DSC 301 Plato's Republic. Theory of Mimesis. Book X. (1) 26,

Literary Criticism is said to begin with Plato's Republic. Socrates was his teacher and Aristotle his student. He became attracted towards Philosophy and Mathematics from a young age. In 487 BC he made his own Academy and taught Philosophy, Mathematics, and Natural Science. People around him revered immensely. Education was not in vogue then. It was mainly Homer who was taught in schools and compared Homer's works to Bible. But common people failed to apprehend Homer and considered Literature had become corrupt too. Only the philosophers had rose above literary men. It was at such time that Plato brought his book Republic and also reiterated Philosophy above literature. The social conditionings at that time and the birth of Plato's books gave rise to systematic literary criticism.

Book X of Republic consists Plato's Theory on art and illusion and he views poetry from the points of view of Inspiration, Imitation, and Condemnation of poetry. This is often slotted as the Theory of Mimesis or Imitation where Plato decides who should be encouraged in an ideal state or Republic.

To him, poetry is immoral, emotional and intellectual. Poets lie about God and show human weaknesses in God which is witnessed in Homer's Odyssey. So to him, poetry is not a suitable subject of study unlike Philosophy. As emotional critique, poets lack creativity or they are always blurry. They cant self explain or give varied interpretations and copying one drama after another, one poem after another which have no value. To Plato, art and poetry takes away the mind of the spectator or reader from truth.

Plato divides the soul into parts. To him, the soul is the Rational followed by Spirited and the Desirous. Desirous is non rational (drama, etc) and considers it as the lowest part for pleasure. According to him, pity and fear should remain under control but tragedy encourages these.

His emotional criticism says that the poet has no knowledge of truth. Illusions are related to the poet and they just copy. Poets may be honoured but not syllabise in schools to maintain an the Ideal state.

According to Plato, a poet first requires inspiration which are availed by him through his senses. Without inspiration a poet is powerless and that inspiration is divine. So, to him poetry is no craft but the result of inspiration. It is irrational. He gives the example of one table being imitated by all other table makers. Further, the painting of a table is just another copying by the painter which is of no use. The poets only imitate imitations of the truth and become twice removed from the realm of being and in this process they corrupt all those who read and listen to their works. A poet like Homer might present the courage of Achilles but Homer doesn't know anything about courage himself. To Plato, Homer was just another imitator and not originator of knowledge. Unlike Socrates, he disagrees with Homer's depiction of the Trojan War and Odysses' return home. In this imitation, process involved three artists: God, Maker of the table and the Painter. A poet is similar to a painter which shows his lack of knowledge. So, he intends to banish poets from his idea of the ideal state.

Then, Plato argues that watching tragedy renders us unable to deal with Misfortune when and if it befalls us. To him, watching tragedy trains us to become excessively emotional. This directly contradicts with Aristotle's argument in Poetics that tragedy purges the audience of fear and pity rather than strengthening.

After banishing poets and artists from the ideal state, he diverts to the soul. He recognises that the soul is immortal and good or evil cannot destroy it. If the soul is immortal where does it go after the death of the body? He answers this by telling a story about a man who died, travelled to the underworld and returned to life. This story is similar to Dante's Divine Comedy where a man sees a judge condemning wicked souls to helllike underworld and permitting just souls to enter a Heavenly paradise. After spending 1000 years in either Heaven or Hell, the souls choose another earthly body to inhabit. Some unwisely choose life of tyrants because they had earlier experienced lives of misery at the hands of others and now want to inflict the same. But wisest souls choose lives of moderation that are free from cares and luxuries or wickedness.

Achievements: This has been divided by him in two parts. They are Fine Arts (poetry, painting, music) and Useful Art (medicine, agriculture).

He was the first who could realise the mysteriousness of poetry. As time went on, his own student Aristotle and others kept on examining him from time to time. But whatever he critiqued was as per the requirements of his age. To Aristotle, poetry was entertaining and useful too. Human life was Plato's target as he was an idealist and Aristotle who was a realist understood human knowledge. Thus, Plato always aimed to the consideration of how one ought to live with government, art, poetry, music, etc. The path that he lays in Republic are for the formation of a just man in society by the pursuit of virtue.