Classical Literary Criticism

Plato (428-ca. 347 BC)

Plato
-one of the great fountainheads of the Western intellectual tradition
-greatest philosopher of the West
-with teacher Socrates, championed philosophy as the way to
wisdom and as a way of life
-views on literature and art informed by his philosophy
-first major theorist of literature
-expounded philosophy through dialogues (systematic questioning
of received ideas and opinions)
Plato’s context
-epic and tragic poetry as forms of literature in Greek society
-poetry as great authority, wisdom for life and plays central role in
Athenian life and education
-pre-eminent literary figure was Homer, admired by many (including
Plato) for his epics (recited by rhapsodes)
-performance of tragedy very popular, attracting large audiences
Plato’s dialogues
-use dialectical method of question and answer (“dialectic” from
Greek dialegomai, “to converse”)
-Socrates as interrogator of people with unexamined beliefs (doxa)
-subjects cover nature of poetic inspiration, wisdom, knowledge, truth,
virtue, reason, the emotions of pleasure
-establish opposition between poetry and philosophy
Ion
-an early dialogue (approx. 390BC)
-birthplace of the literary critic and literary theory
-most systematic comments on poetry (along with Republic)
-contrasts the poet’s possession (divorced from reason) with true
mastery and true knowledge as pursued by philosophical intellect
-Socrates cross-examines Ion, a rhapsode specializing in Homer’s
epics, to discover his thoughts on Homer and the art of poetry.
-Ion’s initial answers suggest an unthinking man, obsessed with
Homer, to the exclusion of other poetry.
Ion
-poetry as divine possession (Ion unreflecting but inspired;
possessed by Homer rather than mastering him)
-good epic poets not masters of their subject but in a state of
inspiration and possession
-Muse as divine magnet (moves iron rings, not only attracts the rings
but confers on them a power, so they can in turn attract other rings,
creating a long chain of rings)

MUSE > POET > RHAPSODE > AUDIENCE

Ion
-Inspiration is closely allied with emotion and passion
-poetry (and art) as unashamed champion of emotion, passion,
feeling, seeking to provoke it at every turn, and valued sought to the
degree that they do so
-political anxiety on poetry: danger to social order
Ion
-Homers epics: tales of passion to the point of madness, insane pride,
blood feud, nations plunged into years of war because of personal
jealousy or slight, the thrill of battle, the glory of slaughter, trickery,
and cunning, unbounded passions for bodies, riches, honor, fame

-Plato had serious doubts about the appropriateness of Bronze Age

heroes, of warriors and adventurers like Odysseus and Achilles, and
the activities of Zeus and other gods in Homer’s epics and
elsewhere
Republic
-middle period, 375 BC
-imagines an ideal polis, city-state
-most famous attack on literature and the arts
-concerned about the bad examples in poetry and its tendency to
evoke unbridled passion and emotion, dangerous to a just city
and a well-ordered individual
-In Plato’s ideal city, poetry and art will continue to play a central role
but must be unfailingly controlled (censorship).
Republic
-strict censorship of poetry on the grounds of:
1. its intrinsic expression of falsehood,
2. its intrinsic operation in the realm of imitation,
3. its combination of a variety of functions,
4. its appeal to the lower aspects of the soul such as emotion and
appetite, and
5. its expression of irreducible particularity and multiplicity rather
than unity
Republic
Plato’s Theory on Forms

A. The familiar world of appearances/objects that surround us and

we perceive through our senses is not independent or real.
-perpetual change and decay
-mere existence, multiplicity, and particularity

B. The world of forms/ideas can be known only by reason

(philosophy) and not by our bodily sense-perceptions.
-changeless, eternal, reality
-world of essences, unity and universality
Republic
Plato’s Theory on Forms

“Allegory of the Cave” (in Republic, Book VII)

-The cave in which people are imprisoned represents the physical
world (world of appearances/objects), and that the journey upward,
toward the light, is the “soul’s ascension” to the world of forms, to
truth (through philosophy).

-Can also describe the process of education and its challenges

Republic
Plato’s Theory on Forms

“Allegory of the Cave” (in Republic, Book VII)

-The cave in which people are imprisoned represents the physical
world (world of appearances/objects), and that the journey upward,
toward the light, is the “soul’s ascension” to the world of forms, to
truth (through philosophy).

-Can also describe the process of education and its challenges

Republic
Plato’s Theory on Mimesis

-mimesis is imitation (or representation)

-What poets imitate is the appearance, not the reality of things, since he
merely imitates what others actually produce (intrinsic limitation of
poetry or art).
-The poet as representer of others’ creations.
-The poet’s work is the “imitation of an imitation” and twice removed
from the truth.

Divine maker > Craftsman > Poet (or painter)

(source of truth, the real; (creates from an idea or concept; an (creates from an object;
in the world of forms/ideas) imitation; in the world of appearances imitation; in the world of
/objects) appearances or objects
Republic
-conflict between philosophy and poetry in the right to name the divine,
to authorize a particular vision of the divine world:

for poetry – that world is presented as an anthropomorphic projection

of human values centered on self-interest, a world of dark chance,
irrational, in flux, and devoid of a unifying structure

for philosophy – to stabilize the world, draw all of its scattered

elements into the form of order and unity, as absolute and
transcendent