge which of them
is the good speaker?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. And he who judges of the good will be the same as he who
judges of the bad speakers?
Ion. The same.
Soc. And he will be the arithmetician?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. Well, and in discussions about the wholesomeness of food,
when many persons are speaking, and one speaks better than the
rest, will he who recognizes the better speaker be a different person
from him who recognizes the worse, or the same?
Ion. Clearly the same.
Soc. And who is he, and what is his name?
Ion. The physician.
Soc. And speaking generally, in all discussions in which the subject
is the same and many men are speaking, will not he who knows the
good know the bad speaker also? For if he does not know the bad,
neither will he know the good when the same topic is being
discussed.
Ion. True.
Soc. Is not the same person skilful in both?
Ion. Yes.

43
Soc. And you say that Homer and the other poets, such as Hesiod
and Archilochus, speak of the same things, although not in the
same way; but the one speaks well and the other not so well?
Ion. Yes; and I am right in saying so.
Soc. And if you knew the good speaker, you would also know the
inferior speakers to be inferior?
Ion. That is true.
Soc. Then, my dear friend, can I be mistaken in saying that Ion is
equally skilled in Homer and in other poets, since he himself
acknowledges that the same person will be a good judge of all those
who speak of the same things; and that almost all poets do speak of
the same things?
Ion. Why then, Socrates, do I lose attention and go to sleep and have
absolutely no ideas of the least value, when any one speaks of any
other poet; but when Homer is mentioned, I wake up at once and am
all attention and have plenty to say?
Soc. The reason, my friend, is obvious. No one can fail to see that
you speak of Homer without any art or knowledge. If you were able
to speak of him by rules of art, you would have been able to speak of
all other poets; for poetry is a whole.
Ion. Yes.
Soc. And when any one acquires any other art as a whole, the same
may be said of them. Would you like me to explain my
meaning, Ion?
Ion. Yes, indeed, Socrates; I very much wish that you would: for I
love to hear you wise men talk.

44
Soc. O that we were wise, Ion, and that you could truly call us so;
but you rhapsodes and actors, and the poets whose verses you sing,
are wise; whereas I am a common man, who only speak the truth.
For consider what a very commonplace and trivial thing is this
which I have said- a thing which any man might say: that when a
man has acquired a knowledge of a whole art, the enquiry into good
and bad is one and the same. Let us consider this matter; is not the
art of painting a whole?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. And there are and have been many painters good and bad?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. And did you ever know anyone who was skilful in pointing out
the excellences and defects of Polygnotus the son of Aglaophon,
but incapable of criticizing other painters; and when the work of any
other painter was produced, went to sleep and was at a loss, and had
no ideas; but when he had to give his opinion about Polygnotus, or
whoever the painter might be, and about him only, woke up and was
attentive and had plenty to say?
Ion. No indeed, I have never known such a person.
Soc. Or did you ever know of any one in sculpture, who was skilful
in expounding the merits of Daedalus the son of Metion, or of
Epeius the son of Panopeus, or of Theodorus the Samian, or of any
individual sculptor; but when the works of sculptors in general were
produced, was at a loss and went to sleep and had nothing to say?
Ion. No indeed; no more than the other.
Soc. And if I am not mistaken, you never met with any one among

45
flute-players or harp- players or singers to the harp or rhapsodes who
was able to discourse of Olympus or Thamyras or Orpheus, or
Phemius the rhapsode of Ithaca, but was at a loss when he came to
speak of Ion of Ephesus, and had no notion of his merits or defects?
Ion. I cannot deny what you say, Socrates. Nevertheless I am
conscious in my own self, and the world agrees with me in
thinking that I do speak better and have more to say about Homer
than any other man. But I do not speak equally well about others-
tell me the reason of this.
Soc. I perceive, Ion; and I will proceed to explain to you what I
imagine to be the reason of this. The gift which you possess
of speaking excellently about Homer is not an art, but, as I was just
saying, an inspiration; there is a divinity moving you, like that
contained in the stone which Euripides calls a magnet, but which is
commonly known as the stone of Heraclea. This stone not only
attracts iron rings, but also imparts to them a similar power of
attracting other rings; and sometimes you may see a number of
pieces of iron and rings suspended from one another so as to form
quite a long chain: and all of them derive their power of suspension
from the original stone. In like manner the Muse first of all inspires
men herself; and from these inspired persons a chain of
other persons is suspended, who take the inspiration. For all good
poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art,
but because they are inspired and possessed. And as the Corybantian
revellers when they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric
poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their

46
beautiful strains: but when falling under the power of music and
metre they are inspired and possessed; like Bacchic maidens who
draw milk and honey from the rivers when they are under the
influence of Dionysus but not when they are in their right mind.
And the soul of the lyric poet does the same, as they themselves say;
for they tell us that they bring songs from honeyed fountains, culling
them out of the gardens and dells of the Muses; they, like the bees,
winging their way from flower to flower. And this is true. For the
poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention
in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and the
mind is no longer in him: when he has not attained to this state, he is
powerless and is unable to utter his oracles.

Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the
actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they
do not speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to
utter that to which the Muse impels them, and that only; and when
inspired, one of them will make dithyrambs, another hymns of
praise, another choral strains, another epic or iambic verses- and he
who is good at one is not good any other kind of verse: for not by art
does the poet sing, but by power divine. Had he learned by rules of
art, he would have known how to speak not of one theme only, but
of all; and therefore God takes away the minds of poets, and uses
them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in
order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of
themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of

47
unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that
through them he is conversing with us. And Tynnichus the
Chalcidian affords a striking instance of what I am saying: he wrote
nothing that any one would care to remember but the famous paean
which; in every one's mouth, one of the finest poems ever written,
simply an invention of the Muses, as he himself says. For in
this way, the God would seem to indicate to us and not allow us to
doubt that these beautiful poems are not human, or the work of man,
but divine and the work of God; and that the poets are only the
interpreters of the Gods by whom they are severally possessed. Was
not this the lesson which the God intended to teach when by the
mouth of the worst of poets he sang the best of songs? Am I not
right, Ion?
Ion. Yes, indeed, Socrates, I feel that you are; for your words touch
my soul, and I am persuaded that good poets by a divine
inspiration interpret the things of the Gods to us.
Soc. And you rhapsodists are the interpreters of the poets?
Ion. There again you are right.
Soc. Then you are the interpreters of interpreters?
Ion. Precisely.
Soc. I wish you would frankly tell me, Ion, what I am going to ask of
you: When you produce the greatest effect upon the audience in the
recitation of some striking passage, such as the apparition of
Odysseus leaping forth on the floor, recognized by the suitors and
casting his arrows at his feet, or the description of Achilles rushing
at Hector, or the sorrows of Andromache, Hecuba, or Priam,- are

48
you in your right mind? Are you not carried out of yourself, and
does not your soul in an ecstasy seem to be among the persons or
places of which you are speaking, whether they are in Ithaca or in
Troy or whatever may be the scene of the poem?
Ion. That proof strikes home to me, Socrates. For I must frankly
confess that at the tale of pity, my eyes are filled with tears, and
when I speak of horrors, my hair stands on end and my heartthrobs.
Soc. Well, Ion, and what are we to say of a man who at a sacrifice or
festival, when he is dressed in holiday attire and has golden crowns
upon his head, of which nobody has robbed him, appears
sweeping or panic-stricken in the presence of more than twenty
thousand friendly faces, when there is no one despoiling or
wronging him;- is he in his right mind or is he not?
Ion. No indeed, Socrates, I must say that, strictly speaking, he is not
in his right mind.
Soc. And are you aware that you produce similar effects on most
spectators?
Ion. Only too well; for I look down upon them from the stage, and
behold the various emotions of pity, wonder, sternness, stamped
upon their countenances when I am speaking: and I am obliged to
give my very best attention to them; for if I make them cry I myself
shall laugh, and if I make them laugh I myself shall cry when the
time of payment arrives.
Soc. Do you know that the spectator is the last of the rings which, as
I am saying, receive the power of the original magnet from
one another? The rhapsode like yourself and the actor are

49
intermediate links, and the poet himself is the first of them. Through
all these the God sways the souls of men in any direction which he
pleases, and makes one man hang down from another. Thus there is
a vast chain of dancers and masters and undermasters of choruses,
who are suspended, as if from the stone, at the side of the rings
which hang down from the Muse. And every poet has some Muse
from whom he is suspended, and by whom he is said to be
possessed, which is nearly the same thing; for he is taken hold of.
And from these first rings, which are the poets, depend others, some
deriving their inspiration from Orpheus, others from Musaeus; but
the greater number are possessed and held by Homer. Of whom, Ion,
you are one, and are possessed by Homer; and when any one repeats
the words of another poet you go to sleep, and know not what to say;
but when any one recites a strain of Homer you wake up in a
moment, and your soul leaps within you, and you have plenty to say;
for not by art or knowledge about Homer do you say what you say,
but by divine inspiration and by possession; just as the Corybantian
revellers too have a quick perception of that strain only which is
appropriated to the God by whom they are possessed, and have
plenty of dances and words for that, but take no heed of any other.
And you, Ion, when the name of Homer is mentioned have plenty to
say, and have nothing to say of others. You ask, "Why is this?" The
answer is that you praise Homer not by art but by divine inspiration.
Ion. That is good, Socrates; and yet I doubt whether you will ever
have eloquence enough to persuade me that I praise Homer
only when I am mad and possessed; and if you could hear me speak

50
of him I am sure you would never think this to be the case.
Soc. I should like very much to hear you, but not until you have
answered a question which I have to ask. On what part of Homer do
you speak well?- not surely about every part.
Ion. There is no part, Socrates, about which I do not speak well of
that I can assure you.
Soc. Surely not about things in Homer of which you have no
knowledge?
Ion. And what is there in Homer of which I have no knowledge?
Soc. Why, does not Homer speak in many passages about arts? For
example, about driving; if I can only remember the lines I will
repeat them.
Ion. I remember, and will repeat them.
Soc. Tell me then, what Nestor says to Antilochus, his son, where he
bids him be careful of the turn at the horse-race in honour
of Patroclus.
Ion. He says:
Bend gently in the polished chariot to the left of them, and urge the
horse on the right hand with whip and voice; and slacken the
rein. And when you are at the goal, let the left horse draw near, yet
so that the nave of the well-wrought wheel may not even seem to
touch the extremity; and avoid catching the stone.
Soc. Enough. Now, Ion, will the charioteer or the physician be the
better judge of the propriety of these lines?
Ion. The charioteer, clearly.
Soc. And will the reason be that this is his art, or will there be any

51
other reason?
Ion. No, that will be the reason.
Soc. And every art is appointed by God to have knowledge of a
certain work; for that which we know by the art of the pilot we
do not know by the art of medicine?
Ion. Certainly not.
Soc. Nor do we know by the art of the carpenter that which we know
by the art of medicine?
Ion. Certainly not.
Soc. And this is true of all the arts;- that which we know with one art
we do not know with the other? But let me ask a prior question: You
admit that there are differences of arts?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. You would argue, as I should, that when one art is of one kind
of knowledge and another of another, they are different?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. Yes, surely; for if the subject of knowledge were the same,
there would be no meaning in saying that the arts were different,- if
they both gave the same knowledge. For example, I know that here
are five fingers, and you know the same. And if I were to ask
whether I and you became acquainted with this fact by the help of
the same art of arithmetic, you would acknowledge that we did?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. Tell me, then, what I was intending to ask you- whether this
holds universally? Must the same art have the same subject of
knowledge, and different arts other subjects of knowledge?

