Greek Literature and Philosophy

Greek Literature

Gregory Nagy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780815336877
• eBook ISBN: 9781136540790
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This volume is available on its own or as part of the seven volume set, Greek Literature. This collection reprints in facsimile the most influential scholarship published in this field during the twentieth century. For a complete list of the volume titles in this set, see the listing for Greek Literature [ISBN 0-8153-3681-0]. A full table of contents can be obtained by email: [email protected].

Chapter III
Plato on Imitation and Poetry in Republic 10

Alexander Nehamas

Plato's attitude toward the poets is bald and uncompromising: He wants no part of them. And though he takes no pleasure in his attitude, for he takes pleasure in poetry, he takes the attitude seriously. His argument in Book 10 of the Republic is neither exaggerated nor ironical. He does not rely on two different senses of "imitation" in order to exclude only that part of poetry that it might be thought reasonable to despise. He does not exploit a subtle distinction in order to retain serious poetry once he has succeeded in eliminating poetry that merely entertains. His proscription allows of no exceptions.

But though his view is more stern than it has sometimes been comfortable to suppose, its scope is also narrower. Book 10 of the Republic contains an outrageous attack on poetry and—this is part of my argument in what follows—on poetry only. Plato does not "banish the artists." In fact—this is another part of my argu-ment—he does not even banish the painters.¹

That Plato banishes only poetry, though painting is in his eyes equally mimesis (imitation), suggests that being imitative is not by itself a sufficient reason for exclusion from the city. What distinguishes painting from poetry in this respect is a pressing question, especially when we realize (as I hope we shall) that Plato's argument against poetry depends on a series of analogies with painting. These are close enough to have convinced many of Plato's readers, though not Plato himself, that painting and all "fine" art, not only poetry, is to be outlawed. But by turning our attention to the differences between painting and poetry that account for the asymmetry in Plato's treatment of these two practices, we may find that though the action he advocates is, as usual, quite drastic, his motivation, as is also usual, is not half as perverse as we have been fearing.

I

Plato states his position on poetry in the preamble to Republic 10 (595a1-c5). This is that "in no way are we admitting [in our city] as much of it as is imitative" (595a5). His reason for holding this position, which he also states in the preamble, is that tragedy and all such imitations

are hazardous to the reason (dianoia) of their listeners—of those at least who do not possess as an antidote the knowledge of what these things really are (595b5-7).²

We must notice that the subject here is only poetry and that the reason why it is not admitted to the city is that it harms the soul of its listeners. This suggests that Plato is not going on to offer two arguments against poetry—first, that it is imitative (595c7-602b11), and second, that it is bad for the soul (602c1-606d8).³ Rather, the general discussion of imitation and the demonstration that poetry is one of its species are only parts of the single argument against poetry that we find announced at the very beginning of the book. In addition, noticing this point is helpful in distinguishing Plato's view of poetry from his view of painting, for if being imitative were a reason for banishment, painting, being the paradigm of imitation, should surely be banished. Yet the opening of the book says only that poetry is to be banished. The reason for this, we shall see, is the difference in the seriousness of their bad effects.

Before we turn to this question, however, we must discuss a serious difficulty that the preamble raises for the interpretation of Plato's view of poetry. For though the present claim is that no imitative poetry (hosé mimétiké) is admissible in the city (595a5), the discussion of poetry in Books 2 and 3 concluded by admitting "the unmixed imitator of good character" (ton tou epieikous mi-métén akraton 397d4-5). Furthermore, Book 10 itself finally allows "so much of poetry as consists of hymns to the gods and praises of virtuous people" (hoson monon hymnous theois kai enkómia tois agathois poiéseós, 607a3-4). If such poetry is imitative, Book 10 contradicts not only Book 3 but itself as well. If it is not, how much poetry is thereby allowed after all in the city?⁴

Plato has been forcefully defended against the charge of inconsistency by J. Tate, who, in a series of papers that are still very influential, argued that Plato uses "imitation" in two senses. The imitation he banishes at 595a5 is imitation of a bad sort, while the imitation he admits at 397a4-5 is of a good sort, and the contradiction disappears.⁵

Plato's earlier discussion of imitation in Books 2 and 3 concerns the elementary education of the young Guardians. In his city, as in Athens (cf. 376e2-3), children begin their education through poetry. Having discussed the subjects appropriate for them, Plato goes on (392c6fT) to discuss style (lexis), and distinguishes pure narration (the dithyramb), pure imitation or impersonation (tragedy),⁶ and their combination (epic). He then raises the question whether the Guardians should be educated by the use of imitation,⁷ and claims that the answer depends on whether they are to be imitative themselves (394el-2). It is precisely at this point that Tate locates the two senses of "imitation"; for, he claims, "the answer is both 'no' and 'yes.' "⁸

