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In the Paltos Ideal state the there is no place for Poets & Poetry 'Crucial indeed is the struggle, more crucial than we think - the choice that makes us good or
Submitted by catatonic on March 29, 2007
Category: Philosophy
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'Crucial indeed is the struggle, more crucial than we think - the choice that makes us good or bad - to keep faithful to righteousness and virtue in the face of temptation, be it of fame or money or power, or of poetry- yes, even of poetry'
Plato's theories of love and beauty have inspired thousands of poets, nevertheless the critics must not ignore Plato's continual attacks on poetry, especially in his final and complete exclusion on of poets his great Republic X'. Despite the fact that he often quotes poetry with obvious approval, in the Republic X' he strongly condemns poetry, both for its confusing of the intellect and for its corrupting of the emotions
Good' in Plato's terms which is bonded to what is just' is closely allied with pure reason, and therefore the emotional' part of the state, or of the man, must be purified' or eliminated if the state or the person is to be as good' as possible. In the end, what is good' is beyond this material world: for the best we can do is only a hopeful reach towards the perfect goodness that exists in the changeless, eternal world of the forms that lies beyond our material existence. What Plato really wants to ask is the question of whether the pleasure produced by poetry is good for us. Plato finds poetry unsuitable as a vehicle for understanding, and thus as a means to approach or insure what is good' or just' of many reasons. The poet write not through understanding or reason but by inspiration. Poetry teaches the wrong stuff: for instance, god' is by definition all that is good', thus the poets clearly do not represent the gods as they really are. Poets not only lie, says Plato, but lie in an ugly fashion'. Plato also thinks that poetry arouses emotions in a way that is not in accord with reason, for example poetry such as that in tragedy often has music, and we all know how irrationally affecting music can be.
As mentioned previously, in Book X',...
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