52
Ion. That is my opinion, Socrates.
Soc. Then he who has no knowledge of a particular art will have no
right judgment of the sayings and doings of that art?
Ion. Very true.
Soc. Then which will be a better judge of the lines which you were
reciting from Homer, you or the charioteer?
Ion. The charioteer.
Soc. Why, yes, because you are a rhapsode and not a charioteer.
Ion. Yes.
Soc. And the art of the rhapsode is different from that of the
charioteer?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. And if a different knowledge, then a knowledge of
different matters?
Ion. True.
Soc. You know the passage in which Hecamede, the concubine of
Nestor, is described as giving to the wounded Machaon a posset, as
he says,
Made with Pramnian wine; and she grated cheese of goat's milk
with a grater of bronze, and at his side placed an onion which gives a
relish to drink. Now would you say that the art of the rhapsode or the
art of medicine was better able to judge of the propriety of
these lines?
Ion. The art of medicine.
Soc. And when Homer says,
And she descended into the deep like a leaden plummet, which,

53
set in the horn of ox that ranges in the fields, rushes along carrying
death among the ravenous fishes,- will the art of the fisherman or of
the rhapsode be better able to judge whether these lines are rightly
expressed or not?
Ion. Clearly, Socrates, the art of the fisherman.
Soc. Come now, suppose that you were to say to me: "Since you,
Socrates, are able to assign different passages in Homer to
their corresponding arts, I wish that you would tell me what are the
passages of which the excellence ought to be judged by the prophet
and prophetic art"; and you will see how readily and truly I shall
answer you. For there are many such passages, particularly in the
Odyssey; as, for example, the passage in which Theoclymenus the
prophet of the house of Melampus says to the suitors:-

Wretched men! what is happening to you? Your heads and your

faces and your limbs underneath are shrouded in night; and the voice
of lamentation bursts forth, and your cheeks are wet with tears. And
the vestibule is full, and the court is full, of ghosts descending into
the darkness of Erebus, and the sun has perished out of heaven, and
an evil mist is spread abroad.

And there are many such passages in the Iliad also; as for example in
the description of the battle near the rampart, where he says:-

As they were eager to pass the ditch, there came to them an omen: a
soaring eagle, holding back the people on the left, bore a huge

54
bloody dragon in his talons, still living and panting; nor had he yet
resigned the strife, for he bent back and smote the bird which carried
him on the breast by the neck, and he in pain let him fall from him to
the ground into the midst of the multitude. And the eagle, with a cry,
was borne afar on the wings of the wind.

These are the sort of things which I should say that the
prophet ought to consider and determine.
Ion. And you are quite right, Socrates, in saying so.
Soc. Yes, Ion, and you are right also. And as I have selected from
the Iliad and Odyssey for you passages which describe the office
of the prophet and the physician and the fisherman, do you, who
know Homer so much better than I do, Ion, select for me passages
which relate to the rhapsode and the rhapsode's art, and which the
rhapsode ought to examine and judge of better than other men.
Ion. All passages, I should say, Socrates.
Soc. Not all, Ion, surely. Have you already forgotten what you were
saying? A rhapsode ought to have a better memory.
Ion. Why, what am I forgetting?
Soc. Do you not remember that you declared the art of the rhapsode
to be different from the art of the charioteer?
Ion. Yes, I remember.
Soc. And you admitted that being different they would have different
subjects of knowledge?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. Then upon your own showing the rhapsode, and the art of the

55
rhapsode, will not know everything?
Ion. I should exclude certain things, Socrates.
Soc. You mean to say that you would exclude pretty much the
subjects of the other arts. As he does not know all of them, which of
them will he know?
Ion. He will know what a man and what a woman ought to say, and
what a freeman and what a slave ought to say, and what a ruler
and what a subject.
Soc. Do you mean that a rhapsode will know better than the pilot
what the ruler of a sea-tossed vessel ought to say?
Ion. No; the pilot will know best.
Soc. Or will the rhapsode know better than the physician what the
ruler of a sick man ought to say?
Ion. He will not.
Soc. But he will know what a slave ought to say?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. Suppose the slave to be a cowherd; the rhapsode will know
better than the cowherd what he ought to say in order to soothe
the infuriated cows?
Ion. No, he will not.
Soc. But he will know what a spinning-woman ought to say about
the working of wool?
Ion. No.
Soc. At any rate he will know what a general ought to say when
exhorting his soldiers?
Ion. Yes, that is the sort of thing which the rhapsode will be sure to

56
know.
Soc. Well, but is the art of the rhapsode the art of the general?
Ion. I am sure that I should know what a general ought to say.
Soc. Why, yes, Ion, because you may possibly have a knowledge of
the art of the general as well as of the rhapsode; and you may
also have a knowledge of horsemanship as well as of the lyre: and
then you would know when horses were well or ill managed. But
suppose I were to ask you: By the help of which art, Ion, do you
know whether horses are well managed, by your skill as a horseman
or as a performer on the lyre- what would you answer?
Ion. I should reply, by my skill as a horseman.
Soc. And if you judged of performers on the lyre, you would admit
that you judged of them as a performer on the lyre, and not as
a horseman?
Ion. Yes.
Soc. And in judging of the general's art, do you judge of it as a
general or a rhapsode?
Ion. To me there appears to be no difference between them.
Soc. What do you mean? Do you mean to say that the art of the
rhapsode and of the general is the same?
Ion. Yes, one and the same.
Soc. Then he who is a good rhapsode is also a good general?
Ion. Certainly, Socrates.
Soc. And he who is a good general is also a good rhapsode?
Ion. No; I do not say that.
Soc. But you do say that he who is a good rhapsode is also a good

57
general.
Ion. Certainly.
Soc. And you are the best of Hellenic rhapsodes?
Ion. Far the best, Socrates.
Soc. And are you the best general, Ion?
Ion. To be sure, Socrates; and Homer was my master.
Soc. But then, Ion, what in the name of goodness can be the reason
why you, who are the best of generals as well as the best
of rhapsodes in all Hellas, go about as a rhapsode when you might
be a general? Do you think that the Hellenes want a rhapsode with
his golden crown, and do not want a general?
Ion. Why, Socrates, the reason is, that my countrymen,
the Ephesians, are the servants and soldiers of Athens, and do not
need a general; and you and Sparta are not likely to have me, for you
think that you have enough generals of your own.
Soc. My good Ion, did you never hear of Apollodorus of Cyzicus?
Ion. Who may he be?
Soc. One who, though a foreigner, has often been chosen their
general by the Athenians: and there is Phanosthenes of Andros,
and Heraclides of Clazomenae, whom they have also appointed to
the command of their armies and to other offices, although aliens,
after they had shown their merit. And will they not choose Ion the
Ephesian to be their general, and honour him, if he prove himself
worthy? Were not the Ephesians originally Athenians, and Ephesus
is no mean city? But, indeed, Ion, if you are correct in saying that by
art and knowledge you are able to praise Homer, you do not deal

58
fairly with me, and after all your professions of knowing
many, glorious things about Homer, and promises that you would
exhibit them, you are only a deceiver, and so far from exhibiting the
art of which you are a master, will not, even after my repeated
entreaties, explain to me the nature of it. You have literally as many
forms as Proteus; and now you go all manner of ways, twisting and
turning, and, like Proteus, become all manner of people at once, and
at last slip away from me in the disguise of a general, in order that
you may escape exhibiting your Homeric lore. And if you have art,
then, as I was saying, in falsifying your promise that you would
exhibit Homer, you are not dealing fairly with me. But if, as I
believe, you have no art, but speak all these beautiful words
about Homer unconsciously under his inspiring influence, then I
acquit you of dishonesty, and shall only say that you are inspired.
Which do you prefer to be thought, dishonest or inspired?
Ion. There is a great difference, Socrates, between the two
alternatives; and inspiration is by far the nobler.
Soc. Then, Ion, I shall assume the nobler alternative; and attribute to
you in your praises of Homer inspiration, and not art.

59
 Aristotle
(384-322 B.C.E)

Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy,

making contributions to logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics,
biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and
theatre. He was a student of Plato who in turn studied under
Socrates. Together with Socrates and Plato, he laid much of the
groundwork for western philosophy.

Aristotle was born in 384 BC. at Stagirus, a Greek colony and

seaport on the coast of Thrace. His father was court physician to
King of Macedonia, and from this began Aristotle's long association
with the Macedonian Court, which considerably influenced his life.
While he was still a boy his father died. At age 17 his guardian,
Proxenus, sent him to Athens, the intellectual center of the world, to
complete his education. He joined the Academy and studied under
Plato, attending his lectures for a period of twenty years. In the later
years of his association with Plato and the Academy he began to
lecture on his own account, especially on the subject of rhetoric. At
the death of Plato in 347, the pre-eminent ability of Aristotle would
seem to have designated him to succeed to the leadership of the
Academy. But his divergence from Plato's teaching was too great to
make this possible, and Plato's nephew was chosen instead. At the
invitation of Philip of Macedonia he became the tutor of his 13 year
old son Alexander (later world conqueror); he did this for the next
five years.
60
 Upon the death of Philip, Alexander succeeded to the kingship
and prepared for his subsequent conquests. Aristotle's work being
finished, he returned to Athens, which he had not visited since the
death of Plato. He found the Platonic school flourishing, and
Platonism the dominant philosophy of Athens. He thus set up his
own school at a place called the Lyceum. When teaching at the
Lyceum, Aristotle had a habit of walking about as he discoursed. It
was in connection with this that his followers became known in later
years as the peripatetics, meaning "to walk about." For the next
thirteen years he devoted his energies to his teaching and composing
his philosophical treatises. He is said to have given two kinds of
lectures: the more detailed discussions in the morning for an inner
circle of advanced students, and the popular discourses in the
evening for the general body of lovers of knowledge. At the sudden
death of Alexander in 323 BC., the pro-Macedonian government in
Athens was overthrown, and a general reaction occurred against
anything Macedonian. A charge of impiety was trumped up against
him. To escape prosecution he fled to Chalcis in Euboea so that
(Aristotle says) "The Athenians might not have another opportunity
of sinning against philosophy as they had already done in the person
of Socrates." In the first year of his residence at Chalcis he
complained of a stomach illness and died in 322 B.C.E.

61
Aristotle’s Poetics

Though the precise origins of Aristotle's Poetics are not known,

researchers believe that the work was composed around 330 BCE
and was preserved primarily through Aristotle's students' notes.
Despite its vague beginning, the Poetics has been a central document
in the study of aesthetics and literature for centuries, proving
especially influential during the Renaissance; it continues to have
relevance in scholarly circles today. The Poetics is widely
considered one of Aristotle's most demanding but rewarding texts,
requiring commitment in its study, but offering profound returns to
the diligent reader.

The main focus of the Poetics is on Greek tragedy. Though there

were thousands of tragedies and scores of playwrights, we only have
thirty-three extant tragedies, written by the three great tragedians:
Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.E.), Sophocles (496–405 B.C.E.),
and Euripides (485–406 B.C.E.). Tragedies were performed in
Athens twice annually at festivals in honor of Dionysus, the god of
wine and excess. Though the tragedies likely evolved out of
religious ceremonies celebrating the cycle of the seasons, they
became increasingly secular. The dramatic festivals were immensely
important events, and the winning playwrights achieved great fame.

The Poetics also discusses epic poetry, using the example of

Homer (eighth century B.C.E.) almost exclusively. Homer wrote two

62
great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which deal with the fall of
Troy and Odysseus's subsequent wanderings respectively. These
epics are the source of a great number of Greek tragedies and are
considered among the earliest great works of world literature.

Though the Poetics is not one of Aristotle's major works, it has

exercised a great deal of influence on subsequent literary theory,
particularly in the Renaissance. Later interpreters unfortunately
turned many of Aristotle's suggestions into strict laws, restricting the
flexibility of drama in ways that Aristotle would not have
anticipated. The tragedies of Racine and Corneille in particular are
formed according to these demands. Even though such great
playwrights as Shakespeare often went against these laws, they were
held as the model for writing tragedy well into the nineteenth
century.

