Leo Tolstoy’s “What is Art?” and Plato’s Republic

1. contents:
   

I) Leo Tolstoy’s “What is Art?”

1. A) On Leo Tolstoy
   

2. B) On Tolstoy’s Aesthetics
   

3. C) Summary and Analysis
   

II) Plato’s Republic

1. A) Introduction: On Plato’s Republic
   

2. B) Summary and Analysis
   

III) Discussion Post Prompts

I) Leo Tolstoy’s “What is Art?,” pp.178-81:

A) On Leo Tolstoy:

The Russian Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) is primarily known as a writer of novels, stories, plays, and essays, although forged important theoretical paths in ethics (theoretically anarchist, socially pacifist), aesthetics, educational reform, and religious interpretation.  He was born into a notable, noble family, but his parents died when he was young, and he was raised by relatives (along with his four siblings).  Initially a bad student (although later learning over a dozen languages and becoming a famous writer), he left University early and spent time living the heavy gambling life before joining the army in 1851 (first in Caucasus and then fighting in the Crimean War), about the time he began writing.  In 1855 he left the army and in the late 1850’s, he became committed to an ascetic, non-violent political program.  He is considered one the greatest Russian writers, with his most notable works being War and Peace and Anna Karenina, which embody his spiritual, political, and ethical radicalism.  Falling in love in the 1860’s, he married Sophia Andreevna Behrs (Sonya) in 1862 and they had 13 children.  Thereafter, he committed himself to his writing, although also travelled Europe, witnessing political unrest firsthand and meeting notable influences from Victor Hugo to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (the French anarchist).  Other strong influences on his thought include Arthur Schopenhauer’s aesthetics and ascetic ethics, Mahatmas Gandhi’s Satyagraha (non-violent civil disobedience), and Henry George’s economic theory.  He suffered an existential crisis in the late 1870’s, becoming depressed and suicidal; after this, his political radicalism heightened and his writings further embodied intense political and religious critiques.  He was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church, although his later years witnessed an intense, albeit radical, embrace of the teachings of Jesus (his The Kingdom of God is Within You, of 1893, reread the Bible as centered upon the idea of loving one’s neighbor and turning the other cheek).

B) On Tolstoy’s Aesthetic Theory:

According to notes we find in Tolstoy’s letters and journals, we learn that he spent about fifteen years rethinking his earliest assumptions about aesthetic theory (especially concerning literature) before writing his famous “What is Art?” essay in 1897.  His earliest writings on aesthetics surface in the 1850’s and show his concentration to be on the interplay of theory and practice.  In the 1880’s, Tolstoy underwent a stark spiritual crisis that turned his predominately negative view of art more positive: he came to view art no longer as a “deceit of culture,” which could seduce people from the good, but as something positive that could benefit humanity and society.  This benefit flowed from his refined view of the intimate and necessary ethical principle contained within art.  Art and morality could not be separated.  He continued to believe in the seductive power of art, and used this principle to differentiate true art from the counterfeit type, work that masqueraded as art.  All art is infectious--if this strong contagiousness is sincere, than the work is true art.  Because of this power, his aesthetic theory hinges on the determination of how art is made by feeling and how it transmits feelings to its audience.  Good art, that is, true art, correctly and powerfully conveys feeling.  Art makes us feel and essentially understand a unity of humankind.  As the anthology’s introduction notes, we see in Tolstoy’s aesthetics the “Russian impulse toward unification and communication,” and his developed position that “art succeeds when it arouses and transmits emotion, when it brings people together and enriches their common humanity” (177).

C) Summary and Analysis:

Tolstoy’s “What is Art?” is a clear, concise expression of how art must be an expression of an artist’s emotion that is clearly communicated to recipients who then become “infected” by the affect so as to thereby experience for themselves that same emotion: “The activity of art is based on the fact that a man receiving through his sense of hearing or sight another man’s expression of feeling, is capable of experiencing the emotion which moved the man who expressed it” (178). 

Tolstoy offers numerous examples of the transmission, for example, a person laughing makes those around him/her feel merry themselves.  The capacity we have for receiving this transferred emotion, perhaps something like empathy, is the ground upon which the activity of art is based.

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2. His selection of terminology is interesting!  “Infected;” “Transmission;” “Contagion;” the terms are medical, and clearly tie the theory to the body, to the senses, not just to reason or the mind alone.  For more on his use of the medical illusion of infection, etc., cf., Jacob Emery, “Art is Inoculation: The Infectious Imagination of Leo Tolstoy,” The Russian Review 70 (2011): 627-45. Available on JSTOR through the library.
   

Tolstoy continues by explaining how art begins and its aim.  The object or aim of art is in “joining another or others to himself in one and the same feeling …” (178). It begins, then, by the artist’s external expression of his/her emotion.  This expression, as Tolstoy offers through an example of a boy’s encounter with a wolf, can be done by relating the encounter: he “describes himself, his condition before the encounter, the surroundings, the wood, his own light-headedness, and then the wolf’s appearance, its movements, the distance between himself and the wolf, and so forth” (179).  This recounting of the experience, the narrative chronicle, engages the artist in a re-experience of the event—s/he goes through it (affectively) again in its telling (this re-experience is as important as the experience aroused in another for the judgment of X to be art).  Of course, while this example may be the written or told art form, the method can be mimicked in two-dimensional art, three-dimensional art, film, music, dance, etc.  There is an important question here, however, as to how much the narrative is required.  It is clear that Tolstoy’s theory is based in the idea that art is communication, that it is communicative.  But, is there a tension between communication as a narrative transmission and Tolstoy’s greater emphasis that the communication is the creation of a contagion of affective experience?  After being exposed to the art, are we to know something, or simply feel something?  His theory suggests the latter, but his description of the method suggests the former. 

