exist' there. Elsewhere he may be welcome, but for their part they have profit not pleasure in view, and they will therefore require a 'more austere and less delightful poet,' who will take virtue for his model and cast his poetry into an educational mould.'

Plato has already shown the need for this censorship by a consideration of the subject-matter of Homer and other poets. In the case of Homer, he selects a number of passages which attribute various kinds of immoral conduct to the gods and heroes. He takes instances in which the characters display terror at death, sexual irregularities, cowardice, deceitfulness, insubordination, covetousness, and unmanly or immoderate emotion. Such passages he condemns, first, as 'sacrilegious and untrue,' and, secondly, 'morally hurtful to the hearers.' In addition to this, he brings against literature a general charge of immorality. 'Poets and prose-writers,' he says, 'are mistaken in dealing with human life in the most important respects. They give us to understand that many evil livers are happy and many righteous men unhappy; and that wrong-doing, if it be undetected, is profitable, while honest dealing is beneficial to one's neighbour, but damaging to one's self.''

Thus far Plato confines himself, in the main, to a criticism of the subject-matter of poetry. All art must be an expression of morality, but poetry, he finds, so far from expressing morality, has become a vehicle for conveying immoral notions. In the tenth

1

1 398.

2386-391.

3

392.

book of the Republic he formulates his charges more definitely. He not only complains of the subjectmatter of the poets, but condemns the form and method of the poetic representation of the facts of life.

In this fuller criticism he charges poetry with two inherent defects-unreality, and a tendency to foster the emotional element in man to the detriment of the rational.

But before considering this fuller criticism it is necessary to know how far Plato agrees with Aristotle in accepting imitation (uiunois) as the basis of poetry. For this purpose we may refer to a passage in the third book of the Republic, where he roughly classifies different kinds of poetic composition by reference to the use of imitation.

'In poetry,' he says, 'whether the plot be invented or consist of traditional stories, there is one style of representation which consists solely of "imitation "-to take your examples, tragedy and comedy-and another which consists of the narrative of the poet himself—dithyrambic poetry is perhaps the best example; while epic poetry is one of many instances of a third style which employs both dialogue and narrative.'1

It appears, therefore, that whereas Aristotle finds in 'imitation' the basis of all creative literature, whether dramatic or not in form, Plato calls 'imitative' only so much of a literary composition as is written in character. In other words, the difference

1 394.

between the meaning respectively attached to the term by Plato and Aristotle is, broadly, the difference between 'imitative' and 'reproductive.'

Now, in advancing his first charge-that of unreality—against poetry, Plato is influenced by the restricted and more elementary meaning which he attaches to μiunois. He endeavours to establish the existence of this first defect at the outset by an analysis of the nature of knowledge in harmony with his own philosophic theory of ideas.' Taking the commonplace example of a bed, he proceeds to distinguish three forms-the 'idea' or archetype, the actual piece of furniture so-called, and the artistic reproduction, owing their existence respectively to God, to the upholsterer, and to the artist. Like this last the poet is neither creator nor artificer, but merely an imitator of the latter's work, and, being such, his work is two degrees removed from the original creation of God. But Plato is not content with this theoretic proof; he proposes a practical test. If the poet really knows the truth of what he describes, and does not merely reproduce other people's knowledge, he must have given some actual demonstration of his possession of such knowledge. And so he asks the question of Homer :

"Homer, if you are not twice removed from truth in respect of virtue (as being the producer of a representation and, therefore, an imitator as we have defined the term), but once only, and if you were therefore capable of knowing 1 597.

what practices make men respectively better or worse as individuals and as members of a state, can you tell us of any city which has received an improved constitution from you, in the sense in which Lacedaemon was improved by Lycurgus, and many other cities, both great and small, were improved by many other men? What city acknowledges its indebtedness to you as a righteous lawgiver and a general benefactor? Italy and Sicily thus acknowledge Charondas, and we Solon; does any community acknowledge you?'1

Naturally Homer is compelled to admit that he has done nothing of the kind; and he subsequently gives most satisfactory evidence towards establishing the point, that all poets from Homer downwards imitate phantoms of virtue and whatever else they select as their subjects, without ever coming into contact with the truth.'

But not only are the creations of poetry unreal, and therefore useless for practical purposes; they appeal to the unreasoning and emotional part of man's nature.

In framing this second charge Plato first states with singular clearness the objects which poetry, or creative literature, especially strives to reproduce. They are 'men engaged in actions either involuntary or voluntary, attributing their good or bad fortune to these actions, and in all of them displaying either grief or joy.' But the poets, he continues, in representing human action give exhibitions not of good, but of bad conduct. They are compelled to

2

do so by the requirements of their artistic method. In the first place, 'the irascible temperament admits of constant and varied reproduction, while the wise and quiet temperament, which scarcely ever varies, is neither easily reproduced nor, when reproduced, readily comprehended.'1 And in the next, the poet like the painter 'associates with an element of the soul which is as depraved as he, and not with its noblest element.' 2 It is the evil result of this constant exhibition of depravity which forms the culminating count of the indictment—'for, that poetry should be capable of injuring even good men, with the exception of a very small minority, is a matter of terrible importance.'

The manner in which this injurious effect is brought about is described in relation to that feeling of 'fear and pity,' which is produced by witnessing a representation of the disasters of the imagined persons; and the production of which is regarded by Aristotle as the special function of tragedy, or poetry in its highest form.

The part of the soul which is forcibly kept down in the case of our own misfortunes, and which craves to weep and bewail itself without stint and take its fill of grief, being so constituted as to find satisfaction in these emotions, is the very part which is filled and pleased by the poets; while that which is naturally the noblest part of us, because it is not adequately disciplined by reason and habit, relaxes its guard over this emotional part, representing to itself that the suffer3 605.

1 604.

2 605.