Aristotle's Poetics Themes

Cathartic Reversal
Aristotle argues that the best tragedies - and thus the best plays,
since Aristotle considers tragedy to be the highest dramatic form -
use reversal and recognition to achieve catharsis. He writes that
reversal works with a story's spine or center to ensure that the hero
comes full circle. Oedipus is his exemplar of a hero who undergoes
such a reversal and thus has cathartic self-recognition. Aristotle
considers catharsis to be a form of redemption. For instance, even

63
though Oedipus' recognition is tragic it still redeems him: he is no
longer living in ignorance of his tragedy but instead has accepted
fate.
And redemption is not the only result of catharsis; the audience
too undergoes a catharsis of sorts in a good drama. The hero's
catharsis induces both pity and fear in the audience: pity for the hero,
and fear that his fate could happen to us.

Complication and Denouement

There are only two parts to a good drama, says Aristotle - the
rising action leading to the climax, which is known as the
complication, and the denouement, or the 'unraveling' that follows
the climax. This twofold movement follows Aristotle's theory of
poetic unity. The complication leads up to the revelation of the unity
at the heart of the work. After this revelation, a play naturally turns
to the denouement, in which the significance and ramifications of the
unity are explored and resolved.

The Imitative Nature of Art

There are two common ways to think of art: some consider it to
be an expression of what is original and unusual in human thinking;
Aristotle, on the other hand, argues that that art is 'imitative,' that is
to say, representative of life. This imitative quality fascinates
Aristotle. He devotes much of the Poetics to exploring the methods,
significance, and consequences of this imitation of life. Aristotle
concludes that art's imitative tendencies are expressed in one of three

64
ways: a poet attempts to portray our world as it is, as we think it is,
or as it ought to be.

The Standard of Poetic Judgment

Aristotle thinks that this tendency to criticize a work of art for
factual errors - such as lack of historical accuracy - is misguided. He
believes that instead we should a judge work according to its success
at imitating the world. If the imitation is carried out with integrity
and if the artwork's 'unity' is intact at its conclusion, a simple error in
accuracy will do little to blemish this greater success. Art, in other
words, should be judged aesthetically, not scientifically.

Tragedy vs. Epic Poetry

In Aristotle's time, the critics considered epic poetry to be the
supreme art form, but to Aristotle, tragedy is the better of the two
forms. Aristotle believes that tragedy, like the epic, can entertain and
edify in its written form, but also has the added dimension of being
able to translate onstage into a drama of spectacle and music,
capable of being digested in one sitting.

Tragic Hero
The tragic hero, in Aristotle's view of drama, is not an eminently
'good' man; nor is he necessarily a paragon of virtue that is felled by
adversity. Instead, the hero has some 'frailty' or flaw that is evident
from the outset of a play that eventually ensures his doom. The
audience, moreover, must be able to identify with this tragic flaw.

65
The Unity of Poetry
Aristotle often speaks of the unity of poetry in the Poetics;
what he means by "unity," however, is sometimes misunderstood.
Unity refers to the ability of the best dramatic plots to revolve
around a central axis that 'unites' all the action. Aristotle believes
that a unified drama will have a 'spine': a central idea which
motivates all the action, character, thoughts, diction and spectacle in
the play.

Aristotle’s Theory of Imitation

The Poetics is Aristotle's attempt to explain the basic problems of

art. He both defines art and offers criteria for determining the quality
of a given artwork. The Poetics stands in opposition to the theory of
art propounded by Aristotle's teacher, Plato. In his Republic, Plato
argues that "poetry is a representation of mere appearances and is
thus misleading and morally suspect." In the Poetics, Aristotle,
Plato's student, attempts to refute his teacher by exploring what
unites all poetry: its imitative nature and its ability to bring an
audience into its specific plot while preserving a unity of purpose
and theme. The tone of the Poetics reflects its argumentative spirit as
Aristotle attempts both to explain the "anatomy" of poetry and to
justify its value to human society.

Despite its broad goals, however, Aristotle's arguments are quite

concrete. He is less interested in the abstract "existence" of art than

66
he is in looking at specific artworks by specific playwrights.
Aristotle wants to explain why effective poetry has stayed with
audiences for so long. He tends to look for "empirical evidence" -
i.e. sensory proof through past observation - that art is both good and
useful, no matter how philosophers like Plato try to dismiss it.

Aristotle begins his Poetics with a loose outline of what he will

address in the Poetics:
a. the different kinds of poetry and the 'essential quality' of each

b. the structure necessary for a 'good poem'

c. the method in which a poem is divided into parts

d. anything else that might tangentially come up in his address of the

above topics.

But before he begins tackling these topics, Aristotle first seeks to

define poetry. Poetry, as Aristotle defines it, is first and foremost a
'medium of imitation,' meaning a form of art that seeks to duplicate
or represent life. It is an artist's primary motivation to duplicate or
capture life in some form. Furthermore, it is an innate instinct, says
Aristotle, that is 'implanted in man from childhood.' We use
imitation not only for entertainment, but also for learning - by seeing
the fortunes or misfortunes of another, they can internalize
experience through vicarious living. Poetry can imitate life in a
number of ways, by representing character, emotion, action, or even
everyday objects.

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 Continuing on from imitation, Aristotle turns to the anthropology
and history of poetry. As Aristotle sees it, poetry emerged for two
reasons -- 1) man's instinct to imitate things and 2) the instinct for
'harmony' and rhythm.

Tragedy began as improvisation and evolved over time, through

the contribution of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and others into its natural
form of dramatic plot, dialogue, and iambic verse. It reveals men as
better than they are - hence the tragic 'hero.' It is in this
representation of man as 'better' or of 'higher morality' that we
ultimately find catharsis, the release at the end of a tragedy.

Comedy began as an imitation of characters 'of a lower type',

meaning a representation of a defect or ugliness in character, which
is not painful or destructive. Comedy was at first not taken seriously,
but once plot was introduced in Sicily comedic theatre, it soon grew
into a respected form. In a comedy, we laugh at the hero's flaw,
comforted by the fact that it is not ours.

Indeed, comedy and tragedy both have a moralizing effect on the

audience. This is less evident in comedy, perhaps, since "comedies
tend to be about bad behavior and people doing ugly, immoral, or
ridiculous things." The critic Goucher explains how Aristotle solves
this problem: "[Aristotle] accepted that the primary object of
comedy as imitation: imitation of low characters - not morally bad,
but ludicrous, ugly but not painful or destructive. He defended
comedies' mimetic representation of ludicrous behavior because it
would incite audiences to avoid its imitation."
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 Epic poetry, finally, imitates men of noble action, like tragedy.
But epic poetry only allows one kind of meter and is narrative in
form. Moreover, tragedy usually confines itself to a single day,
whereas epic poetry has no limits of time. Ultimately, all the
elements of an epic poem are found in tragedy, but not all the
elements of tragedy are found in an epic poem.

Poetry, as Aristotle defines it, includes epic poetry, tragedy,

comedy, dithyrambic poetry, and music (specifically of flute, and
lyre). What differentiates these kinds of poetry is the nature of their
'imitation.' He notes three differences.

1. Medium of Imitation

In general, poetry imitates life through rhythm, language, and

harmony, either singly or in combinations. For instance, flute-
playing and lyre-playing employ rhythm and harmony, while dance
employs only rhythm. In tragedy, comedy, and other kinds of poetry,
rhythm, language, and harmony, all three are used together.

2. Object of Imitation

Art seeks to imitate men in action - hence the term 'drama'

(dramitas, in Greek). In order to imitate men, art must either present
man as 'better' than they are in life (i.e. of higher morals), as true to
life, or as 'worse' than they are in life (i.e. of lower morals). Each
author has his own tendencies - Homer 'makes men better than they
are,' Cleophon 'as they are', Nichochares 'worse than they are.' But
more important is a general distinction that Aristotle makes between
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forms of drama: comedy represents men as worse than they are,
tragedy as better than they are in actual life.

3. Mode of Imitation

A poet can imitate either through:

a. narration, in which he takes another personality (an omniscient 'I'

watching the events 'like an observer')

b. speak in his own person, unchanged (the first-person 'I')

c. presents all his characters as living and moving before us (third-

person narrator)

For example, dramas are always presented in action while epics are
always in narration.. David Daiches says: ―The poet can tell a story
in narrative form and partly through the speeches of the characters
(as Homer does), or it can all be done in third-person narrative, or
the story can be presented dramatically, with no use of third person
narrative at all.‖

Aristotle’s Theory of Tragedy

The Difference between Tragedy and Epic Poetry

Aristotle‘s treatment of the epic is slight as compared to his

treatment of tragedy. But he makes a few general statements, which
bring out the salient features of the epic, and establishes the affinity
as well as the difference between epic and tragedy.

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The Affinity between Tragedy and Epic

Both epic and tragedy are imitations of serious subjects, and

deal with characters of the higher type. A number of elements are to
be found common to both. These are Plot, Character, Thought and
Diction. The structure of both should show a unity.
According to Aristotle, the structure of the epic should be
modelled on dramatic principles. Single actions should be the proper
content of the epic. The action should have a beginning, a middle
and an end, be a complete organic whole, just as it should in tragedy.
Aristotle admired Homer in this case as Homer chose a particular
portion not the whole of the Trojan War for his epic.
Epic poetry is similar to tragedy because it has as many species as
tragedy. Like a tragedy, the epic plots can be complex or simple, full
of suffering, or concentrate on Character.

Differences between Epic and Tragedy

The first difference between the epic and the tragedy is their
length. Tragedy by its nature is more concentrated and compact. Its
length is based on the principle that the work must be short enough
to be grasped as an artistic whole. Hence, its size is much more
limited than that of the epic. The time limits of epic are not fixed. It
can relate a number of incidents happening simultaneously to
different persons at the same time.

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 Tragedy cannot show more than one incident happening at one
place at one time. Tragedy can make use of a greater variety of
metres, while the epic has to content itself with the heroic metre. The
heroic metre or the hexameter is most dignified and stately. It can
make use of rare and strange words. The tragic mode allows the use
of metaphors, in the iambic and trochaic tetrameter. Aristotle says,
Nature has established the appropriate metres for all forms of poetry.
The iambic verse is close to the speech of men, and suited to
imitation of men in action.

The epic allows greater scope for the marvelous and the
irrational. Tragedy however, cannot make too much use of the
marvelous within the action. Epic can relate improbable tales
because it is not going to be presented on stage before the eyes of the
spectators. The degree of the irrational can be greater because it is
left to the imagination, and not placed before the eyes. Indeed, the
element of marvelous adds to the artistic pleasure and wonder of the
epic. Such supernatural and the irrational incidents of the marvelous
have to be placed outside the action of tragedy.

The epic uses the mode of the narrative, and tragedy the mode of
the dramatic. The epic allows for more and longer incidents than
does tragedy. The epic allows multiplicity of stories, which would be
unthinkable in the tragedy.

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 The elements Music and Spectacle are only can be found in the
tragedy. Tragedy has a vividness which is absent in epic. For all
reasons which discussed above, even if the tragedy is read and not
acted out on stage Tragedy is Superior to the Epic.

Aristotle considers the question of the relative value of epic and

tragedy. In his opinion, though tragedy has been criticized as Vulgar,
this is not so. ―Tragedy, he maintains is richer in its effects, adding
music and spectacle to epic resources; it presents its stories even
when read no less than the epic; it has stricter unity; its methods are
more concentrated; and it produces more effectively the requisite
emotional result, the pleasure from chatharsis of pity and fear.‖

Aristotle’s Definition of Tragedy

In the case of drama, Aristotle‘s words in the Poetics have set the
standard, to the extent that there has in the western world not been
any theory of the drama, or discussion of its structures and inner
workings, without reference to Aristotle—in all periods where his
book was known. His poetics is somewhat the stage on which all
such thoughts have been acted out. It is adequate to regard all
Western theory of drama, as comments on Aristotle—little more, but
sometimes less, in the sense that his thoughts are repeated without
much comment at all.

