Hello and welcome back to another lecture
in the series titled Introduction to Literary
Theory. In today’s lecture we are going
to look back at the legacy of the Greek classical
philosophy. And we are going to see how the
impact of classical philosophy was felt among
the later generation of literary theorists.
The Greek philosopher with whom we will start
this exploration of ancient Greece and its
philosophical legacy is Plato. And the influence
of Plato in the European tradition of thoughts
and ideas has been so enormous that the 20th
century intellectual A. N. Whitehead had famously
declared that the whole of the European philosophical
tradition was little more than a series of
footnotes added to the writings of Plato.
It is therefore, only fitting that we start
our discussion of literary theory by looking
back at the writings of Plato. However, interestingly
enough Plato is usually remembered in the
discussions of literary studies for the way
in which he famously or some might even say
in famously banished the poets and exiled
them from his conception of an ideal republic.
Why is then Plato still important for a discussion
of literary studies? Also, why would someone
who is known for his wisdom seek to banish
poets from an ideal city? Hasn’t literature
been an expression of human culture and civilizational
attainment throughout its existence? And,
has not Greece itself, ancient Greece, been
one of the most brilliant sites of literary
productions; starting from Homer, Hesiod,
Pindar, down to Aeschylus, Socrates and Euripides.
We will come to these questions soon enough,
and we will see what relevance Plato might
have on an effort to theorize literature in
the modern context.
But to start with let us briefly acquaint
ourselves with the figure of Plato.
Plato was born somewhere in the second half
of the 5th century BCE. One of the probable
years of his birth is 427 BCE, but I say probable,
because there is no absolute consensus on
this date. Today we think Plato as an eminent
Greek philosopher, but back in the 5th century
BCE, we would not have come across any notion
of Greece as a single national cum political
entity.
Rather, Greece at that point of time represented
a culture sphere. And it represented a culture
sphere which spread across not only what we
know today as the modern day Greece, but also
it spread across southern Italy, some parts
of northern Africa, and also some regions
of modern day Turkey.
This vast culture sphere was dotted by independent
city states. And it was with reference to
these city states that the Greeks of the 5th
century BCE primarily defined their identity.
And the city state with which Plato was associated
with was Athens. And it was here that he had
his training under one of the most remarkable
intellectuals of all times, Socrates.
After the execution of Socrates in about 399
BCE, Plato left Athens, and he went to southern
Italy. But later on in his life he came back
to his native city state. And he established
there his famous school known as Academy.
And it is here in Academy that he trained
one of the most notable philosophers of the
European tradition, whose name is Aristotle.
And Plato died, here again, we do not have
an exact date, but Plato died somewhere around
the middle of the 4th century BCE. The years
through which Plato lived were remarkably
eventful. The first 30 years of Plato’s
life was spent under the shadow of the second
Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta.
And this war saw a thorough destruction of
the Athenian form of government which had
sustained its golden era in the 5th century
BCE.
Plato’s career, therefore, in a way marks
both the high point of the achievements of
the classical Athenian civilization. And also
it bears witness to the beginning of the end
of that civilization. And ironically, some
of Plato’s own relatives were responsible
in siding with the rival power of Sparta,
and bringing down the earlier form of Athenian
government that ultimately led to the downfall
of the Athenian civilization as a whole.
But even more significant in this regard is
Plato’s association, direct association,
with Socrates, that mercurial figure who was
greatly responsible for questioning and for
undermining some of the very foundational
beliefs that held the Athenian way of life
together. In fact, Socrates was executed in
around 399 BCE, by the Athenian state for
not recognizing the god of the city and this
was a charge brought against Socrates, he
did not recognize the god of the city and
he was said to corrupt the minds of the young
men of Athens, through his novel ideas, through
his system of questioning some of the foundational
beliefs.
But what was this Athenian world order this
old Athenian world order that Plato saw crumbling
during his own lifetime? This world order
can perhaps be summed up by using a single
word. And that single word is democracy. The
road to democracy for Athens began early in
the 6th century when a Greek statesman named
Solon reformed the existing model of Athenian
governance. Under Solon, governmental power
which was previously held by a group of 9
Athenians of noble birth passed on to a council
of 400 Athenian citizens who now formed the
government of the city state. About a 100
years later, this inclusive expansion of the
political structure was furthered even more
significantly by a man named Cleisthenes.
Now, Cleisthenes also like Solon was a statesman.