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2. On this question of transmission, cf., S. K. Wertz, “Human Nature and Art: From Descartes and Hume to Tolstoy,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 32, n.3 (1998): 75-81.  Available on JSTOR through the library.
   

An additional important note about the ‘how’ of art is that the artist need not have experienced something in reality, but can invent an encounter, so long as the invention transmits real emotion.  “Even if the boy had not seen a wolf but had frequently been afraid of one, and if, wishing to evoke in others the fear that he had felt, he invented an encounter with a wolf and recounted it so as to make his hearers share the feelings he experience when he feared the wolf, that also would be art” (179).  This is important to connect to his later requirement about the sincerity of the artist (cf., p.180).  It is worthy of consideration as to whether we can expand and/or loosen this theory up a little bit to propose whether the artist may not just have a fear of a specific thing, and then invents the story about that thing, but, rather, if s/he may invent a story inspiration of the emotion in general.  For example, the boy need not have “frequently been afraid” of a wolf, but had experienced deep fear, perhaps of the dark, of a violent fight, of spiders, of the unknown, or whatever else completely unconnected to wolves, and yet invents the story of the wolf so as to arouse a similar fear in others.  That is, how literal and direct must the object of the work be?  Tolstoy’s later comment about judging “the quality of every work of art considered apart from its subject matter” suggests that this may be a legitimate expansion (180), although his requirement about art being “individual” may work against this expansion (180). 

Moving now to consider the feelings being communicated, Tolstoy explains that they are many and diverse (patriotism, devotion, religious, love, courage, merriment, etc.), and can be “very strong or very weak, very important or very significant, very bad or very good …” (179).  There are many questions that must be explored concerning these feelings, cf. below for more on this point.

Tolstoy sums up his theory in the two italicized paragraphs on p.179:

1. To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experience and, having evoked it in oneself then by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others experience the same feeling—this is the activity of art.
   

2. Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experiences them …. (p.179).
   

Note, here, that art, then, is restricted to being a conscious human enterprise—the grand canyon or chirping of a bog full of frogs cannot be art; paintings done by gorillas or cats cannot be art; an assemblage of objects done accidentally by a person cannot be art. 

Tolstoy then moves to a consideration of judging excellence in art.  This is done by determining the “degree of infectiousness” of art (179).  “The stronger the infection the better is the art …” (179).  The subject matter itself is not to be considered—so, if it is a painting of a teacup full of kittens or a battlefield, a composition performed with kazoos or violins, such things are irrelevant. 

There are three conditions for this degree of infectiousness, although Tolstoy also argues that they can be reduced to the most important, third condition:

(1) The greater or lesser individuality of the feeling

1. “Individual” is an interesting and ambiguous designation—does this mean “personal” or “unique?”  For example, would a greatly individual feeling be femininity expressed by a woman artist, disassociation expressed by a schizophrenic, piety expressed by a priest?  Or, would it be more like the feeling of fear of being lost in the alps when one is twelve on a cloudy day?  Or, more like a peculiar melancholy that is also anxious and happy? 
   

(2) The greater or lesser the clarity of the feeling

1. Presumably, the clarity is that the feeling being transmitted itself is very clear (anger is anger—something unambiguous).  It is worth while to pay close attention to exactly how Tolstoy describes this condition: “The clearness of expression assists infection because the recipient who mingles in consciousness with the author is the better satisfied the more clearly the feeling is transmitted which as it seems to him he has long known and felt and for which he has only now found expression” (180).
   

2. Note in this quote all the supplemental issues that are raised:
   

3. --The audience “mingles in consciousness with the author”—we can imagine some shared space of affective consciousness into which art brings us; “mingling” suggesting something more dynamic and cooperative than a mimetic theory wherein the audience’s experience mimics the artist’s experience. 
   

4. --The audience’s reception of the emotion causes the feeling of satisfaction—so, the audience feels both emotion X and satisfaction.
   

5. --The audience experiences (as well?) a feeling of revelation—as if s/he had long known the emotion X, but now it is finally concretized in expression.  Here, it is not pure novelty (which ties to the first condition), but a ‘new old’ realization. 
   

(3) The greater or lesser the force of the feeling in the artist (his/her “sincerity”)

1. This condition Tolstoy sites as the most important, and can encompass the other two.  The sincerity rests in the intentions of the artist—does s/he create for her/himself or for others?  When the audience feels it is for her/himself, the sincere force is great, and thus the work is a better form of art; when the audience feels it is created for others, the sincere force of the art is lessened dramatically.  In this latter case, the art can cease to even be art, and can be repulsive, rather than attractive. 

   

   
   

Tolstoy (the good Russian) considers “peasant art” to always be the most sincere form of art, and acts most strongly upon us; in contrast, “upper-class art,” which is the prevailing norm, is the least sincere and has the weakest affective power over us.  Interestingly, today we may wonder if the most popular art of today is the strongest affectively over us, but in a wholly new way, a less genuine way—we are so indoctrinated into a certain aesthetic view that it forms the basis of what we deem art, and yet it does not arouse a true, authentic community empathy, but only invites us to be further entangled in the constructed and sold to us world view?

