Pope's concept of "Nature" was very different from the concept of the Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Shelley or Keats. Wordsworth gave the call to "return to nature", while Pope exhorted man to "follow nature". Both these concepts are diametrically opposed to each other. To Wordsworth nature was the external phenomenon of the universe; to Pope nature was uncorrupted human nature controlled by reason and approved by tradition. Pope spoke of "nature still, but nature methodized". To Pope nature means reason and commonsense. He says that the rules framed by the ancients were rules of nature and poetry must submit to them. This became the guiding principles of Pope and he strongly asserted 'to learn the ancient rules' for 'copying nature is to copy them'.
Wit, taste and rules are all bound up with nature. Thus the dictum 'follow nature' meant to follow the moral law which is the central reality. But even this concept of nature is bound up with its own laws:
"Nature, like liberty, is but restrained
By the same laws which first herself ordained."
This nature is the fruitful source of life, the source of the inner light of intelligence. Hence it sees things as in themselves they really are, and judges them correctly.
“Dryden and Pope are not classics
of our poetry; they are classics of our prose.”
This is how Arnold evaluates Dryden and Pope. He gives Thomas Gray a greater position. He says that Gray is our poetical classics of
the 18th century. Along with
the names of Dryden and Pope, Matthew Arnold mentions the name of Robert
Burns. Burns’ English poems are simple
to read. But the real Burns is of course
in his Scotch poems. His poems deal with
Scotch way of life, scotch drinks, scotch religion and Scotch manners. A Scotch man may be familiar with such
things, but for an outsider these may sound personal. For supreme practical success more is
required. In the opinion of Arnold,
Burns comes short of the high seriousness of the great classics, something is
wanting in his poetry. In his comparative study Arnold gives Chaucer
a better position. The world of Chaucer
is fairer, richer and more significant than that of Burns.
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd."
Elaborating this definition Pope wrote in a letter to a friend that "true wit is a justness of thought and a felicity of expression, or propriety." False wit on the other hand, is what "concept is to nature, or paint is to beauty." Referring to false wit, Pope writes:
"Some to conceit alone their taste confine,
And glittering thoughts struck out at every line".
Wit is intimately bound up with the extra sensory experience, with the creative freedom of imagination and invention:
"Fools admire, but men of sense approve."
Men of sense put to the test the truths expressed. At the same time People wants "the generous pleasure to be charmed with wit". Thus wit is intimately bound up with the extra sensory experience with the creative freedom of imagination and invention. The ideal critic is "blest with a taste exact, yet unconfined."
Wit is the spark or fire of poetic genius. This spark invigorates the composition and gives life and vitality to it. Then the poem involves fire, invention and imagination. The author needs sense and judgement because they provide the stuff; but it is wit which makes the work truly a work of art. In other words, it is wit which makes a poem poetical. However, wit needs proper training. This training involves a study of the rules and a careful study of "each Ancient's proper character". Thus wit is the power to find or evolve a form of expression that can embody effectively what it conceives. It charms us as it makes us wiser.
1. Discussing the qualifications of an ideal critic, Pope begins with the remarks that only a poet can be an ideal critic:
"Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well".
He further says about a poet and critic: "Both must alike from heaven derive their light, those born to judge, as well as those to write".
Divine inspiration is essential equally to the critic and the poet:
"A perfect judge will reach each work of wit
With the same spirit that its author writ".
2. The critic and the poet should both have wit, taste and judgment in equal measure. All the same, the ideal critic is aware of his limitations. He knows "how far his genius, taste, and learning go". He will not launch "beyond his depth".
3. Furthermore, the ideal critic would not be guided only by the prescribed rules. He should have an instinctive sense to feel and understand the nameless graces which no methods or principles can teach. He has the taste to notice "a grace beyond the reach of art". His judgements are well nourished and developed.
4) He is not satisfied with ' a little learning' which is 'a dangerous thing'.
5) He is blessed with an exact taste and has knowledge of books and humanity in right proportions. He is:
"Generous to converse, a soul exempt from pride,
And love to praise, with reason on his side."