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 ―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 kinds being found in
separate parts 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.‖

Tragedy is the “imitation of an action” (mimesis) according to

“the law of probability or necessity.” Aristotle indicates that the
medium of tragedy is drama, not narrative; tragedy ―shows‖ rather
than ―tells.‖ According to Aristotle, tragedy is higher and more
philosophical than history because history simply relates what has
happened while tragedy dramatizes what may happen, ―what is
possible according to the law of probability or necessity.‖ History
thus deals with the particular, and tragedy with the universal. Events
that have happened may be due to accident or coincidence; they may
be particular to a specific situation and not be part of a clear cause-
and-effect chain. Therefore they have little relevance for others.
Tragedy, however, is rooted in the fundamental order of the
universe; it creates a cause-and-effect chain that clearly reveals what
may happen at any time or place because that is the way the world
operates. Tragedy therefore arouses not only pity but also fear,
because the audience can envision themselves within this cause-and-
effect chain.

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 Plot is the “first principle,” the most important feature of
tragedy. Aristotle defines plot as ―the arrangement of the incidents‖:
i.e., not the story itself but the way the incidents are presented to the
audience, the structure of the play. According to Aristotle, tragedies
where the outcome depends on a tightly constructed cause-and-effect
chain of actions are superior to those that depend primarily on the
character and personality of the protagonist. Plots that meet this
criterion will have the following qualities.

1. The plot must be ―a whole,‖ with a beginning, middle, and

end. The beginning, called by modern critics the incentive
moment, must start the cause-and-effect chain but not be
dependent on anything outside the compass of the play (i.e., its
causes are downplayed but its effects are stressed). The
middle, or climax, must be caused by earlier incidents and
itself cause the incidents that follow it (i.e., its causes and
effects are stressed). The end, or resolution, must be caused
by the preceding events but not lead to other incidents outside
the compass of the play (i.e., its causes are stressed but its
effects downplayed); the end should therefore solve or resolve
the problem created during the incentive moment. Aristotle
calls the cause-and-effect chain leading from the incentive
moment to the climax the ―tying up‖ (desis), in modern
terminology the complication. He therefore terms the more
rapid cause-and-effect chain from the climax to the resolution

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 the ―unravelling‖ (lusis), in modern terminology the
dénouement.

2. The plot must be ―complete,‖ having ―unity of action.‖ By this

Aristotle means that the plot must be structurally self-
contained, with the incidents bound together by internal
necessity, each action leading inevitably to the next with no
outside intervention, no deus ex machina. According to
Aristotle, the worst kinds of plots are ―‗episodic,‘ in which the
episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or
necessary sequence‖; the only thing that ties together the
events in such a plot is the fact that they happen to the same
person. Playwrights should exclude coincidences from their
plots; if some coincidence is required, it should ―have an air of
design,‖ i.e., seem to have a fated connection to the events of
the play. Similarly, the poet should exclude the irrational or at
least keep it ―outside the scope of the tragedy,‖ i.e., reported
rather than dramatized. While the poet cannot change the
myths that are the basis of his plots, he ―ought to show
invention of his own and skillfully handle the traditional
materials‖ to create unity of action in his plot.

3. The plot must be ―of a certain magnitude,‖ both quantitatively

(length, complexity) and qualitatively (―seriousness‖ and
universal significance). Aristotle argues that plots should not
be too brief; the more incidents and themes that the playwright

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 can bring together in an organic unity, the greater the artistic
value and richness of the play. Also, the more universal and
significant the meaning of the play, the more the playwright
can catch and hold the emotions of the audience, the better the
play will be.

4. The plot may be either simple or complex, although complex

is better. Simple plots have only a ―change of fortune‖
(catastrophe). Complex plots have both ―reversal of intention‖
(peripeteia) and ―recognition‖ (anagnorisis) connected with
the catastrophe. Both peripeteia and anagnorisis turn upon
surprise. Aristotle explains that a peripeteia occurs when a
character produces an effect opposite to that which he intended
to produce, while an anagnorisis ―is a change from ignorance
to knowledge, producing love or hate between the persons
destined for good or bad fortune.‖ He argues that the best plots
combine these two as part of their cause-and-effect chain (i.e.,
the peripeteia leads directly to the anagnorisis); this in turns
creates the catastrophe, leading to the final ―scene of
suffering.‖
Character has the second place in importance. In a perfect
tragedy, character will support plot, i.e., personal motivations will be
intricately connected parts of the cause-and-effect chain of actions
producing pity and fear in the audience. The protagonist should be
renowned and prosperous, so his change of fortune can be from good
to bad. This change ―should come about as the result, not of vice, but

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of some great error or frailty in a character.‖ Such a plot is most
likely to generate pity and fear in the audience, for ―pity is aroused
by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like
ourselves.‖ The term Aristotle uses here, hamartia, often translated
―tragic flaw,‖ has been the subject of much debate. The meaning of
the Greek word is closer to ―mistake‖ than to ―flaw,‖ and I believe it
is best interpreted in the context of what Aristotle has to say about
plot and ―the law or probability or necessity.‖ In the ideal tragedy,
claims Aristotle, the protagonist will mistakenly bring about his own
downfall—not because he is sinful or morally weak, but because he
does not know enough. The role of the hamartia in tragedy comes
not from its moral status but from the inevitability of its
consequences. Hence the peripeteia is really one or more self-
destructive actions taken in blindness, leading to results
diametrically opposed to those that were intended (often termed
tragic irony), and the anagnorisis is the gaining of the essential
knowledge that was previously lacking.

Characters in tragedy should have the following qualities:

1. ―good or fine.‖ Aristotle relates this quality to moral purpose
and says it is relative to class: ―Even a woman may be good,
and also a slave, though the woman may be said to be an
inferior being, and the slave quite worthless.‖
2. ―fitness of character‖ (true to type); e.g. valor is appropriate
for a warrior but not for a woman.
3. ―true to life‖ (realistic)

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 4. ―consistency‖ (true to themselves). Once a character's
personality and motivations are established, these should
continue throughout the play.
5. ―necessary or probable.‖ Characters must be logically
constructed according to ―the law of probability or necessity‖
that governs the actions of the play.
6. ―true to life and yet more beautiful‖ (idealized, ennobled).

Thought is third in importance, and is found “where

something is proved to be or not to be, or a general maxim is
enunciated.” Aristotle says little about thought, and most of what he
has to say is associated with how speeches should reveal character.
However, we may assume that this category would also include what
we call the themes of a play.

Diction is fourth, and is “the expression of the meaning in

words” which are proper and appropriate to the plot,
characters, and end of the tragedy. In this category, Aristotle
discusses the stylistic elements of tragedy; he is particularly
interested in metaphors: ―But the greatest thing by far is to have a
command of metaphor; . . . it is the mark of genius, for to make good
metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.‖

Song, or melody, is fifth, and is the musical element of the

chorus. Aristotle argues that the Chorus should be fully integrated

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into the play like an actor; choral odes should not be ―mere
interludes,‖ but should contribute to the unity of the plot.

Spectacle is last, for it is least connected with literature; “the

production of spectacular effects depends more on the art of the
stage machinist than on that of the poet.” Although Aristotle
recognizes the emotional attraction of spectacle, he argues that
superior poets rely on the inner structure of the play rather than
spectacle to arouse pity and fear; those who rely heavily on spectacle
―create a sense, not of the terrible, but only of the monstrous.‖

The end of the tragedy is a katharsis (purgation, cleansing) of

the tragic emotions of pity and fear. Katharsis is another
Aristotelian term that has generated considerable debate. The word
means ―purging,‖ and Aristotle seems to be employing a medical
metaphor—tragedy arouses the emotions of pity and fear in order to
purge away their excess, to reduce these passions to a healthy,
balanced proportion. Aristotle also talks of the ―pleasure‖ that is
proper to tragedy, apparently meaning the aesthetic pleasure one gets
from contemplating the pity and fear that are aroused through an
intricately constructed work of art.

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 Plato and Aristotle

Plato versus Aristotle on Poetry

In his master work The Republic, Plato attempts to create a
hypothetical perfect society through discussion between his teacher
Socrates and other Greeks. In the course of this discussion, Plato decides
poets should be banned from his republic, and goes on to detail why
poetry and poets are harmful to humanity. Years later, Plato‘s student
Aristotle wrote Poetics, a work that defends poetry as a valuable resource.
Though these two competing works were written over 2,000 years ago,
there is still debate over the danger and value of art. A more thorough
analysis of Plato and Aristotle‘s views will reveal how these works on
poetry apply to today‘s realm of popular entertainment.

Plato finds poetry and poets unsavory for two reasons he details in
Book X of The Republic. Firstly, he takes issue with the imitative aspect
of poetry. He demonstrates how far from reality poetry is by making an
analogy to a bed. Socrates defines the most real bed as ―the nature of
things, bedhood, which we would say God made‖ (396). From this ideal
bedhood comes beds made by craftsmen; Plato believes these are one step
from reality. Finally, a painter who paints this bed is labeled ―the imitator
in the third generation from nature‖ (397). Socrates and Glaucon chide
this painter, who represents the poet in their analogy, for creating
―appearances, but not things really existing anywhere‖ (395) and not
having a true grasp on reality. Socrates then directly attacks Homer
himself, questioning Homer‘s worth because he never helped govern a
nation or participated in education.

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 Plato‘s second criticism of poetry deals with the way humans respond
to poetry emotionally. Plato describes humans as having two warring
parts within them: one that is lead by pure emotion and one that is
rational and ―ready to obey the law‖ (404). He gives an example of a man
who has lost a son. One half of this man wishes to lament endlessly,
while the other half wants to ―keep calm and endure.‖ Plato believes it is
this latter half that is ―manly‖ and praiseworthy, but that poets instead
favor those who ―[chant] and [beat] their breasts,‖ (406) in order to
provoke an unrealistic and fake emotional response, playing on the pity
and fear of the audience. He warns that if the men poets praise were in
power, ―pleasure and pain will be kings in your city, instead of law‖
(407).

Despite being Plato‘s student for twenty years, Aristotle came to have
very different opinions than his teacher on a number of issues. In his
Poetics, Aristotle takes the defense of the poetry Plato so harshly
criticized. He does this particularly in a chapter entitled ―The origin and
development of poetry.‖ While he does not argue with Plato‘s assertion
that poetry is imitative, he draws wholly different conclusions about
imitation. Aristotle states, firstly, ―the habit of imitating is congenital to
human beings from childhood,‖ and that man in fact ―learns his first
lessons through imitation‖ (20). In other words, imitation is not three
layers removed from reality, but is an essential part of human existence.

Secondly, Aristotle asserts that humans take pleasure from imitation.

He points out that ―least favored animals,‖ while causing pain and fear in
reality, are enjoyable when rendered in some form of art. This aspect of
art, wherein the audience is able to feel intense emotion without

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experiencing real danger, is known as catharsis, a cleansing of the
emotional palette Aristotle finds healthy. This is in direct opposition to
Plato, who believes the emotions experienced through poetry are not in
sync with reality, and cause lawlessness.

The debate started by these great minds regarding poetry, the popular
entertainment and art of their day, has only increased in intensity since
their original writings. Though poetry has been replaced as the dominant
form of entertainment, today‘s Homers are still beset with wildly
divergent opinions on their works. Today‘s primary concerns are still
twofold: the role of imitation and emotional impact in art. In these
matters, my allegiance lies with Aristotle.

At the time of this writing, many lawmakers, officials, and parents are
concerned with a relatively new type of art form: the video game. They
believe the imitative aspect of games, i.e. the fact players help their
onscreen counterparts cause mayhem and destruction, causes these
players to recreate their actions in reality. Plato would likely take the side
of these concerned citizens. The Grand Theft Auto series, with its car
crashes, gang beatings and polygonal prostitutes, practically brings to life
Socrates‘ remark: ―pleasure and pain will be kings in your city, instead of
law.‖ However, Aristotle (and I) would argue for the cathartic aspect of
these games; their players take out their frustrations onscreen, and not in
the real world. In the year 2004, 5.1 million copies of the latest Grand
Theft Auto sequel were sold1. The PC game Doom, which inspired
controversy after it was discovered the Columbine shooters were devoted
players, was estimated to be installed on 10 million computers in 19952.
Though tragedies like Columbine make a lasting impression on the minds

83
of the world, the ratio of supposed video game-inspired incidents of
violence versus the number of video game players simply does not favor
Plato‘s stance. Rather, this ratio points out a public ripe for Aristotle‘s
catharsis; experiencing an imitation of reality and taking pleasure in
releasing emotion. A generation from now, young people will scoff at the
notion of video games as dangerous, just as mine scoffs at the idea of
rock and roll as subversive devil‘s music.

