Plato and Aristotle

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Plato and Aristotle
Plato and Aristotle by Raphael Sanzio
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• Roman Jakobsons Model of Linguistic
  Communication
• CONTEXT (history)
• MESSAGE (writing)
• ADDRESSER ----------------------- ADDRESSEE
• (artist) (receiver)
• CODE (structure)
• CONTACT

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• Marxist, Feminist, Post-colonial
  approaches, Realism (Representation)
• New Critics, Art for arts sake
• Romanticism Reader-response
• Expressionism Rasa theory
• Psychoanalytic theory
• Structuralism, Semiotic approaches

context
message
addresser
addressee
code
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• Classic Greek Philosophy
• Socrates (470 BC 399 BC)
• Plato (429 347 BC)
• Republic, Ion, Symposium
• Aristotle ( 384 BC 322 BC)
• Physics, Metaphysics, Politics, De Anima, Poetics

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Plato Mimesis

• Theory of Ideas/ Forms
• World of Ideas Ideals/ Universals
• Physical World
• World of Images, Copies created by the artist

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• all poetical imitations are ruinous to the
  understanding of the hearers, and that the
  knowledge of their true nature is the only
  antidote to them. (The Republic, Book 6)
• The artist is a creator of appearances, if he
  does not make that which exists he cannot make
  true existence, but only some semblance of
  existence the artist can deceive the
  simple-minded.

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Plato Structure

• Types of Narration
• Simple narration the poet speaking in his own
  person. E.g. epic
• Imitation the poet speaks in the person of
  another. E.g. tragedy, comedy

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Plato Morality

• The poet is guilty of telling a bad lie he
  creates in a frenzy and inspires base passions.
• Censorship the first thing will be to
  establish a censorship of the writers of
  fictionand we will desire mothers and nurses to
  tell their children the authorised ones only.
• Criterion for qualifying Poets should imitate
  only those characters which are suitable and
  should not depict any illiberality or baseness
  no slaves, women in sickness, love, labour,
  quarrelling with husband, etc.

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Aristotle Mimesis

• Imitation as a basic human faculty, a complex
  mediation of reality
• Mimesis Means (words, paint)
• Objects (tragedy imitates actions of
  human beings)
• Manner ( authorial presence/ absence,
  purely dramatic presentation)

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Aristotle Mimesis (ctd)

• The poetmust necessarily in all instances
  represent things in one or other of three
  aspects, either as they were or are, or as they
  are said or thought to be or to have been, or as
  they ought to be.

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AristotleStructure

• One will appreciate a painting not because it is
  an imitation of an object, but because of the
  artists execution of it in a particular way.

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AristotleStructure (ctd)

• A Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is
  complete it has a beginning, middle and end.
• Parts of a Tragedy Plot/ Fable (the
  combination of incidents in a story)
• Character
• Thought
• Spectacle
• Diction
• Melody

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Parts of a Tragedy

• Length Capable of being brought within a single
  view
• Parts Reversals of the Situation,
• Recognitions,
• Scenes of Suffering.
• Complication From beginning of action to turning
  point
• Unraveling/ Denouement From beginning of the
  change to the end.
• Kinds of Tragedy
• Complex, Pathetic, Ethical, Simple
• Chorus should be an integral part of the
  whole.

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Character A causal element

• Goodness
• Propriety
• True to life, yet more beautiful
• Consistency
• Constructed according to the Rule of Probability
  or necessity
• Characters as types/ universals/ generalizations
  of actual people. Through them one gets an
  insight into human nature.

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Oedipus by Sophocles
Oedipus, regarded as one of the ideal tragic
heroes. Hamartia tragic flaw Katharsis
Purging the excess emotions from the mind.Tragedy
enables one to leave the theatre in calm of
mind, all passion spent. Tragedy purges the
mind of pity and fear.
Oedipus and the Sphinx Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)
-- French Painter Oedipus and the
Sphinx 1864 Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Oil
on canvas
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Thought

• Effect of speech-
• Proof and refutation
• Exciting feelings of pity and fear
• The suggestion of importance or insignificance
• Incidents speak for themselves, but the speaker
  has to produce the desired effects.
• Diction
• What is a command, a prayer, a statement, a
  threat, a question, an answer and so forth.