6) The ideal critics duty is to give advice. He is pleased to teach and he oaught to be proud of his knowledge yet he should be unbiased and unprejudiced. In the true spirit of literary criticism there are no friends or foes. So Pope says:
51)Marlowe's
tragedies are: A. tragedies
of noble men B. love
tragedies C. one-man
tragedies D. revenge
plays Answer:
……………………………. 52)Who coined the phrase, "Marlowe's mighty line"? A. Ben Jonson B. Samuel Johnson C. R.L. Stevenson D. Richard Steele Answer:
……………………………….. 53)Out of the four chief dialects that flourished in the
pre-Chaucerian period, the one that became the standard English in Chaucer's
time is: A. the
Northern B. the
East-Midland C. the
West-Midland D. the
Southern Answer:
…………………….. 54)Which of the following statements
is incorrect regarding medieval literature? A. Allegory
was frequent and usual B. The
dream-vision convention was prevalent C. Chaucer
exploited the dream-vision convention in The Canterbury Tales. D. There was
often an undercurrent of moral and dialectic strain. Answer:
………………………………….. 55)In Prologue
and Canterbury Tales Chaucer employed the A. Ottawa
Rhyme B. Rhyme
Royal C. Heroic
Couplet D. Both A and
C Answer:
………………………………………….. 56)Chaucer has
been criticized for presenting an incomplete picture of his times, because A. he
overemphasizes the rights of the lower class B. he
exaggerates the courtly benevolence C. he writes
for the court and cultivated classes and neglects the suffering of the poor D. he
supports the Lolland and the Peasant Revolution too fervently Answer:
………………………………………….. 57)Which of the
following are correctly matched? a. Captain
Singleton 1. a sailor b. Moll
Flanders 2. a
prostitute c. Colonel
Jack 3. a valiant solider d. Cavalier 4. a prince A. Only a-1
and b-2 B. Only b-2 C. Only c-3
and d-4 D. Only d-4 Answer:
………………….
58)"
Lunatics, lovers, and poets all are ruled by their overactive imaginations. " These
words of Shakespeare are taken from: A. Love's
Labor Lost B. Hamlet C. Henry IV D. Midsummer
Night's Dream Answer:…………………………………… 59) An author
sums up the human condition thus, "human life is everywhere a state, in
which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed." Who said this and
where? A. Alexander
Pope - Essay on Man B. Oliver Goldsmith - The Vicar of Wakefield C. Albert Camus - The Stranger D. Dr. Johnson – Rasselas Answer:
…………………………..
60) “Yet
if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways
of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its
successes, ''tradition" should positively be discouraged. We have seen many
such simple currents soon lo.st in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition.
Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. Ii cannot be inherited, and
if you want it you must obtain it by
great labor.”
Augustan Age is the greatest period of Roman literature, adorned by the poets Virgil, Ovid,
Horace, and Propertius. It is named after the reign (27 BCE-14 CE) of the
emperor Augustus, but many literary historians prefer to date the literary
period from the death of Julius Caesar in 44 CE, thus including the early works
of Virgil and Horace. In English literary history, the term is usually applied
to the period from the accession of Queen Anne (1702) to the deaths of Pope and
Swift (1744-5), although John Diyden, whose major translation of Virgil's works
appeared in 1697, may also be regarded as part of the English phenomenon known
as Augustanism. The Augustans, led by Pope and Swift, wrote in conscious
emulation of the Romans, adopted their literary forms (notably the epistle
and the satire), and aimed to create a similarly sophisticated urban
literary milieu: a characteristic preference in Augustan literature, encouraged
by the periodicals of Addison and Steele.
John Dryden's Mac Flecknoe is
one of the finest satires in the English language. It was
Neo-classical period in English literature and Dryden, along with another
brilliant satirist Alexander Pope, was the poet who dominated the literary
scene. Satire was the most popular form of poetry and both Dryden and
Pope were great masters of this poetic genre.
Mac Flecknoe is the product of a literary and personal rivalry.
The poem was Drden's reply to Thomas Shadwell's poem: The Medal of John
Bayes which in turn was a criticism of Dryden's earlier poem, The
Medal. Shadwell's poem was an unfair and indecent attack. This
provoked Dryden and he brought in Mac Flecknoe that silenced his
adversary.
Dryden's satirical genius is fully revealed in the poem. It is a satire
on Thomas Shadwell who was once a friend of Dryden. The
poem is primarily Dryden's reply to Shadwell. Thus it is personal in
nature. But Dryden deliberately makes him a model of poetasters and a
symbol of bad writing. There are many references to good poets of the
time. Jonson, Flectcher, Etherage and Dekker from many of whom Shadwell,
is accused of having stolen material. Shadwell has limited some of
them. But according to Drydon, it does no good to the prince of dullness.
