SEMINAR ASSIGNMENT: The truth of Art/Literature

PLATO

Read attentively the following excerpts from Plato’s ​The Republic and identify his ideas about the
following issues, formulating them in your own words:

● Art/poetry as “ruinous” to our understanding

Plato, ​The Republic​ (Written 360 B.C.)

[​The Republic​, like many works by Plato, is written in the form of a dialogue between the philosopher
Socrates and an interlocutor (here: Glaucon) who is guided towards the discovery of important truths by
means of the “Socratic method” of asking the relevant questions, which stimulate the interlocutor’s critical
thinking]

SOCRATES - GLAUCON

(S) ​Of the many excellences which I perceive in the order of our State, there is none which upon reflection
pleases me better than the rule about poetry.
(G) ​To what do you refer?
(S) ​To the rejection of imitative poetry, which certainly ought not to be received; as I see far more clearly
now that the parts of the soul have been distinguished.
(G) ​What do you mean?
(S) ​Speaking in confidence, for I should not like to have my words repeated to the tragedians and the rest of
the imitative tribe --but I do not mind saying to you, that all poetical imitations are ruinous to the
understanding of the hearers, and that the knowledge of their true nature is the only antidote to them.
(G) ​Explain the purport of your remark.
(S) ​Well, I will tell you, although I have always from my earliest youth had an awe and love of Homer,
which even now makes the words falter on my lips, for he is the great captain and teacher of the whole of
that charming tragic company; but a man is not to be reverenced more than the truth, and therefore I will
speak out.
(G) ​Very good, he said.
(S) ​Listen to me then, or rather, answer me.
(G) ​Put your question.
(S) ​Can you tell me what imitation is? for I really do not know.
(G) ​A likely thing, then, that I should know.
(S) ​Why not? for the duller eye may often see a thing sooner than the keener.
(G) ​Very true, he said; but in your presence, even if I had any faint notion, I could not muster courage to
utter it. Will you enquire yourself?
(S) ​Well then, shall we begin the enquiry in our usual manner: Whenever a number of individuals have a

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common name, we assume them to have also a corresponding idea or form. Do you understand me?
(G) ​I do.
(S) ​Let us take any common instance; there are beds and tables in the world --plenty of them, are there not?
(G) ​Yes.
(S) ​But there are only two ideas or forms of them --one the idea of a bed, the other of a table.
(G) ​True.
(S) ​And the maker of either of them makes a bed or he makes a table for our use, in accordance with the idea
--that is our way of speaking in this and similar instances --but no artificer makes the ideas themselves: how
could he?
(G) ​Impossible.
(S) ​And there is another artist, --I should like to know what you would say of him.
(G) ​Who is he?
(S) ​One who is the maker of all the works of all other workmen.
(G) ​What an extraordinary man!
(S) ​Wait a little, and there will be more reason for your saying so. For this is he who is able to make not only
vessels of every kind, but plants and animals, himself and all other things --the earth and heaven, and the
things which are in heaven or under the earth; he makes the gods also.
(G) ​He must be a wizard and no mistake.
(S) ​Oh! you are incredulous, are you? Do you mean that there is no such maker or creator, or that in one
sense there might be a maker of all these things but in another not? Do you see that there is a way in which
you could make them all yourself?
(G) ​What way?
(S) ​An easy way enough; or rather, there are many ways in which the feat might be quickly and easily
accomplished, none quicker than that of turning a mirror round and round --you would soon enough make
the sun and the heavens, and the earth and yourself, and other animals and plants, and all the, other things of
which we were just now speaking, in the mirror.
(G) ​Yes, he said; but they would be appearances only.
(S)​Very good, I said, you are coming to the point now. And the painter too is, as I conceive, just such another
--a creator of appearances, is he not?
(G) ​Of course.
(S)​But then I suppose you will say that what he creates is untrue. And yet there is a sense in which the
painter also creates a bed?
(G) ​Yes, he said, but not a real bed.
(S)​And what of the maker of the bed? Were you not saying that he too makes, not the idea which, according
to our view, is the essence of the bed, but only a particular bed?
(G) ​Yes, I did.
(S)​Then if he does not make that which exists he cannot make true existence, but only some semblance of
existence; and if any one were to say that the work of the maker of the bed, or of any other workman, has
real existence, he could hardly be supposed to be speaking the truth.
(G) ​At any rate, he replied, philosophers would say that he was not speaking the truth.
(S)​No wonder, then, that his work too is an indistinct expression of truth.
No wonder.
(S)​Suppose now that by the light of the examples just offered we enquire who this imitator is?
(G) ​If you please.