And he was the one who finally, severed the
connection between political power and the
wealthy nobles of Athens. Because Cleisthenes
gave every free male citizen of Athens the
power to vote and it was through this voting
process, that the government of the city now
came to be elected. Thus in 507 BCE, the democratic
form of government was born in Athens. Though
most of us are now accustomed to living under
democratic regimes all over the world. In
507 BCE democracy was a revolutionary idea,
where small tradesmen, wealthy citizens, aristocrats,
all of them became equal partners in the Athenian
government. But we have to remember that this
sense of equality and political agency was
shared only by the free male citizens and
though this of course, represented a major
increase from the days before so long when
only 9 aristocrats ruled Athens, it was still
only about 20 percent of the total people
living in Athens who had the right to vote.
So, free male citizens of Athens actually
consisted not more than 20 percent of it is
entire population. Women, slaves, and foreigners
were still excluded from the political scene
in democratic Athens and they did not have
the right to vote.
And we will see during the course of our lectures,
how this exclusion of women, how this exclusion
of sleeves of foreigners played an important
role in Plato’s theorizing about literature
in his book The Republic.
Incidentally The Republic which is the book
that we will be focusing on is, in fact, the
text where we find the idea of banishing the
poets from the ideal city state to which I
had referred to earlier. And therefore, it
is on this book that we would pivot our discussion
on Plato and his theorization of literature
during the course of today’s lecture. Having
said this, I would also like to point out
that The Republic is not primarily a treatise
on literature. Rather it is main focus is
on the idea of governance. It is focus is
on what are the best ways to run, to govern
a state.
And as I have already mentioned the Athenian
democracy which had sustained the classical
golden age of Athens during the 5th century
BCE was already being questioned during Plato’s
lifetime. Not only by external threats posed
by such neighbouring city states like Sparta,
but also internally by individuals like Socrates.
And situated in this twilight of Athenian
democracy, Plato in his treatise The Republic,
tried to look into the possible forms of governance
that might prove best for the running of an
ideal city state. Now the very fact that literature
is conceived as part of this broader social
political framework and not as an isolated
practice is something to be noted.
Because if we understand this, then we will
not be taken aback when we see contemporary
theorists trying to read literature by placing
it within a broader interdisciplinary context,
because this is precisely what has been happening
with all theorization of literature since
at least 360 BCE when Plato wrote the public.
But before we started discussing about Plato’s
theorization of literature, with respect to
The Republic, let me point out one very important
aspect about the writings that have come down
to us bearing the name of Plato. These writings
are mostly in the form of dialogues. With
perhaps only a major exception being the work
titled “Apology”. In these Platonic dialogues,
we usually see the figure of Socrates occupying
the centre stage.
And we see various other people engaging in
disputation, engaging in conversation with
the philosopher Socrates. It is this conversational
style that Socrates uses to expound his theories,
and also to demolish received ideas presented
by his interlocutors; this means, firstly,
that Plato’s dialogues themselves reflect
the kind of literature for which classical
Athens was most famous for, which is the literary
form of drama. Secondly, this means that in
Plato’s dialogues like The Republic for
instance, we do not directly hear the voice
of Plato himself. What we hear primarily is
the voice of Socrates.
But this opens a number of questions of course,
because is Socrates his voice that we hear
in a text like The Republic, is it representative
in a transparent way the voice of Plato, or
is Socrates’s voice a reflection of what
the historical Socrates had to say on the
matters around which these dialogues are constructed?
Or a Socrates’s figure like a character
in a play, whose words though they are written
by the playwright, does not necessarily reflect
the playwright’s opinions or even the exact
sayings of the historical figure on whom the
dramatic character might be modelled? As we
shall see these questions will have a direct
relevance to what The Republic has to say
about literature. And therefore, it is to
this text The Republic that we now turn.
The main problem that Socrates of The Republic
appears to have with poetry, is that it is
imitative in nature. That is how Socrates
defines poetry in The Republic. By the way,
here I should point out that in this context
poetry stands for the wider field of literature
that was known to Plato. And therefore, it
has a sense that is slightly different from
what we understand by poetry today. Anyway
coming back to Socrates the problem that he
identifies at the heart of poetry is it is
imitative nature. And the Greek word that
refers to imitation is mimesis; this will
be a key word for the few lectures following
this one. In book 10 of The Republic which
is the last chapter of this dialogue, Socrates
mentions that the kind of poetry that he thinks
should be banned from the ideal city state,
is characterized by imitation or mimesis of
and I quote: “the actions of men whether
voluntary or involuntary on which a good or
bad result has ensued, and they rejoice or
sorrow accordingly”.
