Should Poetry Be Banished from Human Life?
The main aim of this paper is to decide whether we should banish poetry from the human world or not. In order to reach this decision we first have to get back to some of the legendary figures in literary criticism of all time such as Plato, Aristotle and Philip Sydney and see for our selves how they treated this issue and answered some important questions concerning literature.
Literary Criticism is the branch of study concerned with defining, classifying and evaluating works of literature. It began almost simultaneously with creation. However, it was only with Plato that criticism became a vital force in the ancient world.
Plato was born probably in 427 B.C. He was the first conscious literary critic who has put his ideas in a systematic way in his dialogues. In his Ion and Republic (precisely book X), he expressed his condemnation of poetry.
Ironically, admirers of Plato are usually lovers of literary art. It is so because Plato wrote dramatic dialogues rather than didactic volumes and did so with rare literary skill. You would expect such a philosopher to place a high value on literary art, but Plato actually attacked it. He argued that it should be banned from the ideal society that he described in the Republic.
Plato objected to poetry on three grounds: Educational, Philosophical and moral point of view.
Plato’s objection to Poetry from the point of view of Education is emphasized when he condemns poetry as fostering evil habits and vices in children in “The Republic” Book II. Homer’s epics were part of studies. Heroes of epics were not examples of sound or ideal morality. They were lusty, cunning, and hungry for war. Even Gods were no better. This is clear in Plato’s Ion:
If we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, no word should be said to them of the wars in heaven, or of the plots and fighting of the gods against one another, for they are not true (11).
Thus he objected on the
Literary Criticism is the branch of study concerned with defining, classifying and evaluating works of literature. It began almost simultaneously with creation. However, it was only with Plato that criticism became a vital force in the ancient world.
Plato was born probably in 427 B.C. He was the first conscious literary critic who has put his ideas in a systematic way in his dialogues. In his Ion and Republic (precisely book X), he expressed his condemnation of poetry.
Ironically, admirers of Plato are usually lovers of literary art. It is so because Plato wrote dramatic dialogues rather than didactic volumes and did so with rare literary skill. You would expect such a philosopher to place a high value on literary art, but Plato actually attacked it. He argued that it should be banned from the ideal society that he described in the Republic.
Plato objected to poetry on three grounds: Educational, Philosophical and moral point of view.
Plato’s objection to Poetry from the point of view of Education is emphasized when he condemns poetry as fostering evil habits and vices in children in “The Republic” Book II. Homer’s epics were part of studies. Heroes of epics were not examples of sound or ideal morality. They were lusty, cunning, and hungry for war. Even Gods were no better. This is clear in Plato’s Ion:
If we mean our future guardians to regard the habit of quarrelling among themselves as of all things the basest, no word should be said to them of the wars in heaven, or of the plots and fighting of the gods against one another, for they are not true (11).
Thus he objected on the