Shadwell's plays are criticised. He invents his own humours for his plays. Shadwell's poetic genius is such that he
cannot compose a good play or write good poetry. It is full of venom but
can't compose even a good satire. So Dryden advises him.
Thy Genius calls thee not to purchase fame
In keen iambics, but mild Anagram
Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful Province in Acrostic land
This
is piece of sound advice not only to Shadwell but all bad poets.
This is that boasted bias of thy mind
By which one way to dullness 'tis inclined
Which makes thy writings lean on one side still.
Shadwell can write neither tragedy or
comedy. Dryden ridicules,
Thy tragic muse gives smiles, thy comic sleep.
Thus Dryden's poem Mac Flecknoe becomes a satire not only on Shadwell
but on all bad writers and bad writings as well.
Crticism in the early 18th century does not differ substantially from Restoration criticism, except that Neo-classicism grows more severe and stringent, and there is an expansion and diffusion of the critical temper. It accepts and consolidates the revolution that Dryden made, and advances it cautiously on many fronts. It makes ample use of the critical tradition that it has inherited from Dryden.
1.18th century has inherited the 'cultural nationalism' of Dryden, i.e., a love of English literature and criticism and a contempt for French literary theories and criticism. In this connection, George Matson says that the Augustan contempt for French neo-classical authority is much like Dryden's even in its ambiguities. The attitude of the nineteen year old Pope when he wrote the Essay on Criticism might be Dryden's "cultural nationalism" put into verse. In so far as the rules are French, Pope argues, they are bad; in so far as they are ancient, and judiciously interpreted by Englishmen, they are good.
2.Criticism in the 18th century has also inherited from Dryden; his historicism or historical sense. No Augustan critic can match Dryden in the fitness of his historical sense; but as a result of his work there is widespread awareness in the early 18th century that the sense of the history is a useful and necessary part of the equipment of a critic.
It has acquired a tradition of descriptive criticism - as a result of Dryden's work, the Augustans are able to practise descriptive criticism more casually and naturally than any Restoration critic. The olden legislative criticism, or the older method of judging a work on the basis of the genre to which it belonged, was pushed out, and descriptive and analytic criticism hence forth reigned supreme. Analysis became a fashionable activity, and critics no longer hid their analysis of literary master pieces in some other form. Descriptive criticism could now throw off its mask, and appear in its true colours. A revolution of a far-reaching significance was thus brought about by Dryden.
In the Essay on Criticism Pope states the principles of judgement which an ideal critic must follow in evaluating a literary work. In the first place, he says that a literary work must be judged and evaluated as a whole, not in parts. No single part should be separated from the whole. Beauty depends on the context and totality of impression. Separated from the whole, a part may even appear 'monstrous and misshaped'. It is the same in literature as in human beauty:
"This not the lip, or eye, we beauty call,
But the joint force and full result of all."
Further, judgement should not be conditioned by one's prejudices or biases against or in favour of any author or his work. He can best describe the beauties of literary work who can best feel them. The reader or the critic must pay due regard to the feeling behind the work. We must consider the aim or the intention of the author.
Wit and judgement go united. With always has within it an elementary power of judgement. This power has to be developed. This is possible through a deep study of the rules which express the practice of the great poets of antiquity. This study strengthens and refines one's faculty of taste and judgement.
Balanced judgement can be passed only by a critic who is just and fearless. However, true judgement must be expressed not bluntly and directly, but persuasively.
John Dryden's MacFlecknoe is
one of the finest satires in the English language. It was Neo-classical period in English literature and
Dryden, along with another brilliant satirist Alexander Pope, was the power who
dominated the literary scene. Satire was
the most popular form of poetry and both Dryden and pope were great masters of
this poetic genre.
Mac Flecknoe is
the product of a literary and personal rivalry.
The poem was Dryden's reply to Thomas Shadwell's poem. The
Medal of John Bayes which in turn was a criticism of Dryden's earlier
poem. The Medal. Shadwell's poem was an unfair and indecent attack. This provoked Dryden and he brought out mac Flecknoe that silenced his
adversary.
Dryden's satirical genius is fully revealed in the
poem. It is a satire on Thomas
Shadwell. Who was once a friend of
Dryden.
Mac Flecknoe is ready to vacate his tile as the world's
worst poet. A worthy successor has to be
chosen. The choice falls on Shadwell. The
coronation takes place in Barbican, London
suburb notorious for its low and vulgar life.