Aristotle also showed more foresight than his teacher in the matter of
poetry‘s worth to future generations. Plato dismisses poets like Homer,
likening them to a holder of a mirror, who creates only appearances, but
nothing with true form. He also chides Homer for never having help run a
government or an educational facility. In both these matters, Plato shows
a stunning lack of prescience. Today, uncountable numbers of classes
dealing with forms of literature fill the academies Plato himself helped
found. When we say a certain work of art ―holds up a mirror to society,‖
we are praising it for its insight, not scorning it for being a copy of a
copy. One can derive a certain amusement to think of Plato‘s hypothetical
reaction to the recent film Troy – would he consider it an imitation of an
imitation of an imitation? Humor aside, we can see in films like Troy the
legacy Plato claimed Homer lacked. It is now evident Homer‘s
contribution is far greater than helping govern one Greek city: he has
inspired art, something Aristotle had the foresight to recognize as innate
and essential, for over two millennia.

In Plato‘s The Republic and Aristotle‘s Poetics, we see two great

minds of Greece come to different conclusions about two aspects of
poetry. Plato regards the imitative property of poetry with dismay, citing

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its unreal aspects. Aristotle finds this imitation a necessary part of human
life. Plato feels the emotional impact of poetry plays on the human
psyche, and breeds unlawfulness. Aristotle contends this very emotional
impact helps us relieve our tensions in a healthy way. When these views
are transposed to a modern context, I cannot help but side with Aristotle.

Plato and Aristotle: Views on the Nature and Function of Poetry

Aristotle was the disciple of Plato and was influenced by him a

great deal. But he differed from his guru in certain respects. Plato
condemned poetry, Aristotle appreciated it. Plato set out to
reorganize human life; Aristotle to re-organise human knowledge. Plato
was a transcendentalist, who arrived at his principles through observation
and analysis. Plata was an idealist, too.

He believed that the phenomenal world is but an objectification of the

ideal world. The ideal world is real, the phenomenal world is but a
shadow of this ideal reality. It is, therefore, fleeting and unreal. Aristotle,
on the other hand, believed in the reality of the world of the senses. It is
on the basis of the study and observation of particular realities that
general principles can be induced. Thus, Aristotle moves from the real, to
the ideal, from the particular to the general. His methods are inductive. In
this respect, he stands at the opposite pole from Plato.

Plato's language is poetic and charming, Aristotle's is dogmatic and

telegraphic. There was more originality in Plato than in Aristotle, but
Aristotle is more comprehensive and systematic than Plato. Plato used
first the word 'imitation' in connection with poetry. But Plato considered

85
imitation merely as mimicry or a servile copy of nature. Aristotle's
interpretation of it has a far-deeper significance. For Aristotle, imitation
was a creative force.

Plato likened poetry to painting. Aristotle likened it to music. Plato

believed that poetry imitates only the external superficial appearances,
and that it is, therefore, twice removed from reality. On the other
hand, Aristotle believed that poetry imitates not only the externals, but
also internal emotions and experiences. Plato regards that poetry imitates
objects as usual, or better or worse than they are. Poetry gives or traces
possibility. It explores what ought to be.

Plato was critical of poetry on moral intellectual and emotional

grounds. Aristotle has justified all the claims of superiority of poetry on
moral, intellectual and emotional grounds. Aristotle used the word
'katharsis' for the first time.

Plato regarded philosophy to be superior to poetry. Aristotle regarded

poetry to be superior to philosophy. Plato was of the view that poetry
being a false imitation does not have power or scope to deal with high
philosophical matters. Aristotle, quite contrary to it, believed that poetry
is the more philosophical. It has immense power to deal with even
philosophical matters.

Plato regarded emotions as useless for poetry. He advocated their

repression. Aristotle, on the other hand, regarded the emotion as of vital
importance to poetic creation. For Aristotle, poetry was but a mere
emotional outlet.

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 As mentioned by Lasceles Abercrombie, "Aristotle had been Plato's
pupil; but as his mind matured, he became conscious of a deep cleavage
between his conviction and his master's, and felt himself called upon to
protest against some of the characteristic conclusions and methods of the

Platonic philosophy Aristotle's mind liked to proceed from things to

ideas, Plato's from ideas to things. Aristotle had the scientific, Plato the
metaphysical mind. Aristotle could never have stood beside Plato as a
literary artist. But it was Plato, the philosopher, who condemned poetry;
and the mere fact that he did so is typical of the way his philosophy
regarded things. Things only important as the representatives of ideas, he
was quite prepared to say that a thing which was unnecessary or
unworthy as a representative of ideas ought not to exist. Poetry was a
thing of this nature; Plato, therefore, proposed that it should be abolished.
But it was with a biologist's respect for the existence of thing that
Aristotle looked on poetry; for him, ideas were only important as the
interpretation of things. It never occurred to Aristotle to ask whether
poetry ought or ought not to exist. It does exist, the questions his
philosophy asks are: In what manner and to what result does it exist? One
might perhaps say, Aristotle would no more think of asking whether
poetry ought to exist or not, than whether a species of animals ought to
exist or not. At any rate, the conclusion he comes to is the exact opposite
of Plato's opinion, it is, that the function of poetry can be supremely
beneficient. It may very well be that he started with this opinion, and that
to prove it against the great authority of Plato was his chief motive in
composing the Poetics."

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 Yet there are some resemblances between the two. These are on
following points:

1. That poetry is an'imitative art'

2. That poetry arouses emotions.

3. That poetry gives pleasure, both as an imitation and as arousing the

emotions through imitative means.

4. That arousing of the emotions by poetry has an effect upon the whole
personality of the spectator or reader and on his emotional behaviour in
real life.

5. That both considered poetry from a practical and utilitarian point of

view.

Nevertheless, poetry got its right place through the hands of Aristotle,
while it could not get the same through the hands of Plato.

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 Longinus
(1st Century AD)

The treatise On the Sublime, one the seminal works of literary

criticism, was long attributed to a rhetorician named Longinus. In
the estimation of many literary critics and critical historians who
have surveyed the rich offerings of classical literary criticism and
theory, the treatise On the Sublime, written probably in the first
century A.D., often ranks second in importance only to
Aristotle‘s Poetics (circa 335 B.C.). Aristotle‘s analytic work
succinctly maps the terrain of literary genre, character, structure, and
rhetoric; but the highly compact On the Sublime explores with
intensity the nature and occurrence of a certain kind of writing—
specifically writing whose expressive power appears to transgress
the rules of artistic and rhetorical composition and to achieve what in
Greek is termed hypsos, a word that denotes greatness, excellence, or
sublimity.

The treatise On the Sublime takes an approach to criticism which

is completely different from that of Aristotle. If Aristotle is the
model for all neoclassic and systematic approaches to literature,
Longinus may be looked upon as a forerunner of the intuitive and
romantic views of the later neoclassical age, when several critics
(Boileau, Burke, Kant) wrote works on the subject of the sublime.
The key concept in Longinus is no longer "decorum," but rather
"sublimity."

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 On the Sublime apparently dates from the 1st century AD,
because it was a response to a work of that period by Caecilius of
Calacte, a Sicilian rhetorician. About a third of the manuscript is
lost. Longinus defines sublimity (Greek hypsos) in literature as ―the
echo of greatness of spirit,‖ that is, the moral and imaginative power
of the writer that pervades a work. Thus, for the first time greatness
in literature is ascribed to qualities innate in the writer rather than in
the art.

There are five sources of sublimity: 1) great ideas, 2) passion, 3)

the appropriate use of figures, 4) the right diction, and 5) a skilful
composition. The first two are qualities of the poet, the others of the
poem. They are identified with natural and artistic sources
respectively. Also, the first two are those proper to sublimity; the
others we might wish to link to beauty as well as to sublimity. The
first two are mostly innate. The final three are primarily the product
of art (may be learned). These are ways of cultivating greatness of
soul. So it is not very clear at times how sublimity is supposed to
manifest itself in the poem. Nature (the part of the poet) and art (the
poem) are divorced to some extent in Longinus' theory.

In a passage that became important to neoclassical writers,

Longinus contends that ―natural talent, though generally a law unto
itself in passionate and distinguished passages, is not usually random
or altogether devoid of method.‖ Greatness involves ―a matter of art‖
because method or study trains talent to make the most of itself. The

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neoclassical ideal of balance, of the judicious harmonizing of talent
and method, nature and art, genius and critical knowledge, finds an
important pretext here in Longinus‘s qualification of the potential
unruliness of his sense of great expressive power.

True sublimity will cause the soul to instinctively lift, to fill will
incomparable joy. This is an encounter with pure beauty (though use
of even this synonym risks departing from the author‘s genuine
intent). True sublimity causes the soul to experience ―high
thoughts.‖ You will know when you encounter this sublimity
because you‘ll be unable to forget it; you will be called back to it
again, and you‘ll be drawn to examine it further/deeper.

By the word 'sublime' Longinus means "elevation" or "lofti-

ness"—all that which raises style above the ordinary, and gives to it
distinction in its widest and truest sense. So sublimity is "a certain
distinction and excellence in composition." Both nature and art, says
Longinus, contribute to sublimity in literature. "Art is perfect when it
seems to be nature, and nature hits the mark when she
contains art hidden within her." (Longinus)

Longinus finds five principal sources of the sublime, the first two
of which are largely the gifts of nature the remaining three the gifts
of art (1) grandeur of thought, (2) capacity for strong emotion,
(3) appropriate use of Figures, (4) Nobility of diction, and (5)

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dignity of composition or a happy synthesis of all the preceding
elements.

(1) Grandeur of Thought

Nobody can produce a sublime work unless his thoughts are
sublime. For "sublimity is the echo of greatness of soul It is
impossible for those whose whole lives are full of mean and servile
ideas and habits, to produce anything that is admirable and worthy of
an immortal life. It is only natural that great accents should fall from
the lips of those whose thoughts have always been deep and full of
majesty." Stately thoughts belong to the loftiest minds.

Therefore, he who would attain distinction of style must feed his

soul on the works of the great masters, as Homer, Plato and
Demosthenes, and capture from them some of their own
greatness, This reflects the classicism of Longinus. However, what
Longinus has in mind is not mere imitation or borrowing, but that
"men catch fire from the spirit of others." To Longinus the operation
is one that aims at capturing something of the ancient spirit,
something of that vital creative force which had gone to the making
of the earlier masterpieces; and its effect he describes as that
of illumination, guiding the mind in some mysterious way to the
lofty standards of the ideal.

The grandeur of conception is to be emphasized and made

effective by a suitable treatment of material. Details should be so

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chosen as to form an organic whole. Amplification or accumulation
of all the details of a given subject is also helpful. Such an
amplification by its profusion suggests overwhelming strength and
magnitude. The use of vivid and compelling images is also useful,
for it brings home to the readers the conception of the writer,
effectively and forcefully.

(2) Capacity for Strong Emotion

The second source of the sublime is vehement and inspired
passion. Longinus asserts that nothing contributes more to loftiness
of tone in writing than genuine emotion. At one place, for instance,
he says, "I would confidently affirm that nothing makes so much for
grandeur as true emotion in the right place, for it inspires the words,
as it were, with a wild gust of mad enthusiasm and fills them with
divine frenzy." It is for this reason that he prefers the Iliad
to the Odyssey and Demosthenes to Cicero. But the emotions have to
be 'true emotions' and 'in the right place'. He thus justifies emotions
more artistically than Aristotle. However, the subject of emotions
has not been dealt with in detail. The author declares his intention of
dealing with it in a second treatise, which unfortunately has not
come down to us.

