Gods Era Poetics

The poetics of Plato and Aristotle have rich connotations, which are original literary theories and the source of the other theories. They have affected the academic studies both in western countries and China heavily.There was a wide religious background in forming and development of Greek poetics which have their own specialties. The religions of Olympian and Orpheus were quite important in ancient Greece and not only the people' s religions but also having the relationship with Greek epic and tragedy. The attitude to Homer' s epics directly influenced the poetics of Plato and Aristotle. Greek logos' theology was gradually developing in the quarrels between the philosophy and the poetry Plato' s basic thought of" idea" is the outcome of the age. The view about the poets in the Republic is the vivid expression of his aristocratic ideal. It' s quite nature to put the Greek poetics in the specific time (ancient Greece) even though there are full of contradictions in Greek poetics according to the contemporaries' viewpointsPlato ' s thought of " idea" and Aristotle ' s " form" theory are not complete opposite. Aristotle' s theory is dualism. In general, Aristotle never indulged in the religions. His poetics attached great importance to reality and logic.The styles of writing between Plato and Aristotle are quite different. One is author' s"absence" and the other is author' s"attendance" . Plato looked down the rhetoric in his age, but sometimes his dialogues were full of rhetoric and he was like a poet because of his temperament." The first grade people" who don' t mean the poets but the philosophers with the belief of the gods and the poet' s temperament are Plato and Aristotle themselves Plato and Aristotle paid attention just to epic and tragedy although there were many types of literatures in ancient Greece. Their theories about artistic typology have some mistakes, such as mixing narrators and writers, lacking in the necessary conditions of taxology. The types of Greek arts will be clearer if we can resolve these problems.The concept of" imitatiori' that' s not the same meaning as the word " lifelike" had a long history in ancient Greece with rich connotations. " Inspiration" was atraditional concept as well. The meanings of "imitation" and "inspiration" are changeable and there are no difficulties for Greek people to understand them that were often put on Homer by Plato. There are three aspects that are either separate or correlative in Plato' s poetics: 1. the ambition of establishing Republic. 2. the strong religious belief, 3. the temperament of a poet. When the first aspect connected with the second one, Plato' s poetics would be practical. Whereas, when the second aspect connected with the third one, Plato' s poetics would be puzzled. It' s very important to know the different elements ' combinations of Platd s poetics. Aristotle looked " imitation" as the basic feature of art. He said that the objects, medias and methods of imitation were the standards to distinguish the different arts." Imitation" is a dynamic concept in Aristotle' s work. Aristotle talked about the poet' s job of representing "what is likely to happen' as opposed to the historian' sjob of representing" what has happened" ." Fiction" was a confused concept in ancient Greece. In Plato' s opinion," fiction" meant either false describing about the gods or the same as" imitation" . According to Aristotle' s theory, " fiction" usually equaled " imagination" .For saving the Greece from the decline, Plato criticized the tragedies in Greece. He thought that the emotions aroused by the tragedies would affect people' s normal senses. Aristotle was advancing on the basis of Plato' s thought and analyzed the later effect of the emotions. He brought forward the " purifying" function of tragedy extraordinarily and wrote it into his definition of tragedy as the reason of" goal" .