The events are presented in an absurd ridiculous manner.
Dryden uses allusions, paradies and quotations profusely
to ridicule the great hero of the poem.
The gross stupidity of Shadwell is highlighted from the
beginning of all the sons of Flecknoe, he Shadwell is dullest and therefore by
nature the fittest to succeed his father.
His stupidity is of such comprehensive nature that the rest to some
faint meaning make pretense. But
Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Shadwell is described as a giant of a man, but a pygmy intellectually. Thus Nature designed him to be the great
monarch of dullness. Flecknoe himself
was the king of the kingdom of dullness.
He says he was only a John the Baptist preparing the way to the great
Jesus Christ.
Irony is the most potent weapon Dryden wields in his literary
warfare. Shadwell's enormous stupidity
is highlighted throughout the poem. The
man's corpulence, his mountain belly and his addiction to opium are referred
to. Apart from this attack on his
adversaries personal attributes, Dryden uses, most of the poem to criticise the
'poetic talents' of his rival.
Mac Flecknoe is
designed to be a mock heroic poem. So
the interest is always focused on this aspect.
Mock-heroic poetry employs a satirical devise in which
the great ad the silly are brought together and compared. This way the absurd nonsensical effect is
largely increased. For this purpose
Dryden has chosen events and characters from the Bible and ancient
history. Shadwell is selected and put n
the throne of stupidity in a coronation which is described in detail. It is as if the audience is witnessing the
coronation of a great king who is destined to rule a vast empire. The poem ends drawing a parallel to the
Biblical story of the mantle of Elijah falling on the shoulders of Elisha
giving him a double portion of his sire's prophetic spirit.
It was Neo-classical period in English literature and Dryden, along with another brilliant satirist Alexander Pope, was the poet who dominated the literary scene. Satire was the most popular form of poetry and both Dryden and pope were great masters of this poetic genre.
Mac Flecknoe is the product of a literary and personal rivalry. The poem was Dryden's reply to Thomas Shadwell's poem The Medal of John Bayes which in turn was a criticism of Dryden's earlier poem The Medal. Shadwell's poem was an unfair and indecent attack. This provoked Dryden and he brought out Mac Flecknoe that silenced his adversary.
Dryden's satirical genius is fully revealed in the poem. It is a satire on Thomas Shadwell who was once a friend of Dryden.
Dryden uses allusions, parodies and quotations profusely to ridicule the great hero of the poem.
Irony is the most potent weapon Dryden wields in his literary warfare. Shadwell's enormous stupidity is highlighted throughout the poem. The man's corpulence, his mountain belly and his addiction to opium are referred to. Apart from this attack on his adversaries personal attributes, Dryden uses, most of the poem to criticise the 'poetic talents' of his rival.
Mac Flecknoe is designed to be a mock heroic poem. So the interest is always focussed on this aspect.
Dryden begins the poem in a mock serious manner with a general platitude on the brevity of life. Flecknoe is compared to Augustus Caesar. Both began their reign when young, both ruled long. This is a mock heroic jibe in which Flecknoe's is pictured as the Augustus of the vast empire of Dulness.
Flecknoe calls himself John the Baptist. His humble role is only to prepare the way to the great Shadwell, the Jesus who is to redeem nonsense from total extinction.
Criticising the musical pretentions of Shadwell, Dryden calls him the new Arion the legendary musician of Lesbos whose music charms even dolphins.
The coronation of Shadwell as the King of Dulness is graphically described in detail. Here Dryden makes very effective use of the mock heroic. Shdwaell sits like Ascanius the son of Aeneas, the 'second hope of Rome'. A thick fog of Dulness played around his head instead of a halo. He was made to swear like Hannibal. In his left hand he held a mug of a ale instead of the royal orb. In his right was Love's kingdom as his sceptre or royal authority and power. In ancient time Romulus saw twelve vultures and founded Rome. Similarly twelve owls flew past Shadwell. Father-Flecknoe makes a long speech advising the prince never to write good poetry but to take inspiration from his father alone and perpetuate the glory of the vast empire of Dullness.
Dryden concludes his mock heroic poem with a Biblical allusion. In the Bible Elijah the prophet is called up to Heaven in a whirl wind. His mantle falls on Elisha who inherits the prophetic power. Dryden makes Flecknoe falls down through a trap door cutting short his declamation. A subterranean wind blows up carrying the drugged robe of the father upwards. It falls on the shoulders of Shadwell who gets twice the portion of the father's poetic talents.