{Image: Ivan Kramskoy, “Peasant with a Bridle,” 1883, oil on canvas,

The Museum of Russian Art]

All three of these conditions must be met for something to be art.  The degree of these conditions is that by which we judge the excellence of the work. 

[Image: Vasily Perov, “Religious Procession in the Village on Easter,” 1861, oil on canvas, The State Trytyakov Gallery, Moscow]

Related Resources on Russian Art:

On the Peredvizhniki (The “Wanderers” or Itinerants,” artistic and social movement)

An Overview of Russian Art Movements after 1850

II) Plato’s Republic, pp.9-44:

(Image: a fragment of a manuscript of Plato’s Republic)

A) Introduction: On Plato’s Republic

(note: our anthology picks up in Book II; below, I have a sketch of what happens just before our reading, which may help you better understand what is going on and its importance!)

Plato’s Republic is a true philosophical and literary masterpiece.  It is significantly longer than Plato’s others works, although written, like most of them, as dialogue and utilizing an extended form of his (his/Socrates’) standard “elenchos”—a dialogic, dialectical method of argumentation that seeks to answer a ‘what is X?’ question by a process of the interlocutor(s) putting forth proposes that he/Socrates then unravel(s); as with all his dialogues, there is not an ‘answer’ at the end, but the whole reveals a moving closer to the truth and ending in perplexity (aporia).

The ‘what is X?’ question of the Republic is, specifically, “justice,” and is more broadly addressed by asking ‘what is the ideal society?’  Book I begins with Socrates recounting his trip the day before with Glaucon to the Piraeus (the port of Athens) to observe a new religious festival the city was hosting.  Socrates and Glaucon are leaving the festival when intercepted and persuaded to stay, have a meal and see a horse race (we never are told of the meal and horse race again; instead, the ensuing conversation of the dialogue becomes the main event).  Book I recounts Socrates’ conversations with three men, Cephalus (the elderly father), Polemarchus (Cephalus’ son), and Thrasymachus (a sophist, a rhetorician who privileges ‘winning’ debates more than speaking ‘truthfully’).  The topic of their conversations is justice.  Thrasymachus’ position is severe: justice does not pay; only suckers are just; thus, true ‘justice’ (read: what we would call injustice) is the will of the strongest—the strong should just help themselves and take advantage of others.  This is highly discordant to Socrates’ position, which is suggesting that true justice is good, and to be just is to live the worthwhile life (and worthwhile for all, not just the strong).  The book ends with Socrates complaining that they are talking about whether justice pays or not without explaining what justice is in itself. 

Book II opens with Socrates wishing to leave, and his interlocutors not wanting him to go—Glaucon complains that Socrates has not convinced them that justice is truly good (that is, good in itself and not just good because it brings results or rewards).  To get Socrates to convince them better, Glaucon gives a very strong speech in defense of injustice that:

1. (1)shows the origin of justice and what justice is,
   

2. (2)why no one wants justice for its own sake, but practice it unwillingly, and
   

3. (3)why this is sensible because injustice is truly better than justice. 
   

His speech proposes three debates about human nature:

1. (1)are humans naturally rational or non-rational?,
   

2. (2)are humans naturally political or non-political (i.e., are we naturally cooperative or competitive?)?, and
   

3. (3)are humans naturally equal or unequal? 
   

He argues that injustice is naturally good, but to suffer it is bad—this means that humans are naturally competitive and desire to outdo one another, thus, it is not natural for us to work together and being political (being part of a polis, a city) is a convention (it is not natural).  He argues that we only come to live together by a “social contract,” a practical compromise, thus, justice is a compromise between what we want (to be best) and what we could suffer (injustice).  Thus, the truly strong and powerful would not obey laws, and could get away with not doing so; they only make laws that benefit themselves. 

Now, Socrates must respond!  He begins to give a defense for justice by a thought experiment concerning the ideal city.  He first gives an account of what is later dubbed the “City for Pigs,” that is, a very basic utopic sketch of a city where all our basic needs are satisfied and we all just get along.  Glaucon complains it is too naïve.  So, Socrates recasts his city as the “Luxurious City,” which is more realistic and far more detailed.  The members of his first utopia increase their desires, thus fill out the city with arts and sciences to produce more luxuries.  The increase of desires means that the city needs to develop a military to go to war with neighbors to gain more land and riches.  With these needs, all of the other aspects of the city develop.  This will lead to an unjust society, thus Socrates proposes his plan to purify, to reform this luxurious city into the ideal city.  This leads Socrates to talk about the different sectors of society, what they must be like, and how we best train them, and about what we permit and do not permit in this city to make it the best we can.  This is where our reading in the anthology picks up—Socrates is talking about what the “guardians of the State” (the soldiers) must be like.  How this relates to aesthetics is because the state must educate its people, and especially these rulers, and what they are taught, what they read, what they see, etc. are questions of what arts they are to be beneficially or detrimentally exposed. 

