Aristotle And Plato

Plato wrote Ion and The Republic (books II, III and X) He speaks about mimesis. Mimesis is an imitation of the nature. He thought that theatre was not sufficient in conveying the truth. Rhetoric is more persuasive than telling the truth.

In book II, Plato describes Socrates’ dialogue with his pupils where he said that the poet has not place in our idea of God.

In book X, He speaks about Socrates’ metaphor of three beds:

1. Idea made by God. ( Platonic Ideal).

2. Idea made by the carpenter (imitation of God’s idea)

3. Idea made by artist in imitation of the carpenter.

His ideals said that the imitators will still not attain the truth (of God’s creation). The poets never reach the truth in the way the superior philosophers do.

Aristotle defined mimesis as the perfection and imitation of nature. Art is not only imitation but also use the mathematical ideas and symmetry in the search for the perfect.

Nature has changes, decays and cycles while the art is everlasting.

Aristotle said that there are four causes in nature:

1. Formal cause is like a blueprint or immortal idea.

2. Material cause.

3. The process and the agent (the artist makes the thing)

4. The good or purpose and end of a thing (Telos: it is a purpose)

Aristotle feels an urge to create texts (art) that reflect and represent reality. He found a division between the work of art and the life, without this distance, this division, tragedy could not give rise to catharsis. He thought in the simulated representation, the audience feels close about the characters, empathize with them and this turns mimetic in dramatic role play. The play is a thing recognizable and distant.

He thought drama like an “imitation of an action” and tragedy like a “falling from a higher to a lower estate”

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