(3) Appropriate Use of Pictures

The third source of attaining excellence of style is the use of
figures of speech which he considers very important, and so devotes

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nearly one third of his work to it. He shows great discrimination and
originality of thinking in his treatment of the subject. Figures of
speech should not be used mechanically, rather they must be rooted
in genuine emotion. Used naturally, they impart elevation to style,
and are themselves made more effective by an elevated style.

The figures of thought and diction have to be judiciously

employed. The grandeur of any figure "will depend on its being
employed in the right place and the right manner, on the
right occasion, and with the right motive.'" It strengthens the
sublime, and the sublime supports it. We need the figures only
"when the nature of the theme makes it allowable to amplify, to
multiply or to speak in the tones of exaggeration or passion; to
overlay every sentence with ornament is very pedantic." When the
figure is unrelated to passion, it creates a suspicion of dishonesty and
is divorced from sublimity. The chief figures that make for sublimity
are the theoretical question, asyndeton,
hyperbaton, and periphrasis. In brief, the use of figures must be
psychological—intimately connected with thought and emotion, and
not merely mechanical.

(4) Nobility of Diction

The fourth source of the 'sublime' is diction which includes
choice and arrangement of words and the use of metaphors and
ornamental language. The discussion of diction is incomplete

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because four leaves of this part of the book are unfortunately lost.
Nevertheless, words, when suitable and striking, he says, have ''a
moving and seductive effect" upon the reader and are the first things
in a style to lend it "grandeur, beauty and mellowness, dignity, force,
power, and a sort of glittering charm." It is they that breathe voice
into dead things. They are 'the very light of ought'—a radiance that
illumines the innermost recesses of the writer's mind. But 'it should
be noted that imposing language is not suitable for every occasion.
When the object is trivial, to invest it with grand and stately words
would have the same effect as putting a full-sized tragic mask on the
head of a little child.' This necessitates the use of common words
which, when in elegant, make up for it by their raciness and
forcefulness. Among these ornaments of speech Longinus considers
metaphor and hyperbole.

(5) Dignity of Composition

The fifth source of the sublime is the dignity of composition, that
is, a dignified composition or the arrangement of words. It should be
one that blends thought, emotion, figures, and words themselves—
the preceding four elements of sublimity—into a harmonious whole.
Such an arrangement has not only 'a natural power of persuasion and
of giving pleasure but also the marvellous power of exalting the soul
and swaying the heart of men." It makes the hearer or reader share
the emotion of the speaker. But 'if the elements of grandeur be
separated from one another, the sublimity is scattered and made to
vanish but when organised into a compact system and still further
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 encircled in a chain of harmony they gain a living voice by being
merely rounded into a period.' A harmonious
composition alone sometimes makes up for the deficiency of the
other elements. A proper rhythm is one of the elements in this
harmony. Negatively, deformity and not grandeur is the result if the
composition is either extremely concise or unduly prolix. The one
cripples the thought and the other overextends it.

(6) The False and the True Sublime

Making a distinction between the false and the true sublime,
Longinus says that the false sublime is characterised first, by
timidity or bombast of language, which is as great an evil as
swellings in the body. "It is drier than dropsy." Secondly, the false
sublime is characterised by puerility, which is a parade and pomp of
language, tawdry and affected, and so frigid. Thirdly, the false
sublime results when there is a cheap display of passion, when it is
not justified by the occasion, and so is wearisome. True sublime, on
the other hand, pleases all and "pleases always," for it expresses
thoughts of universal validity—thoughts common to man of all ages
and centuries—in a language which instinctively uplifts our souls.

POINTS TO REMEMBER
1. "Sublime" means "elevation", or "loftiness"—"a certain
distinction and excellence in composition."

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2. The principal sources of the Sublime are—(1) grandeur of
thought; (2) capacity for strong emotion; (3) appropriate use of
figures of speech; (4) Nobility of diction, and (5) dignity of
composition or a happy blend of the preceding four elements.
3. Sublimity the echo of a great soul; lofty thoughts and ideas a pre
condition for sublimity; trivial thoughts—mean and servile ideas—
do not lead to sublimity.
4. The second source of the sublime is the vehement, inspired and
genuine emotion.
5. Sublimity can be attained by the appropriate use of the figures
of speech which should not be used mechanically but naturally to be
rooted in genuine emotion—should be employed in the right place
and right manner. The chief figures that make for sublimily are
asyndaton, hyperbaton and periphrasis.
6. For sublimity the choice and arrangement of right words. Use of
grand words for a trivial object will only be ridiculous.
7. Hence sublimity in a work of art is the result of a happy
blending of lofty thought, strong and genuine emotion, appropriate
figures of speech and suitable words. Elements of grandeur cannot
he separated from each other.
8. True Vs. False Sublime—False sublime is characterized by
timidity or bombast of language and also by puerility (a parade and
pomp of language). True Sublime, on the other hand, is marked by
universality of appeal: it pleases all and always : it uplifts our souls.

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The Vices of the Sublime
Longinus distinguishes the true Sublime from the False Sublime,
and says that the vices of the Sublime emerge out of two things—
"lack of passion and sincerity, and inadequacy of communication
caused by faulty technique." He has repeatedly warned the readers
"against bombast, puerility on affectation, and conceits of frigidity."

Turgidity of Language
Longinus takes a passage from Aeschylus and points out that the
False Sublime is the result of turgidity of language:
"Quell they the oven's far-flung spleen dour-glow!
Ha, let me but one hearth-abider mark—
One flame-wreath torrent-like I'll whirl on high;
I'll burn the roof, to cinders shrival it;
Nay, now my chant is not of noble strain."

Puerility
The second vice of the Sublime is puerility, 'a pedantic conceit
which overdoes itself and becomes frigid at the last.' This is the
besetting sin of the metaphysicals—Donne, Cowley and Crashaw.
The following extract is an example of the 'Pedantic' conceit:
"Her soul was prickled
Like the bald head
Of a jaundiced Jewish banker.
Her hair and featurous face
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Withered alike
An alibo boa-constrictor
She thought that resembled the Mona Lisa."
—A. C. Ficke
This demonstrates the futility of thought. It comes when a writer
tries to show off falsely.

Parenthysus (Parenthesis)
The third vice of the false Sublime is known as 'Parenthysus'. It
is 'passion out of place and unmeaning, there is no case for passion
or unrestrained where restrain is needed.' Mere passion or sincerity
of the poet for producing Sublime is not enough: for greatness place,
manner, occasion and purpose are all essential.

Defects of Style
The fourth vice of the Sublime arises out of the defects of style.
To quote Longinus: "All these ugly and parasitical growths arise in
literature from a single cause, that pursuit of novelty in expression of
ideas which may be regarded as the fashionable craze of the
day. Our defects usually spring for the most part, from the same
sources as our good points. Hence while beauties of expression and
touch of sublimity and charming elegancies withal, are favourable to
effective composition, yet these very things are the elements and
foundation, not only of success but also of the contrary." For
example, to call a woman, 'a thorn of eye' or to call the eyeball 'the
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princess of the eye' for the sake of novelty will create not sublimity
but frigidity.

Inspiration and Technique

Sublimity is a natural gift. Two of the main causes of sublimity,
the power of forming great conceptions and the power to feel a
vehement and inspired passion, are inborn in the great poet. They
cannot be learned through art. The great poet must be stirred and
carried away by his conception; he must feel the same great
emotions his characters feel, and pass them over to his audience.
This, by the way, may be taken as a somewhat anti-cathartic
pronouncement.

Sublimity raises the writer near to the majesty of God. The poet
who is attempting sublimity must be daring, even at the cost of
committing faults which could be avoided with the reasonable
advice of technique. The way to sublimity is dangerous, it is
attended by great risks. Longinus says it is safer to follow all the
rules of art, but it is clear he prefers the sublime even at the cost of
some small faults. The rules of art, he thinks, may curtail the flights
of inspiration, so that a work which is perfect according to the rules
of art is rarely found to be sublime. "Invariable accuracy incurs the
risk of pettiness". A new note in classical criticism rings here: art
and technique are seen for the first time as machinery, which will not
ensure the success of the work; Longinus seems to suggest that the

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rules of poetry are an obstacle rather than a help when the poet tries
to achieve greatness.

The opposition between the beautiful and the sublime, which will
be an important critical concept in eighteenth-century aesthetics, can
be traced back to these ideas of Longinus. A knowledge of art may
produce grace or beauty, but that is not enough to attain sublimity.
Sublimity requires transport, genius, permanent value and a subject
of physical grandeur. Here Longinus sings the praise of human
imagination, which goes beyond the limits which even great things
in nature set to it.

Grandeur with its attendant faults is preferable to moderate

success: Demosthenes is better than Hyperides. Mere impression of
skill results from the whole texture of the composition, but the
sublime manifests itself in concrete ideas or expressions, which flash
forth at the right moment like a thunderbolt. This idea of the touch of
genius in which greatness is revealed independently from the whole
of the work will influence eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
English critics like Addison, Ruskin and Arnold. We can measure
here the full distance between Longinus' aesthetics and Aristotle's.
However, they are not as far apart all the time. Longinus makes a
difference between a sublimity of invention (the one we have
mentioned) and a sublimity of composition, in which the impression
of sublimity results from the whole, each part being unremarkable in
itself. This idea forms a bridge between the poles of art and

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inspiration. There is an important place for art and technique in
Longinus' aesthetics too, even if Longinus never draws a direct
relationship between sublimity and the right use of figures.

Inspiration may be a natural gift, but nevertheless, Longinus says,

nature does not act without system. A knowledge of art will help to
eliminate some of the faults which beset the aspirant to sublimity.
Technique will help to avoid bombast, frigidity or untimely
expression of passion. The test that we have failed to reach sublimity
is that hearers are not moved. So, inspiration may be guided by art
the better to achieve its end. But art, technique, must always be
subservient. It must know how to set its own limits, as well as those
of inspiration. So it must not be too noticeable; it must escape
attention. This is not exclusive of Longinus' romantic criticism; the
principle of "hiding art by means of art" (ars celare artem ) is one of
the tenets of classical criticism.

Sublimity and Rhetoric

In spite of his tendency to leave sublimity unanalyzed, Longinus
does make some interesting remarks on the use of rhetoric to achieve
the right effect. The sublime is the result of selecting the basic
elements in things, suppressing all that is mean or diminishing,
and combining these elements into a single whole. For instance,
Homer at one point forces words together in unusually harsh
combinations to imitate the meaning which is being expressed.
Longinus speaks of the use of amplification, of images, and of

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figures both of thought and of expression, such as asyndeton,
polysyndeton, hyperbaton, polyptoton, periphrasis, the use of direct
style and of feigned objections, as well as of combinations of
figures. Under 'figures' he includes any abnormality of syntax;
metaphor he studies under 'diction'. He observes that an excess of
rhythm is felt to be lacking in passion, and lowers
sublimity: "overrhythmical style does not communicate the feeling
of the words, but simply the feeling of the rhythm". The same
happens with the opposite, an excessive ruggedness. The extremes of
prolixity and concission are also to be avoided. Vulgar words may
be used sometimes for the sake of lively expression, but in general a
dignified utterance is the best way to sublimity.

Democracy and Sublimity

Longinus quotes an unknown rhetorician as saying that the decay
of rhetoric and of sublime utterance in general was due to the loss of
liberty under the Roman empire. Freedom, democracy and free
competition are stimuli to greatness of thought and expression; the
unknown rhetorician sees servitude as a cage both to soul and
thought: under an authoritarian regime, the human spirit cannot find
its proper expansion. But Longinus does not agree, and he blames
instead the vices of the age, excessive love of riches and ostentation,
and unrestrained passions --a moral rather than a political theory of
invention.

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Homeric Criticism
Homer is the model for sublime poets; he is fierce and passionate,
he feels the same emotions of his characters as they fight. Longinus
opposes this Homer of the Iliad to the Homer of the Odyssey; he
sees the latter as the product of old age, characterized by the episodic
action and the taste for delineation of character. In this way
Longinus tries his hand at a biographical approach to criticism and
the psychology of literary creation. This interest in the figure of the
author which is lacking in the approaches of Aristotle or Horace will
not find its full expression until the Romantic age.

