The Importance Of Poetry In The Republic

Plato (425-348 BCE) is the most ancient philosopher of all times and his existence is proven through his written works, with the Republic being one of them (Leckey lecture). (Plato is a widely recognized ancient philosopher due to his existence being documented throughout time by the means of his own written works.) In the Republic, Plato argues why poetry is detrimental to the people and how it does so. The effects that poetry has on people eventually forced Plato to exile all the poets from this ideally perfect city, the Republic. That means no poems and poets, whatsoever in this perfect city!

Plato exiled all the poets from the city because he claimed that the art that was being taught by the poets was misleading the people. He said that

Poetry has the ability to excite emotions and influence the youth because it has the freedom of choosing to say whatever it wants and there are no limits to confine it. For words and phrases are able to persuade and convince the audience of what is being told to them. This applies especially with the youth:

“Don’t you know that the beginning is the most important part of every work and that this is especially so with anything young and tender? For at that stage it’s the most plastic, and each thing assimilates itself to the model whose stamp anyone whishes to give it.” (Plato, Republic, Book III).

This is exactly the reason why we shouldn’t swear in front or at young children. (Leckey lecture). For children, their mindset is like a clean, white sheet of paper and ideally, we are supposed to help them fill it up with wise and educating information, not some terrible ideas that is going to ruin them later on in life. However, for sculptures there is a set of laws that it has to abide by (Lessing pg.13). Since they have a limit of what can actually be put on a sculpture, this includes a limit to what the sculpture can deliver to the people; the meaning is restricted. On the polar opposite, there are no restrictions on what can be written in poetry and that is the problem that Plato is asserting. Due to poetry’s freedom of putting whatever it wants, the people will be confused and nonchalant of what they are saying because they might think that what they heard is just a joke and they go on and tell it to other people, but it can actually have severe consequences (Leckey