In other words, Socrates has a problem with
poetry that imitates men and their actions,
and show how these actions produce good or
bad results, thereby creating joy or sorrow
for an individual. In the same chapter Socrates
also states, the reason why he has a problem
with such kind of imitative poetry, and according
to Socrates here again, I quote:
(“The imitative poet implants an evil constitution,
for he indulges the irrational nature which
has no discernment of greater and less, but
things 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”.)
If we bring down this statement, we will see
that for Socrates imitative poetry is problematic
because of 2 reasons. Firstly, he argues that
imitative poetry has a corrupting effect upon
it is audience. It “implants and evil constitution”.
And secondly, Socrates argues that imitative
poetry manufactures images that are far removed
from the truth. Both of these so called problems
that Socrates mentions incorporate some rather
complicated reasoning and would need a significant
amount of unpacking.
But let us start with the first problem. Imitative
poetry is corrupting and “plants and evil
constitution among it is audience”. Let
us see how this unpacks. In some earlier chapters
of The Republic, namely book 2 and book 3,
we find a rather straightforward explanation
in fact, of this moral objection that Socrates
levies against imitative poetry. In these
books Socrates argues that stories told by
the poets have as profound an influence on
the mind of young children as gymnastic exercises
have on shaping their bodies. Therefore, given
the significant ways in which stories can
fashion the impressionable mind of young children,
they should not be exposed to certain kinds
of imitative poetry.
And what are these kinds of poetry? Well,
the kind of poetry that Socrates has in mind
here is a one which depicts bad characters
or which depicts morally degenerate actions.
Socrates argues that if impressionable young
children are exposed to such imitative poetry,
the unsavoury characters and their actions
depicted in them might have a corrupting influence
on their minds; thereby making them incapable
of developing into good and upright citizens
of the ideal city state.
By way of an example Socrates refers to the
story of the Greek God Uranus and the strife
that he had with his son Cronus. And this
story is depicted famously by Hesiod. According
to Socrates such stories of quarrels between
a father and a son who are also on top of
that divine figures said a very bad example
to the children who are to become the future
guardians of the ideal city state. This is
because and I quote Socrates’s own words:
(“The young man should not be told that
in committing the worst of crimes he is far
from doing anything outrageous; and that even
if it just chastises his father when does
wrong in whatever manner, he will only follow
the example of the first and the greatest
among the gods”.)
In the light of this argument the moral objection
that Socrates voices in book 10 can be elaborated
in a very simple manner. Some imitative poetry
should be shunned because by portraying immoral
men and their dubious actions they set bad
examples in front of the impressionable children
and young men. These are the examples of imitative
poetry, these are the kinds of imitative poetry,
which corrupts the souls and implants an evil
constitution among the audience. However,
this explanation that Socrates only wanted
to ban one particular kind of imitative poetry
cannot be sustained till the end of the dialogue.
Because by the time we reach book 10 we find
that Socrates is condemning imitative poetry
in general.
So, in book 10 he does not make a distinction
between imitative poetry representing bad
characters and immoral actions and imitative
poetry representing good characters and their
noble actions. In light of this fact, the
source of Socrates is objection therefore,
needs to be located not in the morally good
or morally bad content of the poetry. Rather
it needs to be located in imitative poetries
essence as a product of mimesis. Socrates
seems to think that imitation itself is ethically
corrupting. Irrespective of whether what is
being imitated is morally good or bad.
But this leads to the question why is mimesis,
including mimesis of good men and their noble
actions, morally corrupting? What is it in
the very idea of imitation that is problematic?
And it is to this question that we now turn.
According to the character of Socrates in
Plato’s The Republic and I will keep repeating
this because I am not talking about the historical
Socrates, I am talking about the Socrates
as we find him in this particular dialogue,
mimesis is corrupting because of two distinct,
but interconnected reasons. The first reason
has to do with the nature of reality or nature
of truth.
And this is associated with a philosophical
theory that is usually referred to as Plato’s
theory of forms. To understand this theory
of form, let us look at the example of a bed
that Plato mentions in book 10 of The Republic.
Now what do we understand when we try to think
of a real bed or a true bed?