Yet all that Socrates says here is that the young Guardians will be allowed to imitate only characters like those into which they should grow (394c4-5). To imitate other sorts as well would be an instance of polupragmosuné (doing more than one thing; cf. 395b-c) and might make them like the characters they would in that case imitate. But nothing here, it seems to me, implies that "imitation" has two senses; all that is implied is that one and the same activity can have different sorts of objects.⁹

Plato now combines the above formal specification of imitation¹⁰ with the range of its possible subject matter. A good person would recite mostly by narration, but would occasionally imitate (a) good people doing good things, (b) less often, good people in bad situations, and (c) only with difficulty and "only for fun" (paidias charin) bad people doing good things (395c5-el0). An unworthy person would imitate anything and would use little narration (397al-b2). A third style, finally, would consist in a mixture of these two (397c9-10). Adeimantus now approves only the first of these three modes, that of "the unmixed imitator of good character" (397d4-5), a sort (I suppose) of a purified Homer.

Tate, however, describes what Adeimantus approves as the

nonimitative style, which nevertheless contains such kinds of imitation as the virtuous poet will not disdain to practice. Plato could scarcely have made it clearer that the style that is nonimitative in the first sense is yet imitative in the second sense, the sense in which the Guardians are imitative.¹¹

On Tate's view, therefore, Plato at 595a5 only excludes imitation in the bad sense of 397a1-b2, and nothing else: "The poetry that is admitted is imitative in one sense and nonimitative in another sense."¹²

Plato's attack on poetry is therefore significantly disarmed—if, indeed, it still is an attack at all. But it is clear that Republic 394-97 does not generate two senses of "imitation." Plato simply allows the young Guardians to listen to, and to tell, tales that, if they involve imitation, imitate good characters or good actions, and forbids them to do much else. The different styles all imitate in the same sense different objects. The conflict between Books 3 and 10 cannot be resolved in this manner.

In specifying what sorts of poetry are acceptable in Books 2 and 3 of the Republic, Plato has consistently enraged generations of readers. We should comment (and we can do no more than that on this occasion) on whether this rage has been justified: Very briefly, my own view is that it has not. Plato's attitude toward what young children should recite, read, and learn from (for this is his subject at this point) is quite reasonable. We find it unthinkable that he should imagine that great poetry like Homer's could be harmful. But in thinking of it as "great poetry" we are begging the question, for we place it within a complex cultural context, within a long tradition, and within a world ("Homer's world, not ours," in Auden's words) that we know to be long dead. We do not look at the Homeric poems as a primer, from which one learned to read, to speak, to think, and to value. The relevant comparison is not between ourselves and fourth-century Athenians in respect to our reactions to Homer. (And, in any case, how many children today read Homer? And of those who do, in watered-down versions of the Tales from Homer type, how many read of Odysseus and Calypso, or Demodocus' lay of Ares and Aphrodite?)¹³ The proper comparison would involve contemporary children, mass education, and mass entertainment. Instead of learning from Homer, children today learn from primers that are often, for example, sexist; we find nothing wrong or narrow-minded in protesting against them. They are entertained by, and learn what friendship and companionship are, from "Starsky and Hutch" and "Donnie and Marie"—ubiquitous and intrusive purveyors of bad taste, deformed paradigms, and questionable values.¹⁴ And though we may not want to legislate such things out of existence, we do not, or would like not to, let children watch them. On the reverse side of this coin, the positive effort that goes into making children's literature appropriate to them, correctly or incorrectly, is a Platonic legacy.

In short, we quite agree with Plato that censorship for children is appropriate. We quite agree with him that art has great power, and that we must channel it correctly. We do not agree on whether censorship should be practiced on Homer (but this, I have argued, depends on a wrong comparison) and on whether it should be legislated by the state. But on the last issue we cannot any longer charge Plato with being a philistine; we can only charge him with being illiberal. And this is neither new, nor surprising, nor (as many have feared about his views on Homer) inconsistent with his own poetic powers.

We still have to face the conflict between Books 3 and 10: The former seems to allow imitative poetry, the latter to forbid it. This conflict, I am afraid, cannot be ultimately eliminated; but it is not as stark and glaring as it has often seemed to be. In discussing this last issue, we shall gain some understanding of why Plato seems to return to the question of poetry in Book 10, something that has made this last part of the Republic seem suspiciously like an afterthought.¹⁵ I shall suggest that Plato does not clearly return to the banishment of poetry in Book 10, but that he raises the question in a systematic form for the first time. Books 8 and 9 of the Republic consist mainly of a discussion of threats against the unity of the soul and of the city. Book 10 belongs primarily with them, and shows that poetry is one of these threats and that the city is proof against it.

Now Book 10 seems to begin with a reference to the earlier discussion in Book 3, but this reference is not absolutely clear. Socrates does say that he is now convinced (ennoó 595a2) that the city has been well organized (ókizomen;...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Volume Introduction
• Section A. The “Presocratics”
• Section B. The Age of Plato
• Section C. Theoretical Applications
• Copyright Acknowledgments