1. Socrates: the ‘star’ of the dialogue, charged with defending justice as good, does so by telling the story of the ideal society (pictured to left);
   

2. Cephalus (old man): the host of the house where the dialogue takes place, he proposes the first ‘definition’ of justice;
   

3. Polemarchus (Cephalus’ son): he proposes a second ‘definition’ of justice;
   

4. Thrasymachus (the sophist): he proposes the bombastic ‘definition’ of justice that it is only for the weak and the strong make ‘justice’ by being unjust;
   

5. Glaucon (Socrates’ friend): agrees with Thrasymachus’ ‘definition’ of justice and argues that we are naturally unjust by telling the story of the ring of Gyges;
   

6. Adeimantus (Glaucon’s brother): agrees with Thrasymachus and furthers Glaucon’s argument by arguing that current society trains the weak to be sheep and the strong to rule them ‘unjustly’ by benefitting themselves.
   

Remember, too, that the readings in our anthology pick up here in Book II with Socrates’ explanations of how we must educate the people of the ideal society, which involve the question of what arts are the youth in this ideal State to be exposed?

B) Summary and Analysis of the Reading Assignment:

1. NOTE: bold green text, below, indicates proposed personal reflection questions for you to consider; these do not require written response, but may help direct your study to the key aesthetic debates prompted by the Republic.
   

Book II (pp.9-16):

Socrates begins by discussing the “education of our heroes,” the soldiers in this ideal city.  He proposes that the education have the two traditional divisions: “gymnastic for the body, and music for the soul” (p.9).  By “music,” he is broadly speaking of the arts, for music involves words, rhythm, and harmony, which parallel the components found in all the arts; the first discussions speak mainly of literature, while the latter move mainly to music, which then shows their parallel to all the arts.  This education in the arts (stories and song) begins before gymnastics (physical training), when the young are very young. 

Consider, in your own opinion, what is the power of stories?  How do they affect us?  Does it matter what kind of stories we hear?  What kinds of stories does our society today tell?  Are they still from Homer, Greek tragedy, the Bible, or is it from movies, television, etc.?

Literature can be “true” or “false,” they decide, roughly meaning non-fiction and fiction.  Because the young are very impressionable, Socrates proposes that they must “establish a censorship of the writers of fictions”—that is, don’t expose the very young to ‘bad’ stories, things inappropriate to their age and tenderness (p.10).  The censorship must be done to keep peoples’ desires conforming to the perfection of their natural abilities (to let people blossom into their virtuous best selves, and not become corrupt). 

The stories that are to be censored are those that contain “A fault which is most serious, … the fault of telling a lie, and, what is more, a bad lie” (p.10).  These “bad lies” include “erroneous representation … of the nature of gods and heroes, --as when a painter paints a portrait not having the shadow of a likeness to the original” (p.11). 

The third paragraph on page 11 offers us an example of via Hesiod’s account of Uranus and Cronus. 

1. This is the creation myth in Hesiod’s Theogony starring Uranus, the primal Greek god of the sky and his mother and wife, Gaia, Mother Earth.  Gaia’s first children, who Uranus hated, were the twelve Titans, the three Hekatonkheires (the 100-armed giants), and the Cyclopes (one-eyed giants).  Uranus imprisoned them deep in the Earth; Gaia commanded her sons to castrate Uranus; her son Cronus obeyed, and did just that.
   

So, Homer and Hesiod, while the greatest of storytellers, must be censored because they tell stories where the gods are in conflict with one another.  The reasoning is that if we tell children about vengeful and warring gods, and gods are our heroes and role models, the children will become vengeful and warring. 

“… these tales must not be admitted into our State, whether they are supposed to have an allegorical meaning or not.  For a young person cannot judge what is allegorical and what is literal; anything that he receives into his mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the takes which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts” (p.11).  What do you think about this?

Adeimantus then asks Socrates about what should be permitted so far as stories go for the youth.  Socrates responds they are not poets themselves, but can outline the form that good stories should take.  “True” and good stories are those that promote truth, wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice (the virtues). 

(image: Ancient (early 6th c.) Greek Volute-krater, a vessel to mix wine and water, attributed to Sophilos.)

So, the model stories tell (pp.12-16):

(1) Gods are good and causes of good: this eliminates the philosophical challenges of theodicy (the questions of why is there evil if God is good?) by arguing that gods do not make bad things happen to people.

(2) Gods do not change: this teaches the youth and society that gods are and remain good.

(3) Gods do not lie or deceive: this differentiates lies “in the soul,” which are “true lies,” and “lies in words,” which may be useful at times, e.g., to confuse the enemy, save a friend, or are hypotheses about what we do not know; lies in the soul are what we must avoid (they corrupt character), whereas lies in words are not always serious—but, gods do not have lies.

(Image: The Armour of Akhilleus, Berlin, ca 490-80 bce)

Book III (pp.16-32):

Book III continues the trajectory of II by outlining the content of stories, what they can and cannot have in them, and then moves to their styles, songs, and then onto physical training and what the rulers will be like. 

(1) The first issue is that the arts must encourage courage. To do this, they must “obliterate many obnoxious passages” that promote lowliness and fear (p.17).  The censorship is “not because they are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater poetical charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death” (p.17). 

(2) Next, they must censor horrible stories of the afterlife that make soldiers afraid (for this may make them cowardly).  Instead, they must promote a beautiful picture of the afterlife that makes a noble death something good for which to strive.  “Reflect: our principle is that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good man who is his comrade” (p.18).  This will keep soldiers from sorrow over the death of their comrades, and also bolster the risk of his/her own death.  So, all the Greek tragedy that shows the profound lamentation over the death of others must be censored. 

