 Introduction  Biography  Theories  The cave allegory

Literary criticism has probably existed for as long as literature. In the 4th century BC Aristotle wrote the Poetics, a typology and description of literary forms with many specific criticisms of contemporary works of art. Plato's attacks on poetry as imitative, secondary, and false were formative as well.

Plato was a philosopher in Classical Greece. He was also a mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, Socratic dialogues; 36 dialogues and 13 letters. He has many famous works like : ‘Ion’ ‘The Republic’. ‘The Tragedy and Comedy of Life’ ‘Laws’

Inspiration Theory Imitation Theory God inspires Muse inspires Poet Forms Theory

Inspiration is a state of mind; according to this theory the god of poetry sends his divine inspiration to the poet through a muse. Then inspiration goes to the poet through that muse [God – Muse – Poet]. The Greeks had nine muses at that time which were the muses of arts. In order to receive inspiration, the poet has to be unconscious. So he meditates and receives inspiration from god through the muse. Plato describes this state of mind as half mad, because the poet is not in his right mind but he returns to his normal self after the inspiration finishes. At the same time, he is considered half a prophet because he is telling God's words but not all the time like a real prophet. Inspiration is the outcome of a divine process not following any rules.(ex: poet cannot write more than one kind of poetry, and rapsode cannot recite the poetry of more than one poet). The relationship between those who are involved in the art of inspiration (god- muse- poet- rapsode-audience) is like a magnetic chain with a give and take characteristic. God is like the magnetic stone who attracts the others like pins suspending from that stone.

The Theory of Forms maintains that two distinct levels of reality exist: the visible world of sights and sounds that we inhabit and the intelligible world of Forms that stands above the visible world and gives it being. For example, Plato maintains that in addition to being able to identify a beautiful person or a beautiful painting, we also have a general conception of Beauty itself, and we are able to identify the beauty in a person or a painting only because we have this conception of Beauty in the abstract. In other words, the beautiful things we can see are beautiful only because they participate in the more general Form of Beauty. This Form of Beauty is itself invisible, eternal, and unchanging, unlike the things in the visible world that can grow old and lose their beauty. The Theory of Forms envisions an entire world of such Forms, a world that exists outside of time and space, where Beauty, Justice, Courage, and the like exist untarnished by the changes and imperfections of the visible world. In conclusion the Theory of Forms (or Theory of Ideas) refers to the belief that the material world as it seems to us is not the real world, but only an "image" or "copy" of the real world, a world of appearances not reality.

Second, the theory of "Imitation" can be summarized that everything and object in life has three levels or stages: The ideal. The object in real life. The imitation of the object in real life. There is an ideal idea for every thing, as an example the original idea of tables and beds is one idea of a board with four legs of wood given only by god, if we want to imitate this ideal or image it can be imitated with a table, chair or a bed, something to sit on or to use, but who would make these objects? The carpenters, who have the expertise and knowledge of cutting and making shapes of wood. These are the objects we see in life. Then comes the imitation of these objects, and people who would use these objects in their lives may describe these objects, imagine and talk about them in different shapes.

According to Plato this is appearance, not truth; “Then imitation is far removed from the truth, for it touches only a small part of each thing and a part that it itself is only an image” (Republic 268). In poetry, poets are imitating the imitation of the ideal so poetry is thrice removed away from the ideal objects. Poets are thrice away from reality or truth (god – maker – imitator). Plato uses the argumentative method of question and answer through a dialogue between Socrates and another man (like Ion or Glaucon) to prove that philosophy is better than poetry.

Plato in his "Republic" insists that poets should not be included in this book. He thought they should be excluded because of their effect on people and their thoughts, because their words are powerful and they possess this divine gift of inspiration that might lead to bad influence on society, and people would follow them in things that might be immoral or unethical and that would cause the destruction of beliefs and rules. According to him, poetry is also engaged only in imitating appearances. That’s why it can be of harmful effect because it is not the reality and the truth of things. He banishes poetry from his ideal Republic because it reflects appearances not reality, it is imitation of an imitation of truth, it is useless, it is the nurse of abuse since it addresses the inferior principle of the soul, it nourishes the emotions and weakens the souls, and has a powerful effect on men.

He described the situation in which there are people who are at the entrance of a cave and they are tied they do not have the ability to look back, only to look forward. Behind them there is a fire and other people doing lots of activities. The tied people can only look forward on a wall, and can only see reflections of their fire shadows on this wall and that would not be real all the time because it won't show the reality. Reflections are deceiving because the shadow may reflect an animal which is actually the hand of the artist so what we think is real from the shadow is not actually representing reality. If we suppose that those people would turn around, what would they see? They would see the fire and with fire there is a kind of life, but they won't be able to see properly. Everything will be blurry and they won't see everything as it is and they won’t be able to realize the real objects because their eye sight is dazzled and they can't see the real thing so this is the problem of the theory of "Imitation" that Plato discussed.

Presented by : Ebtehal Muhammad Alshehri Ayshah Abdulrahman AlQahtani Nuha Muhammad Nyaz