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Farewell to `Poetry'

In this paper, I attempt to mediate a discrepancy between two accounts of imitation (mimesis) in Plato's Republic.

In the third book, poetry with some mimic narrative is admitted to his republic, but in the tenth book poets and their poetry are totally excluded from it in so far as it is based on the technique of imitation. Both types of poetry are made by means of imitation. Why is only the latter type excluded from the republic? There must be some difference between them. As a matter of fact, the imitation admitted in the third book seems to be different from that in the tenth book. What is the difference?

One way in which we might avoid the apparent contradiction here is to interpret the poetic arts treated in the third book as an imitation of Ideas. But we cannot accept this interpretation, because in Plato's theory of Forms this kind of direct imitation is only applied to natural objects and works of handicraft. We, therefore, cannot help thinking that works of fine arts only presuppose the insights of artists to the Forms of their objects. And because of the limitations due to their materials, they are said to be thrice removed from physis. According to the degree of its partaking in the insights, the good type of imitation is distinguished from the bad one. Only this good type of imitation can be admitted to the republic as a means of educating the young, and some of them, as Guardians, come to contemplate the Forms.


KAMADA Masatoshi 6/15/1999