(3) Third, they must keep the guardians (soldiers) from excessive laughter.  “For a fit of laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a violent reaction” (p.19).  And, the gods, too, cannot be represented as losing such self-restraint and giving in to fits of laughter. 

(4) Fourth, “truth should be highly valued,” and they must abolish the common telling lies. Lies can be useful like medicine—but, this means that only the “doctors” should be able to (have the knowledge to) use lies to the benefit of the whole.  Lies must be for the public good.  “But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses …” (p.20).  What do you think about this?

(5) Fifth, they must promote temperance: “… the chief elements of temperance [are] speaking generally, obedience to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures” (p.20). 

(6) Sixth, they must not let stories lead the youth to “be receivers of gifts or lovers of money” (p.21).  This would encourage greed.  Greed for money or gifts will lead to a desire for power, and lead to insubordination.  “And therefore let us put an end to such tales, lest they engender laxity of morals among the young” (p.23). 

Thus, they have laid out the conditions of what the poets must not say about the gods.  Now, they must turn to what the poets can and cannot say about humans.  “… poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man’s own loss and another’s gain—these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite” (p.23). 

Consider here how we might see this in our popular culture—think about the glorification of master-mind criminals and gangsters and all the tragedies that show bad things happening to good people.  Can you think of examples? 

But … Socrates says, we cannot pursue this topic further without knowing what justice truly is and how it is naturally advantageous to the just.  So, they will come back to this topic later.  Now, they must move to a consideration of what styles of song/poetry/literature must be permitted and not permitted in their ideal society. 

Styles of song/poetry/literature (pp.23-32):

Mythology and poetry are narrations of events past, present, or futural.  Narration may be simple narration or imitation or a combination of the two. 

Simple narration is when the story-teller speaks in the first person, that is, as him/herself. 

Imitation narration is when the story-teller speaks in the voice of one of his/her characters.

Their Combination is when the story-teller alternates between first person and imitation.

Wholly imitative narration often (or best) takes place in tragedy and comedy.

Simple narration often (or best) takes place in dithyramb.

Their combination often (or best) takes place in the epic and “several other styles of poetry” (p.25). 

Pay close attention to the following text:

1. “[Socrates:] In saying this, I intended to imply that we must come to an understanding about the mimetic art,--whether the poets, in narrating their stories, are to be allowed by us to imitate, and if so, whether in whole or in part, and if the latter, in what parts; or should all imitation be prohibited?
   

2. [Adeimantus:] You mean, I suspect, to ask whether tragedy and comedy shall be admitted into our State?
   

3. [Socrates:] Yes, I said; but there may be more than this in question: I really do not know as yet, but whither the argument may blow, thither we go” (p.25).
   

Mimetic art: art that uses mimesis.

Mimesis: imitation—a derivation of the Greek verb mimeisthai, “to imitate.”  This is imitation especially in the representation or imitation of the real in arts.  For the Greeks (and also widely held today), humans learn mimetically, by imitation (for example, consider a child watching the world around him/her to learn how to speak, how to behave, etc.).  This combines the nature versus nurture debate in the sense that it proposes that, by nature, we are mimetic (we naturally imitate others) and we then become, by nurturing, a product of what we have imitated.  This offers the explanation for the censorship in society—we naturally imitate that to which we are exposed … if our “luxurious city” leads to corruption, and Socrates’ ideal society is built off of a “purification” or “reformation” of this “luxurious city,” a way to purify corruption is to control education, control that to which we are exposed as youth.

So … here, they will consider whether tragedy and comedy, the key styles of story-telling in any of the arts that are primarily mimetic forms (imitative) should be censored. 

1. (As an additional note, consider the very many layers of mimesis going on in the Republic: recall that Plato is the author of this dialogue in which Socrates is recounting the tale of this entire dialogue that had already taken place.  Thus, Plato is “imitating” Socrates as Socrates speaks in the first person present (recounting the whole dialogue), in the first person past (as he spoke during the dialogue’s actual happening), and the third person past (as he recounts what the other participants said).  For these other characters in the dialogue, Plato is imitating Socrates who is imitating the others.  Plato, then, is writing a wholly “imitative narrative” wherein he is imitating Socrates who is imitating himself (“simple narration”) and others (“imitative narrative”), which makes Socrates’ narration, then, a “combination of simple and imitative narratives.”  What do you think of this in light of the following two quotes, below?) 
   

They agree that “… one man can only do one thing well, and not many; and that if he attempt many, he will altogether fail of gaining much reputation in any …” (25).  More specifically, imitation succeeds when it is focused on a single art; “Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well …” (25).  This means that the guardians ought to focus their energies, “… setting aside every other business, [they] are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of the freedom in the State, making this their craft …” (26).  If they are to imitate anything, it should only be good things, good role models that allow them to perfectly fulfill their functions as the guarantors of freedom. “Then he [any guardian] will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and narrative; but there will be very little of the former and a great deal of the latter” (27). 

There are others, though, Socrates adds, who will be the opposite: those who narrate (imitate) anything and everything—and, if this one is unscrupulous, as s/he will likely be, this can be a very worst sort of citizen, and not make for a good guardian.—These, then, are the two styles of speaking: one who does both narration and imitation, but primarily narration, and another who does all imitation.  [They identify these as two styles, here, but keep in mind that there are really three categories of which they are speaking!]