Thus Dryden has used the Bible and the ancient history most effectively to make Mac Flecknoe a superb mock heroic satire.
A monumental figure in the history of Western philosophy; Plato looms nearly as large in the history of European literary theory. Indeed, for many literary scholars he marks the beginning of the tradition of literary theory, although his choice of the dialogue format, in which historical personages convey particular arguments, suggests that the issue he raises had alreadybeen debated before he took them up-as do the extant fragments of the writings of the pre-Socratic philosophers. The several dozen dialogues attributed to Plato engage almost every issue that interests philosophers: the nature of being; the question of how we come to know things; the proper ordering of human society) and the nature of justice, truth; the good, beauty, and love. Although Plato did not set out to write systematic literary theory-unlike his student ARISTOTLE, who produced a treatise on poetics-,-his consideration of philosophical issues in several of the dialogues leads him to reflect on poetry, and those reflections have often set the terms of literary debate in the West.
What binds together Plato's various discussions of poetry is a distrust of mimesis (representation or imitation). According to Plato, all art...,-including poetry-is a mimesis of nature, a copy of objects in the physical world. But those objects in the material world, according to the idealist philosophy that Plato propounds, are themselves only mutable copies of timeless universals, called Forms or Ideas. Poetry is merely a copy of a copy, leading away from the truth rather than toward it. Philosophers and literary critics ever since, from PLOTINUS in the third century C.E. to JACQUES DERRIDA in the late twentieth century, have wrestled with the terms of Plato's critique of poetry, revising it or attempting to point out inconsistencies in his argument.
Plato was born about four years after the beginning of the twenty-five-year-long Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta and just after the death of the great Athenian statesman Pericles, who had overseen the city's artistic golden age. His parents both came from distinguished Athenian.families, and his stepfather, an associate of Pericles, was an active participant in the political and cultural life of fifth century Athens. Plato had two older brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, who appear as characters in his longest dialogue; Republic (ca. 375 B.C.E.). As a young man, growing up in a city at war and ,in constant political turmoil, he seems to have been destined for a ,political career. But after·the Peloponnesian War ended in 405, with the defeat and humiliation of Athens, the excesses of Athenian political life under the oligarchical rule (404-403) of the so-called Thirty Tyrants and under the restored democracy left Plato disillusioned with political life. The execution in 399 of Socrates, on charges of impiety and corrupting the young, was a turning point in his life. The older philosopher was a close friend of Plato's family, and Plato's writings attest to Socrates' great influence on him. Indeed, the position of Socrates in European philosophy is unique. Though he apparently never wrote a word, his influence on subsequent thought through his' followers, Plato hi particular, is incalculable. After Socrates' death Plato retired from Athenian political life and traveled for a number of years. In 388 he journeyed to Italy and Sicily, where he became the friend of Dionysius I, the ruler of Syracuse, and his brother-in-law Dion. The following year he returned to Athens, where he founded the Academy, an institution devoted to research and instruction in philosophy and the sciences; he taught there for the rest of his life. Plato envisioned the Academy as a school for statesmen where he could train a new kind of philosopher-ruler (or "guardian") according to the principles set forth in his Republic. Unlike the older sophist GORGIAS or Plato's contemporary rival Isocrates, who both taught the arts of rhetoric and persuasion, Plato focused primarily in the Academy on mathematics, logic, and philosophy. However, when Dionysius died in 367, Dion invited Plato to return to Syracuse to undertake the philosophical education of the new ruler, Dlonysius II. Plato went, perhaps with the hope of putting the theory of Republic into practice; but philosophy proved no match for local politics and Dionysius's suspicions. Indeed, a return visit resulted In Plato's brief Imprisonment; by 360 he was back at the Academy for good.
Plato is recognized as a master of the dialogue form and as one of the great prose stylists of the Greek language; His published writings; apparently all of which are preserved, consist of some twenty-six dramatic dialogues on philosophical and related themes. The central problematic posed by this form is that it becomes virtually impossible to attribute any statement directly to Plato: he never speaks in his own person. The only exceptions are a series of thirteen letters (whose authenticity is still a matter of scholarly debate) written in the last decades of Plato's life, most addressing the political situation in Syracuse. Only the seventh-and longest-letter takes up philosophical issues. For the most part, Plato places his arguments in the, mouths of characters who mayor may not be based on historical persons. The speakers can never be assumed' to be voicing Plato's own views or the views of those whose names they bear. In almost all the dialogues, Socrates is the focal character and Plato's mouthpiece, but Plato's Socrates is not the historical Socrates. These complications, which thwart efforts to fix Plato's thought within a series of propositional statements, have attracted much attention, especially from late-twentieth-century post-structuralist philosophers like Derrida.
