Classical Theories - Aristotle and Plato

Plato and Aristotle have both documented strong opinions about the influence and social purpose of poetry. Plato, in The Republic, outlines reasons for his `refusal to admit the imitative kind of poetry'(Plato cited in ed. Adams 1992, p. 31). Plato's reference to `poetry' does not apply to the poetry of contemporary society, as it was a performance art and not meant for silent reading and reflection. Julia Annas (1981, p. 94) believes that Plato's concern `was with popular culture, the culture that surrounds children as they grow up; in a present-day setting his concern would be with novels, (TV and movies)'; such as the 2003 movie House of Sand and Fog. Plato is worried that youth within his society would be easily influenced by unwholesome ideas contained within poetry. The Poetics is in part Aristotle's response to Plato's argument that poetry is a representation of appearances and is thus misleading and morally suspect. Aristotle judges poetry on its own terms, not by appealing to ideas of morality. He seeks to not only defend tragedy as a valuable poetic art form, but to also dissect and analyse all areas of this art. With this information about both Aristotle and Plato, it is not difficult to see that they would have conflicting ideas as to whether a movie such as House of Sand and Fog has any cultural or artistic merit.

Plato is constantly intolerant of tragedy. This is due to the moral conflict it contains. Tragedy appeals to the emotions and destroys the moral fibre of the audience. They are affected in a way that they are able to sympathise with characters, and are able to `see why the protagonists come into irreconcilable conflict, or destroy themselves, without being able to reduce the outcome to a moral plus or min...

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... `Plato on Poetic Creativity', in The Cambridge Companion to Plato, R, Kraut (ed.) 1992, Cambridge University Press, New York, USA

Barnes, J 1995, `Rhetoric and Poetics', in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Coolidge, A. C 1980, Beyond the Fatal Flaw: A Study of the Neglected Forms of Greek Drama, Maecenas Press, Iowa, USA.

Lucas, F. L 1949, Tragedy in Relation to Aristotle's Poetics, The Hogarth Press, London, UK.

Plato 360BCE (trans. Benjamin Jowett), Republic, electronic version, The Internet Classics Archive, viewed 10th September 2004, http://classics.mit.edu/index.html

Plato 380BC, `Republic', in Critical Theory Since Plato, H, Adams (ed.) 1992, Thomson Learning, USA.

Raphael, D. D 1959, The Paradox of Tragedy, George Allen and Unwin, London, UK.