“[Socrates:]And shall we receive into our State all the three styles, or one only of the two unmixed styles? Or would you include the mixed?

[Adeimantus:] I should prefer only to admit the pure imitator of virtue.

[Socrates:] Yes, I said, Adeimantus; but the mixed style is also very charming: and indeed the pantomimic, which is the opposite of the one chosen by you, is them most popular style with children and their attendants, and with the world in general.

[Adeimantus:] I do not deny it.

[Socrates:] But I suppose that you would argue that such a style is unsuitable to our State, in which human nature is not twofold or manifold, for one man plays one part only?

[Adeimantus:] Yes; quite unsuitable” (28).

Thus, because true success comes to the person who concentrates all of his or her energy on perfecting one form alone, the best art to admit in a city where each citizen lives up to his or her best is this style that imitates only virtue.  In this city, we do not want the sneakily seductive styles that corrupt audiences (children, especially); instead, we “mean to employ for our souls’ health the rougher and severer poet or storyteller, who will imitate the style of the virtuous only, and will follow those models which we prescribed at first when we began the education of our soldiers” (28).

This ends the discussions on the music and literary education of the youth as it relates to story and myth. 

(Click the image for a link to hear reproductions of ancient Greek instruments)

Next, they move to the topic of melody and song (28 ff.).

Songs or Odes have three parts:

(1) Words—where there is no difference between those set to music or those without;

(2) Melody—(“harmony”) dependent upon the words;

(3) Rhythm—also dependent upon the words (29).

These three components of music lead Socrates and Adeimantus, first, to discuss HARMONY.  They identify harmonies that are expressive of (1) sorrow, (2) drunkenness and softness, (3) bravery, and (4) peacefulness.  These categories identify which harmonies will be rejected from the ideal state (the first two) and which will be maintained (the last two).

“Harmony,” here, roughly indicates a particular style of music or a tone (tonos, what is later called “mode” and represents the arrangements of pitches in an octive) connected to a Greek subgroup (an ethnic group or peoples in a particular region or district within the Greek empire)—i.e., “harmony” is not just a musical scale, but scale plus rhythm, plus subject matter of the words, plus full register of the music.  In general, what we take from this section is the idea that music greatly affects listeners; it can condition their dispositions in the moment (e.g., an inspiring tune to encourage a solider in a moment of danger) and their characters in full (e.g., to better or corrupt the moral fiber or character of a class of people within society).  The four main harmonies are differentiated by their different ethical characteristics; these characteristics, then, dictate whether certain harmonies should be permitted or rejected from the ideal state.

What do you believe about the affective powers of music?  Does music affect what you think and feel in the moment?  Does it just affect you in the moment, or does it condition who you are as a person?

Socrates claims “Of the harmonies I know nothing,” and thus describes the categories and asks Adeimantus to identify which harmonies relate to them; they decide (29):

(1) The harmonies expressive of sorrow are identified as the mixed or tenor Lydian and full-toned or bass Lydian—these must be banished from the State.

(2) The harmonies expressive of drunkenness and softness are identified as the Ionian and the Lydian—these must be banished, as well.

(3) The harmonies expressive of bravery are identified as the Dorian and the Phrygian—these will be kept.

(4) The harmonies expressive of peacefulness are identified as the Dorian and the Phrygian, as well—and these will be kept.

1. The Lydian: Lydia, from which the name and this “mode” came, was an ancient kingdom in Anatolia; its ethical character was thought to be intimate and lascivious (not in the sense of virility, but emotional softening).  In ancient Greek musical theory, the Lydian denoted a musical scale that formed the medieval Ionian mode and the modern major diatonic scale.
   

2. 
   

3. The Ionian: This harmony is named fro the Ionians (one of the four main ethnic groups in ancient Greece, and one of the two most important politically).
   

4. 
   

5. The Dorian: This is the harmony named for the Dorian Greeks (one of the four main ethnic groups in ancient Greece, and one of the two most important politically), who were a large and diverse group occupying multiple different states, but also strongly loyal to one another, especially in aiding one another during wars or other aggressions.  Its ethical characteristics were thought to be strength and virility.  This harmony formed what we know as the third Church mode; it is the model of medieval chant, and not the same as the modern Dorian mode. 
   

6. 
   

7. The Phrygian: From the kingdom of Phrygia in the mountainous areas of Anatolia, which was said to be wild, its people ecstatically free.  The harmony’s ethical characteristic was said to be overly emotional to the point of euphoria.  This “scale” formed what we know as medieval and modern Dorian mode or the first Church mode.
   

8. 
   

The conclusion concerning harmony, to repeat, is that the ideal state will permit only the Dorian and Phrygian harmonies, those which give courage and inspire bravery, on the one hand, and promote peace and freedom described as prudent, moderate, and wise (29).

Socrates and Adeimantus then turn to RHYTHM (30). 

Rhythm must follow the same rules as they laid down for harmony: those rhythms that will be permitted and promoted in the ideal state are those that cultivate “a courageous and harmonious life” (30).  Socrates and Adeimantus both claim to not know enough about the categorizations of rhythm (although mention that there are three principles from which rhythms are formed and that some of these types include the Cretic, dactylic, iambic, and trochaic rhythms), and say that for these details they must consult Damon, someone Socrates suggests as wise in musical matters (scholars suggest Damon strongly influenced Plato’s views on music, was a teacher of education, and Plutarch identifies him as the inventor of the “relaxed Lydian mode” (de Mus. 16)).