According to Plato’s theory of forms, the
true and original bed is and I quote: “one,
existing in nature which is made by god”.
Now this might sound slightly counterintuitive
given the fact that when we think about a
bed we usually think of an object that is
made by a carpenter. However, according to
the theory of forms what the carpenter makes
is in fact, a copy of the original form of
the bed that already exists in nature.
And this original bed is unconnected which
specific instances of beds that we might come
across in material reality. To understand
the logic of this argument here, let us assume
that by using some high-tech weapon, we managed
to destroy all the specific instances of beds
that exist in material reality.
According to the Platonic theory of forms,
even then, even with all the material beds
gone, we will still retain the idea of the
bed; because the idea is universal, and that
idea is not dependent on the existence of
specific individual beds. So, in this theory
the original and the true bed is the ideal
form; that is universal and non-material.
The material bed is only an imitation of this
non-material ideal form. But what happens
in case of mimeses or mimetic art which imitates
from the world of material reality? Well in
those cases we move even further from the
true and original form.
Thus, for instance the painting of a bed is
an imitation of a material bed that is manufactured
by a carpenter which in itself is an imitation
of the original and universal idea of the
bed. Socrates in Plato’s The Republic builds
his critique of mimesis in general and mimetic
poetry in particular on this sense of distance
from the original and true form of a thing.
And according to this theory of forms, this
theory which shows us the distance between
an imitation and the original, mimetic art
is problematic because the painting of a bed
for instance is situated at a third remove
from the true and original bed.
If you look at this slide, you will clearly
see this three-step relationship, where the
first state is a ideal form of the bed, the
second remove from that is the material bed
made by the carpenter, and the third removed
from that is a painting of the bed, mimetic
expression, mimetic representation of the
material bed.
Now, there is a problem here which is, that
even if we assume that the process of mimesis
as depicted by the act of painting a bed is
situated at a third remove from the truth
from the reality of the ideal form, why should
it be considered as something which has the
power of corrupting, something which is deceiving,
something which is morally not right? Well
the argument is that since material bed is
a specific representation of the ideal form,
it only represents an aspect of the universal,
that is to say a very small part of the whole.
When the painter in turn imitates the material
bed, he imitates not the material bed as it
is in reality, but rather as it appears to
him.
So, for instance, the painter standing next
to a material bed will only paint the bed
as it appears to him from that angle. This
appearance does not encompass the entire reality
of the material bed. This is because as soon
as the painter changes his position, and here
of course, we are talking about realistic
painting, the form of painting that would
be known to Plato. As soon as the painter
changes his position, a new angle is achieved
and a whole new appearance of the bed is revealed
to him.
And this new appearance is separate and distinct
from the earlier appearance. Therefore, a
painting of the material bed is again a small
part of what the material bed is in reality.
So, as you can see with each shift in the
chain that takes us from the ideal form to
the material expression to the artistic imitation
of that material expression, we moved more
and more away from the original essence of
a thing. And this in itself is problematic,
but this sense of becoming further and further
removed from the truth as we pass through
different levels of mimesis, is even further
augmented if we consider that the faculty
of human perception is notoriously prone to
folly. Let us again consider an example.
Let us say that there are 2 objects which
are of absolutely same dimensions and they
are situated at 2 different points, one nearer
to me, and one farther to me. When I look
at both of them, the one nearer to me will
appear to be larger, and the one farther to
me would appear to be smaller. Now if I were
to try and paint them I will paint according
to this perception and represent one body
as small and the other body as large. But
in reality the dimensions of these 2 bodies
are absolutely the same. So, my artistic imitation
we will be based on a faulty appearance and
not on the true reality. Similarly, if I look
at a stick immersed in water, I might paint
it as crooked, because that is how it will
appear to me. But in reality the stick might
be straight and might only appear crooked
in water because of refraction. Here again
my imitation of the material object would
be faulty since it will necessarily be based
on appearances rather than on the truth, rather
than on the reality. Thus since mimesis is
susceptible to deception, because it is based
on appearances rather than on truth and reality,
imitative art is realized as problematic.
But as you have noticed in my discussion so
far, I have explained the objection to my
message the objection to imitation only with
reference to visual arts. So now, the question
is how does this all connect to the topic
of literature, and more specifically to the
suggestion of banning the poets, imitative
poets, from the ideal city state. We will
address this issue in our next lecture.