The chronology of Plato's dialogues is highly controversial, but most scholars divide the works roughly into three periods. The earliest works, begun after 399, include the Apology of Socrates and Crito, in which Plato defends Socrates against the charges that led to his death; Gorgias, in which Socrates' opponent is the sophist Gorgias; and Ion (one of our selections), which examines poetry as a kind of divine madness. Characteristic of these early Platonic dialogues is Socrates' disarming claim of ignorance and a formal technique of cross-examination called elenchus, a method of questioning designed to lead a learner through stages of reasoning and to expose the contradictions in an opponent's original statement. This method of "emptying out" the question by Socrates to reveal his opponents' ignorance is especially evident in his discussion of poetry with Ion, a rhapsode (professional reciter of epic poetry). The middle period, from 380 to 367, includes the Symposium, Cratylus, and Republic, all begun after the founding of the Academy; they develop the theory of Forms or Ideas anticipated in the early dialogues. The Forms constitute a realm of unchanging being to which the world of individual mutable objects is subordinate. Because the Forms are immutable, they are more real-and more true than the changeable material world. The Form of the Good enjoys a unique status, for it is responsible for the being and intelligibility of the world as a whole. Plato's famous "Allegory of the Cave" in book 7 of Republic (one of our selections), a passage that has generated much interest among post-structuralist theorists, provides a memorable introduction to the Platonic theory of Forms, which is reiterated in book 10's equally well known critique of artistic imitation. Cratylus is of interest to theorists of language because the dispute in this dialogue concerns the "correctness" of names: do they point unproblematic ally to the "Nature of things"-that is, to the Forms-as Hermogenes contends, or are they merely a matter of convention, as Cratylus argues? Socrates concludes that the matter is unresolvable, but that "no one with any understanding will commit himself or the education of his soul to names, or trust them or their givers to the point of firmly stating that he knows something." To the late period (366-360) belong Timaeus, which throughout the Middle Ages was Plato's most widely known work; Critias; Sophist; and Phaedrus, the latter closing with a notorious attack on writing.
In Ion, our opening selection, Plato's Socrates engages Ion in a debate about the nature of the rhapsode's knowledge of poetry, about the nature of poetry, and about the status of knowledge itself. Poetry, Socrates maintains, is not an art; it is a form of divine madness: "the poet is an airy thing, winged and holy, and he is not able to make poetry until he becomes inspired and goes out of his mind." This debate between the claims of inspiration and those of art would subsequently have a long history in European literary criticism. Is poetry primarily a craft with a set of rules that can be taught and learned, as HORACE, GEOFFREY OF VINSAUF, and ALEXANDER POPE argue, or is it primarily the result of inspiration or genius, as LONGINUS, PLOTINUS, FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, RALPH WALDO EMERSON, and others, following Plato, have maintained?
Plato's Socrates goes a step further. Not only is poetry a form of divinely inspired madness, but so is criticism. "You are powerless to speak of Homer," he tells Ion, "on the basis of knowledge or mastery." Socrates uses the image of a magnet as a metaphor for divine inspiration: as a magnet attracts iron and passes that attraction along, so the gods inspire the artist, who inspires the interpreter, who, in turn, inspires the audience. For Plato's Socrates, the work of poet and critic is not divided between inspiration and rational analysis, as it is for most modern critics (see, for instance, MATTHEW ARNOLD and the New Critic CLEANTH BROOKS); rather, it lies on a continuum, and the work of the critic is no more rational than that of the poet, the,critic's knowledge no more truthful.