The critical importance of rhythm can be seen by the following extracts from two of Socrates’ mostly rhetorical questions to Adeimantus:

1. -- “… grace or the absence of grace is an effect of good or bad rhythm …” (31);
   

2. 
   

3. -- “… good and bad rhythm naturally assimilate to a good and bad style …” (31).
   

HARMONY, RHYTHM, and WORDS:

Socrates and Adeimantus then discuss the final component of songs (words/song lyrics) by elucidating the hierarchical interrelation of all three components (words, harmony, and rhythm).  The interaction can be sketched as follows:

Words (logos):

Give the concept, idea, reason, and story for the song,

thus, the words are the regulating principle for the creation of song

(i.e., the words dictate what harmony and rhythm are chosen for the song, e.g., you would not set lyrics about your sorrow over a lover’s death to a waltz, which has a triple meter beat and joyful dance harmony).

Rhythm:

Follows in accord to the words,

and gives the song grace or the absence of grace,

and gives the style for the song

Harmony:

Follows in accord to the style (which follows from the words),

and gives the harmony or disharmony for the song

Thus, the hierarchy of the components of song descends from words to rhythm to harmony.  However, while the words of song are the regulating principle for the creation of song, the audible structure of music, the harmony and rhythm, follow in accord to the words and give music the other two thirds of its affective power.  Thus, in addition to there being a hierarchy, there is also interrelation between these components: all three are critically important in music.

(image: a reproduction of the ancient Greek Kithara instrument)

This discussion about the relation between words, rhythm, and harmony shows how:

(1) the requirements for music parallel the requirements for all other arts,

1. “And surely the art of the painter and every other creative and constructive art are full of them,—weaving embroidery, architecture, and every kind of manufacture; also nature, animal, and vegetable,—in all of them there is grace or the absence of grace.  And ugliness and discord and inharmonious motion are nearly aligned to ill words and ill nature, as grace and harmony are the twin sisters of goodness and virtue and bear their likeness” (31).
   

2. 
   

3. “… the same control [is] to be extended to other artists … in sculpture and building and the other creative arts …” (31).
   

(2) how music relates to character (the nature of one’s soul), and, thus,

1. “… the words and the character of the style depend on the temper of the soul” (31).
   

1. “Then beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on simplicity,—I mean the true simplicity of a rightly and nobly ordered mind and character, not that other simplicity which is only an euphemism for folly” (31).  (It may be helpful to read “simplicity” as “the right and perfect order.”)
   

(3) the importance of music in education and the ideal state itself. 

1. “But shall our superintendence go no further, and are the poets only to be required by us to express the image of the good in their works, on pain, if they do anything else, of expulsion from our State?  Or is the same control to be extended to other artists, and are they also to be prohibited from exhibiting the opposite forms of vice and intemperance and meanness and indecency in sculpture and building and the other creative arts; and is he who cannot conform to this rule of ours to be prevented from practicing his art in our State, lest the taste of our citizens be corrupted by him?  We would not have our guardians grown up amid images of moral deformity … until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own soul.  Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of the beautiful and graceful; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds, and receive the good in everything ….  There can be no nobler training than that …” (31-2).
   

1. “… musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; … [with] this true education of the inner being … [one] becomes noble and good … and when reason comes he will recognize and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar” (32).
   

This ends our selection of Book III in the anthology.

Book X (pp.32-44):

Socrates begins by reaffirming the correctness of their earlier command that imitative poetry must be banned from the ideal state.  The reaffirmation comes because, he says, he now has a far better understanding of the nature of the soul. 

1. The Soul: a tripartite model composed of the appetitive (desiring), the spirited (controlling behavior), and the rational (logos); the well-ordered soul is where the rational part controls the lower two parts and makes them desire and act correctly; the disordered soul is where the appetitive parts upsets the order, takes control, leads one to act rashly and reason to be a slave only to justify disordered action and impulses.  {{Click here for more on the tripartite soul}}
   

To clarify why he is reaffirming the correctness of the ban against imitative poetry, Socrates and Adeimantus seek to clarify mimesis (imitation).

This discussion demands an explanation of Plato’s Theory of Forms (aka Ideas). 

1. To simplify: think of all the many types of tables you can imagine (round ones,

   

   square ones, rectangular ones, tall ones, short ones, coffee tables, dining tables, three-legged ones, four-legged ones, etc.); you know all of these to be tables, even if any two may look wholly different.  You know them, nevertheless, to both be tables because you have an “IDEA” of “TABLE,” which is broad enough to include many different species of tables. 

   

   This “idea” or “form” is like the genus, which includes diverse species, or a definition which includes diverse instantiations or examples.  So, if you are a carpenter about to make a table, you recall the idea or form of table to use as a model to guide your building of an actual table.  You, as the carpenter may make a table, but you do not make the idea of a table--the idea is something that all have access to.  {{Click HERE for more on Plato’s Forms}}
   

Now, to move to imitation, Socrates proposes the idea of an “artist” who holds up a mirror and turns about … via the mirror, this artist “creates” all that he captures by reflection.  But, these “creations” “would be appearances only” (33); this artist is “a creator of appearances” (33).  Socrates proposes that in one sense, we would say all of these creations are untrue, but in another sense, they are true.  So, a painting of a table both IS and IS NOT a table. 