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(S)​Well then, here are three beds: one existing in nature, which is made by God, as I think that we may say
--for no one else can be the maker?
(G) ​No.
(S)​There is another which is the work of the carpenter?
(G) ​Yes.
(S)​And the work of the painter is a third?
(G) ​Yes.
(S)​Beds, then, are of three kinds, and there are three artists who superintend them: God, the maker of the bed,
and the painter?
(G) ​Yes, there are three of them.
(S)​God, whether from choice or from necessity, made one bed in nature and one only; two or more such
ideal beds neither ever have been nor ever will be made by God.
(G) ​Why is that?
(S)​Because even if He had made but two, a third would still appear behind them which both of them would
have for their idea, and that would be the ideal bed and the two others.
(G) ​Very true, he said.
(S)​God knew this, and He desired to be the real maker of a real bed, not a particular maker of a particular
bed, and therefore He created a bed which is essentially and by nature one only.
(G) ​So we believe.
(S)​Shall we, then, speak of Him as the natural author or maker of the bed?
(G) ​Yes, he replied; inasmuch as by the natural process of creation He is the author of this and of all other
things.
(S)​And what shall we say of the carpenter --is not he also the maker of the bed?
(G) ​Yes.
(S)​But would you call the painter a creator and maker?
(G) ​Certainly not.
(S)​Yet if he is not the maker, what is he in relation to the bed?
(G) ​I think, he said, that we may fairly designate him as the imitator of that which the others make.
(S)​Good, I said; then you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator?
(G) ​Certainly, he said.
(S)​And the tragic poet is an imitator, and therefore, like all other imitators, he is thrice removed from the
king [​i.e. God]​ and from the truth?
(G) ​That appears to be so.
(S)​Then about the imitator we are agreed. And what about the painter? --I would like to know whether he
may be thought to imitate that which originally exists in nature, or only the creations of artists?
(G) ​The latter.
(S)​As they are or as they appear? You have still to determine this.
(G) ​What do you mean?
(S)​I mean, that you may look at a bed from different points of view, obliquely or directly or from any other
point of view, and the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality. And the same of all
things.
(G) ​Yes, he said, the difference is only apparent.
(S)​Now let me ask you another question: Which is the art of painting designed to be --an imitation of things
as they are, or as they appear --of appearance or of reality?
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(G) ​Of appearance.
(S)​Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a
small part of them, and that part an image. For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any
other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or
simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they
are looking at a real carpenter.
[…]
(S) ​In like manner the poet with his words and phrases may be said to lay on the colours of the several arts,
himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as he
is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything
else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he speaks very well --such is the sweet influence which melody and
rhythm by nature have. And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the
tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.
[…]
(S)​The imitative artist will be in a brilliant state of intelligence about his own creations?
(G) ​Nay, very much the reverse.
(S) ​And still he will go on imitating without knowing what makes a thing good or bad, and may be expected
therefore to imitate only that which appears to be good to the ignorant multitude?
(G) ​Just so.
(S)​Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he
imitates. Imitation is only a kind of play or sport, and the tragic poets, whether they write in iambic or in
Heroic verse, are imitators in the highest degree?
(G) ​Very true.
(S)​And now tell me, I conjure you, has not imitation been shown by us to be concerned with that which is
thrice removed from the truth?
(G) ​Certainly.
[…]
(S)​And now we may fairly take [the poet] and place him by the side of the painter, for he is like him in two
ways: first, inasmuch as his creations have an inferior degree of truth --in this, I say, he is like him; and he is
also like him in being concerned with an inferior part of the soul; and therefore we shall be right in refusing
to admit him into a well-ordered State, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and
impairs the reason. As in a city when the evil are permitted to have authority and the good are put out of the
way, so in the soul of man, as we maintain, the imitative poet implants an evil constitution, for he indulges
the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks the same thing at one time great
and at another small – he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the truth.
(G) ​Exactly.
(S)​But we have not yet brought forward the heaviest count in our accusation: --the power which poetry has
of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed), is surely an awful thing?
(G) ​Yes, certainly, if the effect is what you say.
(S) ​Hear and judge: The best of us, as I conceive, when we listen to a passage of Homer, or one of the
tragedians, in which he represents some pitiful hero who is drawling out his sorrows in a long oration, or
weeping, and smiting his breast --the best of us, you know, delight in giving way to sympathy, and are in
raptures at the excellence of the poet who stirs our feelings most.
(G) ​Yes, of course I know.
(S)​But when any sorrow of our own happens to us, then you may observe that we pride ourselves on the
opposite quality --we would fain be quiet and patient; this is the manly part, and the other which delighted us
in the recitation is now deemed to be the part of a woman.
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(G) ​Very true, he said.
(S) ​Now can we be right in praising and admiring another who is doing that which any one of us would
abominate and be ashamed of in his own person?
(G) ​No, he said, that is certainly not reasonable.
(S) ​Nay, I said, quite reasonable from one point of view.
(G) ​What point of view?
(S) ​If you consider, I said, that when in misfortune we feel a natural hunger and desire to relieve our sorrow
by weeping and lamentation, and that this feeling which is kept under control in our own calamities is
satisfied and delighted by the poets;-the better nature in each of us, not having been sufficiently trained by
reason or habit, allows the sympathetic element to break loose because the sorrow is another's; and the
spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying any one who comes telling
him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and
why should he be supercilious and lose this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine,
that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of
sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our
own.
(G) ​How very true!
(S)​And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There are jests which you would be ashamed to make
yourself, and yet on the comic stage, or indeed in private, when you hear them, you are greatly amused by
them, and are not at all disgusted at their unseemliness; --the case of pity is repeated; --there is a principle in
human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh, and this which you once restrained by reason, because you
were afraid of being thought a buffoon, is now let out again; and having stimulated the risible faculty at the
theatre, you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet at home.
(G) ​Quite true, he said.
(S)​And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections, of desire and pain and pleasure,
which are held to be inseparable from every action ---in all of them poetry feeds and waters the passions
instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to
increase in happiness and virtue.
(G) ​I cannot deny it.
(S) ​Therefore, Glaucon, […] we must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises of
famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State. For if you go beyond this and
allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by
common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State.