Poetry·City-state·Philosophy

In Republic,Socrates examined the poems and put forward some contradictory ideasin consideration of both the city_state’s and personal perfection. This paper analyze thePlato’s poetic ideas from the following three points:The first part criticizes the poems form the views of “Truth”and “Goodness”. As aphilosopher,Socrates thinks that the city_state is like a dark and ignorant cave and whosepoems are like the shadows which not only is’t truth but also can’t feed people’s souls.First of all,he uses the line_metaphor to suggest that the knowledge of poem is just opinionwhich is different from the truth. Moreover,he uses drawing_metaphor to prove that poemis only the result of imitating which is far from the truth. Lastly,he uses the cave_metaphorto suggest that people obtain only some shadows by learning from the poem. All in all,thiskind of poem does harms to the personage as well as the city_state.Socrates lead the poem out of the dark and ignorant cave in the second part. To beginwith, poem has an innovation in itself including deleting some bad stories especially thedescribes of death and make rules of the of literature. Moreover,poem had better recept theguidance of philosophy on account of the fact that philosophy cares about the perfectionand pursue the truth,so that it can’t be limited by the phenomenon. In short,Socrates aimsto teach the people to examine and reflect his current life then realize his own limit andtranscend himself.In the third part, Socrates creates a new kind of poem which not only surpass thecity_state but also come down to it once again. First of all, he combines the poem and thephilosophy and emphasize the importance of music. Moreover,he explain why his newpoem should come down to the cave once again. Firstly his new poem cares about people.Secondly his new poem is closer to the city_state than the philosophy which can relax thestrained relationship between the city_state and the philosophy. Last but not the least,heexplain why his new poem can come down to the cave. Firstly poem has the nature ofaesthetic practicalness which is also the reason why Plato’s Socrates is different fromAristophanes’Socrates. Secondly poem has the nature of aesthetic transcendence. As a kind of literature,poems not only come from the reality but also surpass the reality becauseof the poet’s imagination and production.