Posterity
Longinus is the first critic to be concerned with the judgement of
posterity, even though the idea had already appeared in the poets
themselves (cf. Horace, or Pindarus before him). He considers it the
definite test of sublimity; the sign of maturity in a poet is that he
writes for posterity. All this gives a distinctive touch to the critical
perspective of Longinus: he looks upon the classics much as we do,
with the idea of a literary tradition in mind. We must not forget that
this is the first study on literature by someone who is neither a poet
nor a philosopher.

Conclusion
Longinus cannot define what the sublime is, but he is also
concerned with lively and elevated style in general, and to that he
provides a more explicit approach, also based on the reactions of the

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audience. Longinus' most characteristic idea is his use of intuitive
response to measure the greatness of a passage. However, we may
not feel that we understand that greatness much better once we have
recognized it.
At its worst, Longinus' idea of sublimity is redundant, a variety of
purely rapturous and impressionistic criticism. But at its best it
defines a limit to both art and criticism; it sets us before the
indefinable that which escapes our power of judgement and can only
grasped through emotion. In this way, Longinus sets a decorum of
his own to poetry, but it is one opposed to that of Horace. It is not a
decorum of restraint, but of transport. Longinus will be forgotten for
many centuries, but his treatise was rediscovered in the Renaissance
and his sentimental approach to literature became fashionable in pre-
Romantic criticism, when "sublimity" is resurrected as a criterion to
determine literary excellence. Longinus lays the stress in an area of
criticism --valuation-- which is crucial when it comes to determine
the ultimate aims of literature or to make a selection of authors in the
mass of written material. Valuation is an area of heated debate in
twentieth-century criticism. Some critical schools (F. R. Leavis and
the New Critics) hold that valuation is the primary aim of the critic,
his moral and social function; other schools (structuralism,
deconstruction, feminism) have cast doubt on the legitimacy of the
traditional criteria of valuation, and have stressed the relativity and
ideological nature of evaluative criticism.

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 Horace

(65- 8 B.C)

Quintus Horatius Flaccus, known in English as Horace, was

born at Venusia, near the border of Apulia, in 65 B.C. His father, a
former slave who had freed himself before the birth of his son, sent
him to school in Rome. As a young man Horace went to Athens and
studied philosophy at the famous schools. When the Civil War broke
out he enlisted in the army of Brutus, served at Philippi, and came
back to Rome not long after. Deprived of his property as a result of
the proscriptions, he began life anew at the age of twenty-four as a
clerk in a public office. Not long after, he attracted the attention of
Mæcenas, and soon became acquainted with Varius and Virgil,
henceforth devoting himself to literary pursuits. His first work, the
first book of Satires, was published in 35 B.C. About a year later,
Mæcenas presented him with the celebrated Sabine Farm, and
Horace was at liberty to the end of his life to do as he liked. Before
he died he was famous: the Emperor Augustus commissioned him to
write the fourth book of Odes. He died eight years before the birth of
Christ.
Horace is considered one of the great Latin lyric poets, Horace
is renowned for his Odes (c. 23 b.c. and c. 13 b.c.), which express in
conversational style the pleasures of friendship and love, and his
Satires (c. 35 b.c. and c. 30 b.c.), which are mild and witty and
represent a break from the invective-laden attacks of his
predecessors. The Odes are unrivaled in their adaptation of Greek

106
meter for Latin verse and are noteworthy for appearing to be
autobiographical and ironically self-effacing. Horace's poetry is also
important historically because it reflects the mood of the Roman
empire at a time of peace following a long period of civil wars. The
Ars Poetica (On the Art of Poetry; c. 19 b.c.) served as a manual of
style for neoclassical poets in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Horace‘s poems and satires, considered exemplary, were
compulsory study in British schools, influencing Samuel Johnson,
Andrew Marvell, and John Dryden, among others.
The Epistle to the Pisos, or Art of Poetry, has been assigned by
various authorities to the period between 24 and 7 B.C. Professor
Saintsbury's believes that it is "the only complete example of literary
criticism that we have from any Roman." It is significant that the
greater part of its subject-matter is concerned with the drama. The
Art of Poetry is on the whole a somewhat arbitrary manual; the
greatest importance is there attached to the purely formal side of
writing; the dramatist must adhere closely to the five acts, the
chorus, proportion, good sense, decorum, cannot be neglected. Of
the practical value of the work before the Renaissance, it is
impossible to know; of its influence since that time, it can only be
said that it was as widespread as that of Aristotle. Horace's doctrine
of "pleasure and profit" was to be repeated innumerable times, and is
still a criterion of criticism. Mr. Spingarn's statement that "critical
activity in nearly all the countries of western Europe seems to have
been ushered in by the translation of Horace's Ars Poetica into the

107
vernacular tongues" is but another proof of the popularity of the
work.
Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus is best known for his
satires, epistles, and odes. He wrote his most influential critical work
around the year 15 BC, towards the end of his long career as a poet.
Horace‘s Ars Poetica is an epistle presented as an informal letter to
members of the Piso family. Originally written in dactylic
hexameter, the piece is typically translated into prose.
Offering a list of advice to beginning poets, Horace maintains
an intimate tone while sharing many of the notions that continue to
frame our approach to poetry. As Horace explains, ―As is painting,
so is poetry: some pieces will strike you more if you stand near, and
some, if you are at a greater distance: one loves the dark; another,
which is not afraid of the critic‘s subtle judgment, chooses to be seen
in the light; the one has pleased once the other will give pleasure if
ten times repeated ‖ Horace places particular emphasis on the
importance of decorum in poetry, and on the necessity of ―join[ing]
the instructive with the agreeable.‖ He urges poets to keep their
audience in mind at all times, and he advises that writers ―either
follow tradition, or invent such fables as are congruous to
themselves.‖

Horace's Art of Poetry

The epistle from Horace's Art of Poetry was not merely a
guide for good literature, but it was a sophisticated writing that

108
displayed his principles and wisdom, and the contemporary
Hellenistic influence on the Romans.
Horace's profound work clearly asserted his position as a
literary master. Throughout his letter to Piso, he was able to make
his description interesting and explanation convincing. He exhibited
his expertise in literature by presenting detailed guidelines to write
proficiently. Among his suggestions, he stressed precision, good
iambic lines, and proper literary styles and formats. He also
emphasized on the importance to strive for unity, as the writing
would lose strength without coherence. If he were not a master at
literature, he would not be able to discuss the technical details in
depth. Furthermore, Horace was not only a man with distinguished
achievements, but he was also a man with great principles. With
many people yearning for success, he described Rome as "a nation
greedy just for fame." He criticized the Romans for being indulgent
and materialistic. Since everybody was so absorbed in earning
money, he asked, "what poems can we expect to write worth coating
with protective oils and storing in fine wood?" To Horace, money
was not the primary motivation to pursue his writing career, and that
explained why Horace rejected Augustus's offer to become his
secretary, which was an honorable position for a freed man. With his
great virtues and morals, Horace was undoubtedly one of the best
poets in the Roman Empire.

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Art of Poetry: Horace's view of the Artist as a craftsman

Horace was the classicist who established the classical sets of

belief rules and orders, restraint and correct expression. He wished
that the writer should choose correct and right words; that he should
use meters maintaining their appropriateness; that he should be able
to choose a proper subject; that he should make use of proper poetic
diction; and that he should follow the rules of ancient arts.
Alexandrian influence can be noted in his demand for careful
workmanship and polish and order and organization. Moreover, for
that he says an artist is always a craft man who using his
architectural genius maintains decorum and ‗urbanity‘ in his work of
art.
For Horace, a writer must choose a subject within his power
and appropriate to his gifts; he must say at any given moment what
needs to be said, and no more. He must choose vocabulary, meter
and form that are right for his subject, whether noble, exciting, erotic
or joyous. He warns against extravagant implausibility and
incongruities. Indeed the prevailing emphasis throughout is on the
need for consistency, coherence and seemliness. It is the writer's
business to refine and polish his text that the highest standards of
propriety and artistry are maintained. However, Horace demands a
craft man‘s skill in an artist; he does not utterly neglect the role of
natural talent in art. In fact, he is insisting on a complementary
relationship between learned artistry and genius.
His Art for poetry can also be read as a useful advice to the
perspective writers. It remained an influential document or a Bible
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for esp. Boileau, Pope, Eliot and Fyre. He equates poetry with
painting. In poetry, words are like various colors that are put
beautifully. He focuses on decorum in poetry i.e. the rightness of
each part to the whole. There should be the harmony of each parts of
poetry to the whole. These ideas become laws for neo- classical
writers. He outlines the following points to be in good poetry so that
the pragmatic effect of poetry can be achieved.

Unity and simplicity of forms:

Simplicity refers to lucidity that is everyone understands. Unity is
the perfect combination of beginning, middle and ending.
Everything should be matching so that it creates decorum and the
sense of propriety. (Correctnes + Suitable)

Form and content matched:

The style should be proper. By proper, he means that the trivial and
serious matters should not be written in grand style. And in the same
way, the treatment of serious matter should not be in trivial form.
Therefore, from and content should be matched. Poets and painters
should not create monotony by showing dolphin in the forest and
elephant in the sea. Such unnatural combination fails to teach and
give the delight.

Appropriate use of words:

The words come and go like the leaves of a tree. The words need to
be used in proper places according to the nature of the words. Cliché

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should not be used and the language of common people should be
magnified. Poets should use familiar words in quite different way. If
characters want to speak words then it is okay but it should have its
origin in Greek.

Appropriateness of meter:
Horace prefers Virgil's opinion that to follow Homer is to follow
nature. Homer says it is appropriate to use hexameter in epic, iambic
pentameter in tragedy and hexameter and iambic pentameter in
elegy.
Consistency of characters:
The characters should be consistent and life like. His views on
characters are identical to Aristotle. Character traits should be based
on age, there should not be any exaggeration, that is which is not
possible to the character must not be presented. Therefore, characters
should be convincing, probable and consistent.

Style (Starting and ending):

The writer can take one of the following techniques to present the
content. Analepsis (flash back): What happened before the action
takes place. Prolepsis (foreshadowing): What happens next to on-
going action. Anachronistic (random): Mixture of all techniques.
Whatever the technique there is, the end of poetry should teach
and delight. To teach actions should be physical than verbal because
whatever people see, they are likely to believe. Therefore, it is better
to perform everything. But scenes of murder, violence etc should not

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be shown on the stage. Deux ex machine (performing of God on the
stage) is to be hidden.