However, it is helpful when reading Plato to remember that his dialogues don't always present a straightforward argument or arrive at a single unambiguous conclusion. The process of elenchus and Socrates' persistent irony often make it difficult to pin him down to anyone position. In Ion, is Socrates making fun of the pomposity of the rhapsode, or does he seriously believe that whatever truth emerges from poetry and the interpretation of poetry results only from divine madness? On the surface, it might seem that Ion treats poetry very differently than does the later Republic, our second selection, where Plato's Socrates argues that far from being divinely inspired, poets lie and ought to be banished from the ideal republic-or, at the very least, heavily censored and kept in check. But Ion presents a view of knowledge that is consistent with the weightier arguments in Republic. However divinely inspired, Socrates argues, poets' and critics' knowledge is of a different order than, and one decidedly inferior to, the knowledge of charioteers, fishermen, or philosophers. To the modern student of literature, this denigration of the poet's learning appears downright odd. Surely the standards by which the knowledge of a charioteer or a fisherman or a mathematician would be judged are irrelevant in judging the value of poetry. Why demand that the poet "know" about horses in the same way that a horseman "knows" about horses?
To understand Socrates' remarks about knowledge, the modern reader needs to understand the centrality of poetry to Greek education. In a culture in which literacy was a relatively new and suspect technology, knowledge was frequently encoded and passed :on through the mnemonic devices of music and poetry.·The instruction provided by.the sophists and by Plato's main rival, lsocrates, was almost exclusively rhetorical and literary. Even in Republic, a book concerned with the ideal education of the guardians and citizens, Socrates divides schooling:into physical training for the body and music and poetry for the soul. Socrates' criticism of poetry and its representations appears to be directed against a culture that,believed literally "that poets know all crafts, all human affairs." In such a culture Socrates' insistence makes more sense: a poet needs to know, a horse the way a horseman knows a horse .. In his Academy, however, Plato promoted all earning whose foundation was dialectics, dialogue, and philosophical reasoning.
Both the Allegory of the Cave and Republic 10's infamous critique of mimesis explore the nature of knowledge and its proper objects. The world we perceive through the senses, Socrates argues, is illusory and deceptive. It depends on a prior realm of separately existing Forms, organized beneath the Form of Good. The realm of Forms is accessible not through the senses, as is the world of appearances, but only through rigorous philosophic discussion and thought, based on mathematical reasoning. For Plato's Socrates, measuring, counting, and weighing all bring us closer to the realm of Forms than do poetry's pale representations of nature. All' art and poetry, because they represent what is already an inferior representation of the true original (the Forms), can only lead further away from the truth, and further into a world of illusion and deception. Virtually every subsequent defense of poetry (memorable examples include those by Aristotle, SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, APHRA BEHN, and PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY) has had to come to terms with Plato's devastating attack on poetry as inferior and deceptive mimesis.
Plato's Phaedrus (from which our final selection has been taken) has been of interest
to contemporary literary theory for its discussion of the evils of writing. There Plato has Socrates relate the story of the· invention, of writing by the, Egyptian god Theuth (Thoth), who offers it to King Thamus. Thamus declines the offer, deciding that humans are better of without writing because, it substitutes an alien inscription- lifeless signs-for the ,authentic living presence of spoken. language. Far from aiding memory, writing will cause it,to atrophy. For Plato, the only good memory is anamnesis, the recollection of spiritual truths through 'genuine; living wisdom! that is, through philosophy. Plato reiterates this point in his Seventh Letter, where he says: "anyone who is seriously studying high matters will be the last to write about them and thus expose his thought to the envy and criticism of men. i.e. whenever we see a book, whether the Jaws of a legislator or a composition on any other subject, we can be sure that if the author is really serious; the book does 'not contain his best thoughts; they are stored away with the fairest of his possessions. And if, he has committed these serious thoughts to writing, it is because men, not the gods, 'have taken his wits away.' " Yet Plato's use of a myth in Phaedrus to frame his philosophical objections to writing raises questions of its own, since presumably myths suffer from the same defects as the texts of the sophists, rhetoricians, poets, and other purveyors of false wisdom whom Plato criticizes elsewhere. Derrida offers a celebrated unraveling of the logic of Plato's argument against writing in his Dissemination (see below), which may be the most significant encounter between a twentieth-century philosopher and Plato.
Plato is the progenitor of Western didactic criticism and theory: the idea that literature
should serve moral and social functions.' Republic, where, he, describes an ideal well-regulated community in which the educational curriculum promotes respect for law, reason, authority, self.,discipline; and piety, has been specially influential. Although Plato's Socrates loves and regularly cites Homer's Iliad and Odyssey\ he calls for the censorship of many passages in these )works ;that ,represent sacrilegious; sentimental; unlawful, and irrational behaviour'. Above all else, he' requires that literature teach goodness and grace. Plato's relentless application of this standard to all literature marks one of the, most noteworthy beginnings of the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry.