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Style

• The perfection of style is to be clear...
• Deviating from the normal to become distinct,
  while also conforming to common usage for
  perspicuity.
• Styles are
• Clear use of current/ proper words
• Riddle use of metaphors
• Jargon use of strange words

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Epic Poetry

• Narrative Episodic
• Heroic measure dactylic hexameter
• Differs from historical compositions
• The poet should speak as little as possible in
  his own person
• The irrational, the wonderful has wider scope
  the art of telling lies skillfully.

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Homers Odyssey
Homers Odyssey recounts the tale of the return
of the Greek hero Odysseus from the Trojan War,
describing events on the isle of Ithaca during
his absence and his ten- year journey home to
reclaim his throne and his wife, Penelope.
Ulysses in the Cave of Polyphemus This Baroque
painting, dated 1630, by the Flemish painter
Jacob Jordaens, represents a scene from the story
of the Greek hero Odysseus
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Epic Poetry (Ctd)

• Differences from Tragedy
• Larger Scale
• Meter heroic measure- dactylic hexameter
• Episodic Many simultaneously occurring events
  can be presented.

• The Return of Ulysses
• This fresco, by the Italian Renaissance artist
  Pintoricchio, dating from 1509, depicts the
  homecoming of the Greek hero Odysseus (Roman
  Ulysses). Penelope is seen at her loom.
• Corbis/National Gallery Collection

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Epic and Tragic

• Taste of audiences
• epic poetry is addressed to a cultivated
  audience, who do not need gesture tragedy, to an
  inferior public.
• Histrionic or poetic art, if overdone is in poor
  taste.
• Tragedy can produce an effect like epic poetry
  without action.

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Epic and Tragic (Ctd)

• Tragedy has all the elements of the epic it can
  even use the epic meter.
• Uses two media- the verbal and the visual.
• The effect is more concentrated in a tragedy.
• The epic has lesser unity.

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Aristotle Morality

• It is to be remembered too that there is not the
  same kind of correctness in poetry as in
  politics, or indeed any other art
• For the purposes of poetry a convincing
  impossibility is preferable to an unconvincing
  possibility.
  

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Defense of Poetry

• Aristotle defends against objections to poetry on
  the grounds of it being
• impossible
• Irrational
• morally hurtful
• Contradictory
• contrary to artistic correctness

Aristotle by Raphael
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Defense of Poetry (Ctd)

• the poet should prefer probable
  impossibilities to improbable possibilities.
• The impossible must be justified by
• artistic requirements
• higher reality ideal type surpasses reality
• common opinion (justifies the irrational).
• the irrational sometimes does not violate
  reason.

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Defense of Poetry (Ctd)

• Correctness in poetry Two kinds of errors
• those which touch its essence a poor
  imitation
• those which are accidental a technical error
• ..not to know that a hind has two horns is a
  less serious matter than to paint it
  inartistically.

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Defense of Poetry (Ctd)

• What is poetically good or bad depends who says
  it to whom, when, and why-perhaps it is for a
  greater good.
• Ambiguity in meaning of words we should consider
  in how many senses a word can be taken.
• Critics
• ...they pass adverse judgment and then
  proceed to reason on itfind fault if a thing is
  inconsistent with their own fancy.
• The irrational can be censured if there is no
  necessity for it to be introduced.

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Plato and Aristotle Summing Up (Ctd)
Plato Aristotle
Epistemological Ontological, inductive
Art is thrice removed from truth and a product of futile ignorance. Poetry is philosophic- its statements are universal truths.
The poet is a possessed creature. Many tales should not be permitted. It is up to the poet to devise the right way of treating a myth.
Overlooked poetic form. Sensitive to poetic form.
Poetry encourages the irrational. Purges the soul of pity and fear.