Decorum
According to Horace, Poetry need not tie itself to actual facts;
poets have the license of invention, but they must use it to create a
unified whole. Parts must correspond to the whole, even though in
Horace "parts" and "whole" do not have the technical sense we
found in the Poetics. Horace stresses the importance of guiding
principles, of "art" in the sense of "knowledge." The main role of art
is to keep everything in its right place and give it its right share in
the whole. This idea of technical knowledge as a principle of
restraint and order we call decorum: it is a classicist conception par
excellence. "Decorum" is probably the key word in Horace's
approach to literature, and we can link it to Aristotle's idea of the
proper nature of things. In the neoclassical critics of the seventeenth
century we will find the general belief that there are two principles at
war in the poet's head: fancy and judgment, and that the role of
judgment is to restrain the flights of fancy within the boundaries of
art. There is an insinuation of this in Horace, but here the terms are
simply native gift and art or technical knowledge. There is no
mythology of inspiration attached to Horace's idea of genius. And
the relationship between the gift of the poet and his technical
expertise is usually seen as one of complementarity, rather that
opposition. Art, in the work or (understood as technique) in the poet,
is the supplier of what is lacking in nature. Art keeps grand style

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from becoming bombastic, brevity, which in itself is a merit, from
being unintelligible, smoothness from becoming blandness. It also
teaches a poet not to choose a subject which is beyond his powers
(inventio), to give the right distribution to the parts (dispositio) and
to keep a golden middle concerning the use of words (elocutio):
Horace authorizes moderate coinage and novelty, following usage,
and understands the necessary evolution of language. Decorum,
then, is not necessarily an enemy of novelty: the best effects, Horace
says, can be obtained when a well-known word is skillfully set so
that it looks as though it were new.
The laws that dictate what is and what is not appropriate for
poetry constitute the central and foundational notion of all neo-
Classical art. Recall the word there was decorum. Again, decorum is
the law which dictates what is, and what is not appropriate for
poetry. Neo-Classicists are completely committed to the idea of
decorum. Let's look at some of Horace's specific rules. At the heart
of decorum is the stipulation not to mix unlike things. In fact,
Horace illustrates this in the very first rhyming couplet of his verse
epistle. He lampoons the image of a mermaid, saying only a foolish
poet would take a fish and a woman and put them together. That
breaks decorum because you're not supposed to mix unlike things
and he makes fun of that as being fanciful. So this is the product of a
feverish mind, a crazy person making these concoctions that
shouldn‘t go together, thus breaking decorum. More specifically,
after giving us the comic image, Horace gives us the serious image,
and attacks poets who mix genres, who use comic subjects as the

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basis of tragedy, for example, or vice versa. Now interestingly, the
great Shakespeare breaks decorum, and some of his tragedies have
comic relief. Then some of his comedies have tragic overtones.
Horace would not have approved, since tragedy is tragedy, and
comedy is comedy, never the twain shall meet. You don't mix
genres, as one of the key points of decorum, as everything has its
proper place. Each genre should have its own style, natural to it.
Again, there's that genre, the idea of certain modes of imitation
appropriate to epic or tragedy or comedy. There should be an
unbroken, clearly-defined unity of action, character, and mood. We
don't want things breaking it up, so we want unity, we want things
that fit together. Indeed, according to Horace, each genre should
have its own specific meter, whose rhythmic sounds mimic closely
the sense of the poem. In other words, Horace gets pretty stipulation,
saying that if you're writing an elegy, a grieving about the loss of a
person or a community, you should have a metrical scheme that has
an elegiac sound to it. In other words, it should be long and
mournful. If you're writing something meditative, the sound of the
poetry itself should be meditative as well. If you're going to do a
serious tragedy, don't give me a sing-songy rhythm. That is breaking
decorum, and there must be fittingness between the sound and the
sense. Those must of together as one. Now, another example or
aspect of decorum is that when writing on a traditional subject,
modern or contemporary poets must be faithful to the literary
precedence set by their poetic forbearers. In other words, Horace's
example is that if you are going to do a modern portrayal of

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Achilles, Orestes, or Oedipus, you must be consistent with earlier
portrayals. So if you're going to write about Achilles, you must be
consistent with Homer's version of Achilles; we don't want any
revisionist myth-making going on here. Now Shakespeare breaks
that decorum as well. If you've read his early play Troilus and
Cressida, it's Shakespeare's version of the Trojan War. All of the
characters from the Iliad are in there, but they are buffoons. Achilles
is a spoiled brat; Menelaus is merely dismissed as a cuckold. It's
amazing, and poor Homer and Horace must have been spinning in
their graves! So again, Shakespeare does not always follow
decorum, and he breaks that. Yet the real rules for decorum in neo-
Classical poetry, he says, are that you must be consistent. Now this
is interesting, because what Horace is doing here is two things. First
he is reiterating Aristotle's rule that tragic heroes must be both
appropriate and consistent. He agrees with all that, but what he's
doing here is inscribing this within an accepted tradition. So in other
words, characters should be appropriate and consistent, not just
because that's the natural way of doing it, but because that's what
Aristotle said. So again, neo-Classic people go back to authority and
tradition, trying to stick with tradition, rather than breaking with
tradition. Now in addition to the notions of what is appropriate and
what is traditional, decorum also stipulates what is fit or proper to be
shown publicly. There are a lot of aspects to mention on this. Here's
an aspect that deals with the stage particularly. According to Horace,
gory or explicit scenes must be kept off that stage. Such scenes of
suffering should be related by a messenger. Anyone who is a

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thespian, an actor, if you are ever in a Greek tragedy, you actually
want the role of this messenger. See, in most tragedy, it's a thankless
role, but not in Greek tragedy. Oedipus does not blind himself
onstage, and Jocasta does not strangle herself onstage. You don't
show that stuff onstage, because it's a break in decorum. What
happens is, the bloody act, the deed, occurs offstage, and then a
messenger runs in, all wild, "Oh my, I have just seen the most
horrible scene." Then in beautiful poetry, they describe the death of
Jocasta or the blinding of Oedipus. So actually again, it's kind of a
joke amongst actors, if it's Greek theater, that you want the
messenger's role! He only has one speech, but it's a juicy one! Now
let's think. Does Shakespeare follow this rule? Not at all, since he
loves to have death, destruction, and mayhem all over his stage!
Now part of the reason is because he's a appealing to the aristocrats
as well as to the poor people. He's got a wider audience, his is not
just a courtly audience, but he's also got the poor people in the
gallery. The best example of a gory scene that would have horrified
Horace, is in King Lear. There's a scene where the evil Cornwall
blinds Glouster, and he actually plucks his eyeballs out. So the scene
onstage has him pluck out the eyeball, and then has him throw it
onto the ground, and step on it, saying, "out vile jelly, where is thy
luster now?" This is a definite break in decorum! All right, another
rule of decorum then. Related to decorum is Horace's famous
comparison of poetry to painting. According to Horace, just like
with painting, some poems are best viewed while close-up, and
others are best viewed from far away. That's sometimes true with

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painting. Think of Impressionist paintings, where you do not want to
stand right up to them. You have to stand back in order to get the
right perspective. Well Horace says this is the same way with poetry.
Some paintings are seen better seen in shadows, while others are
better seen in light. It's the same thing with poetry. It's not exactly
the same thing as decorum, but it's related to decorum. Now we
should say here that in later neo-Classical theory, a lot of people pick
up on this idea that a poem is like a picture, and they really go
overboard with it. So we think they took it out of its context and
made it sort of static. Louis doesn't think Horace meant to say that
poetry and painting are the same thing, but he just wanted to make
the analogy of close-up or father away. Yet that's something that
becomes a type, we suppose, of neo-Classical theory. You get to
hear it a lot! All right, those are the rules of decorum, but Horace
lays down a lot of other rules and I'd like to survey those as well.
First of all, after his view on decorum, Horace is best known for his
stipulation that the proper end or goal of poetry, is "to please and
teach," the Latin is "dulce et utile" (sweet and utilize). So a poem
should both please and teach. Now recall lecture one, when we said
this was one aspect of pragmatic theories, those interested in the
relationship between the poem and the audience. So Horace is
moving into pragmatic theories, because he's interested in the impact
of his poem. Does it teach and please? That's one of the criteria he
uses for good poetry, a pragmatic criteria, relating to the audience.
Now the way he explains teaching and pleasing, Horace says that old
men insist that poetry teach morality. Young men on the other hand,

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insist that it should please and entertain. Well Horace says, the best
poets will combine the two, making everyone happy if they not only
entertain, but through their entertaining, they also teach some moral.
Now the "bastardized version" of neo-Classical theory, is the idea of
the sugared pill. Mary Poppins sings that it takes a spoonful of sugar
to make the medicine go down. There is some truth to that, yet it's
unfair. It's being nasty and trying to reduce them to something they
aren't. The truth is that through entertaining, we are taught. By the
way, Americans believe that they should learn through humor. If you
go to Europe, you don't have to make jokes as a professor. Yet
you're going to fail in America if you don't do so! Then in one sense,
we agree with that here, that one has to teach and entertain as well.
Now Horace says that poets, who do this successfully, will win both
fame and fortune. If you can teach and please, it's also practical too,
because people will patronize you. To best achieve this goal, poetry
should be both concise, and realistic. Neo-Classical theorists like
concision or short poems. Now Virgil of course, wrote an epic. Yet
most neo-Classical poetry is short, because it believes in wittiness.
It's through the latter, through maxims and proverbs that you can
teach and please. They believed that the work of art must be true to
nature and human nature, or it won't teach and please. So neo-
Classicists are not into fanciful kind of things; that's more Romantic.
They're into something that's realistic and true to life.

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Drama
All right, Horace also laid down some specific rules for drama
that have been very influential. First of all, according to Horace,
plays and epics should not begin at the beginning, but should plunge
into the middle of things. Don't begin your epic or tragedy with the
beginning of the story, with the birth of Oedipus, but instead, begin
in the middle of things. The famous Latin phrase here is "in medias
res." The best example would first be a tragedy, like Oedipus. It does
not begin with his birth, but that day when he discovers who he is.
So it's beginning in the middle of things. What about the Iliad? It's
purportedly about the Trojan War, yet it actually starts in the last
year of the Trojan War! It begins in medias res, rather than
beginning at the beginning. So here's something people don't realize.
The Latin phrase for in the beginning is "ab ovo" (from the egg). It's
a reference to Homer's Iliad, because the real source of the Trojan
War was when Helen was stolen away. Since she was born of Zeus
in the form of a swan, raping Leda, Helen was born as an egg out of
which she hatched. So don't begin from the beginning, from the egg,
"abovo." Rather, jump in medias res, like Homer or Sophocles did.
Another one is that plays should consist of five acts. There is
something we see in Shakespeare. Modern people changed that, but
for a long time, plays were five acts, and Horace decided that. Also,
they should not end with deus ex machina. In this sense, Horace
agreed with Aristotle, no deus ex machina.
Another one is that the chorus and choral songs, should serve
an integral function. Now we haven't had much time to talk about

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the chorus, but in a Greek tragedy they would comment on the
action, singing or chanting to it. Now what he said is that when you
use a chorus, don't just have them merely commenting, as like a
relief. Whatever they say should be organically linked to the play
itself. This is another idea like unity or organicism. The best
example is Broadway musicals. Old ones were not very unified.
You'd have the story and then the song and they would not be linked
together. Rogers and Hammerstein, were the ones in Oklahoma to
completely link the choral songs to the plot of what's going on. That
was a very Horacian move, to integrate the chorus into the action,
rather than just saying, "Let's stop for a song and go back." So the
above four criteria again, express an organic view of drama, and of
poetry in general. You note the influence on Horace by Aristotle.
Like Aristotle, Horace insisted that each part of the play be
directly and intimately related with all other parts, and with the work
as a whole, an organic whole.
Two more Horatian advices that have entered into the English
language are: First, Horace councils against tacking-on elaborate and
unnecessary descriptions, in order to merely impress your readers.
He calls these expressions, "purple passages." Young poets and
writers love to throw in these descriptive passages that have nothing
to do with what's going on, just because they like the sound of it.
That's called a purple passage, something that Horace invented for
people who use heightened language without any reason. Then,
Horace also councils against starting your work with epic promises.
Don't promise to do great things, and then not deliver. If you so do,

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then people will say, "the mountain labored and brought forth a
mouse."
In summary, Horace's discussion of drama is also based on
decorum. He gives some clear-cut laws which will become the credo
of neoclassical writers:
· characters in comedy must be typical, and speak and behave
according to their age and nature;
· traditional characters in tragedy must not be altered;
· invented characters must be consistent;
· unbelievable or immoral actions must be narrated and not shown
on stage;
· plays must have 5 acts;
· the deus ex machina must not be used in unworthy occasions;
· only three actors can speak at one time in a scene;
· the chorus must behave like one of the actors, and side with the
good characters.

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 Works Cited

- http://educationcing.blogpot.com.eg/2012/07/greek-
criticism.html?q=plato

- Habib, M. A. R. A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato

to the Present. USA: Blackwell, 2005.

- http://www.online-literature.com/plato/ion

- http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/ion.html

- http://www.geophysics.geol.uoa.gr/frame_en/histo/aristotle_en
.html

- https://www.gradesave.com/aristotles-poetics

- https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-sources-
sublimity-327600

- http://literarism.blogpot.com/2011/03/ars-poetica-horace.html

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