Poetry and Music for Plato

When he wrote The Republic, Plato recognized the need for the rulers or `guardians' of his kallipolis to be good and righteous. He also realized that "imitations practiced from youth become part of nature" (Plato, Republic, 395d). It was with these two thoughts in mind that Plato decided to censor poetry and representations in the education of the guardians. He felt that, in portraying gods and heroes as slavish and iniquitous, poets, playwrights, musicians and storytellers encouraged people to imitate and adopt iniquitous and slavish natures or habits. Since it was necessary for the guardians of the just city to have natures opposite to the latter, Plato treated

poetry and representations as dangerous inclusions in the education of "the craftsmen of the city's freedom" (Plato, Republic, 395b-c).

One of the harder parts of the constitution of the kallipolis for modern readers to accept is the idea that people should learn one art or skill and no others. Plato's belief was that if one is to become best as possible at their chosen profession, they should practice and learn only that profession. Socrates asked Adeimantus to corroborate that a citizen of the good city should, "do a fine job of one occupation, not of many, and that if he tried the latter and dabbled in many things, he'd surely fail to achieve distinction in any of them"(Plato, Republic, 394d-e)? He also asked, "doesn't the same argument also hold for imitation-a single individual can't imitate many things as well as he can imitate one" (Plato, Republic, 394e-5)? This was confirmed by Adeimantus and Socrates went on to put this new consensus into practical settings in the just city. He believed that the guardians of the kallipolis might not be able to imitate...

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...omething most people crave. For the citizens of the kallipolis, Plato needed to prevent this release and hold the highest regard for reality and logic. He had to keep the leaders of the city well-grounded and incisive: not allowing them to indulge in emotions that could lead them away from justice and into temptation. The fear that from sympathizing with tragic and poetic characters the guardians would become endeared to what they would otherwise find in disgust also drove Plato to rebuke tradition and ban poets from the kallipolis. Doing this, Plato hoped, would keep the guardians of his just city from straying into what he had determined as bad and keep them within the requirements he had laid out for good rulers. They would become, by focusing on the art of cultivating justice, craftsmen of the city's freedom.

Plato, the Republic, trans. l. menhan, oxford press