1. To understand what is meant by “truth,” Socrates connects this true/untrue dichotomy to an exists/does-not-exist dichotomy.  This means that the artist with the mirror, the creator of appearances, creates what does not have actual existence in the same way the carpenter’s table has existence. 
   

1. (1) One exists in nature as made by God (He who makes all that is, the supreme creator who creates the ideas/forms of all that is);
   

2. (2) Another exists as made by the carpenter;
   

3. (3) And the third appears as made by the painter. 
   

Image: Vincent Van Gogh, “Bedroom in Arles,” 1888

They determine the first two artists (God and the carpenter) “creators and makers,” but not the painter, instead, the painter is deemed “the imitator of that which the others make” (35).  So, “you call him who is third in the descent from nature an imitator” (35). 

So, the carpenter ‘imitates’ the ideas/forms that God creates and the painter ‘imitates’ the examples made by the carpenter, which were modeled upon the ideas/forms made by God.  The painters, then, (or poets or any other imitative art) copy the copies of ideas: they are the third degree from the truth of the idea itself.  Now, how the painters imitate is important: do they copy the thing itself, or the thing as it appears? 

1. 
   

2. “I mean, they you may look at a bed from different points of view, obliquely or directly or from any other point of view, and the bed will appear different, but there is no difference in reality.  And the same of all things” (35). 
   

In other words, how contemporary phenomenologists speak of this is through the idea of “horizons.”  Anything has many different horizons, i.e., many different facets that make up the whole.  You can walk around the table, looking at it, and see every new step around reveals a different facet or horizon of the table (on this side, you see only two legs, two sides, and part of the top, move over, and you see three legs, another angle, etc.).  All viewing is perspectival: made up of one perspective.  Yet, you can ‘fill in’ all the other perspectives by walking around and ‘adding up’ the facets altogether, or, just use your reason (made up of both experience and rational deduction) to know that even if you are just seeing this one perspective, what the table is in itself is the whole. 

So, a carpenter makes something in itself, but the painter paints the appearance of a thing:

1. “Which is the art of painting designed to be—an imitation of things as they are, or as they appear—of appearance or reality?  Of appearance.  Then the imitator, I said, is a long way off the truth, and can do all things because he lightly touches on a small part of them, and that part an image.  For example: A painter will paint a cobbler, carpenter, or any other artist, though he knows nothing of their arts; and, if he is a good artist, he may deceive children or simple persons, when he shows them his picture of a carpenter from a distance, and they will fancy that they are looking at a real carpenter” (35). 
   

The simple person deceived parallels the person who says that the poet or tragedian who creates must have captured the truth itself: both are deceived by illusion.  So, the imitative artist can create while having absolutely no knowledge of the truth of the thing they are representing, and yet fool the people into thinking that this artist knows the truth.  Here is the danger of the imitative arts. 

If we thought that Homer (or any other imitative artist) knew the truth of what they represent, and asked him to counsel us on it, the ‘knowledge’ he would give would be partial or simply wrong.  Imagine, for instance, asking a painter who paints skyscrapers how to build one … would you want to follow his insight on matters of construction, or the insight given by a structural engineer? 

1. “In like manner the poet with his words and phrases may be said to lay on the colors of the several arts, himself understanding their nature only enough to imitate them; and other people, who are as ignorant as he is, and judge only from his words, imagine that if he speaks of cobbling, or of military tactics, or of anything else, in metre and harmony and rhythm, he speaks very well--such is the sweet influence which melody and rhythm by nature have.  And I think that you must have observed again and again what a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colors which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose” (37). 
   

Socrates moves the discussion further by an example of a painter painting the reins and bit of a horse harness and a craftsman who actually makes the reins and bits.  Only the latter knows the actual correct way to make the thing itself.  “And may we not say the same of all things?” (38). 

Thus: “there are three arts which are concerned with all things: one which uses, another which makes, a third which imitates them” (38). 

The “user” must have the greatest degree of experience of the thing made.  “The flute-player will tell the flute-maker which of his flutes is satisfactory to the performer; he will tell him how he ought to make them, and the other will attend to his instructions” (38).  The imitator, however, for example, the painter who paints a flute, has the least expertise on the thing itself, the flute.  The painter, then, has the least true opinion in the matter of flutes.  And, thus it is in all things.  “… imitation has been shown by us to be concerned with that which is thrice removed from the truth” (39).

“And what is the faculty in man to which imitation is addressed?” (39).  This question leads us to the initial claim about affirming the correctness of the rejection of imitative artists from the ideal state due to a better understanding of the nature of the soul.  In other words, does the painting appeal to the sensory or to the rational?  Our senses can easily be tricked, and lead us to confusion; our minds calculate and discern the truth and can lead us to knowledge.  So, imitation appeals to the senses, the lower parts of the soul.  If it seduces these, and lead these parts to guide our action and thought, then we will have a disordered soul.  The imitative artist seeks to appeal to the lowest parts of the soul to be successful (i.e., the movie or play seeks to deeply upset us to be judged “good,” but, in a well-ordered society, do we want to make everyone feel anguished and sorrowful, which may lead us to bad actions?).

1. “[the painter and poet, or any imitative artist is] concerned with an inferior part of the soul; and therefore we shall be right in refusing to admit him into a well-ordered State, because he awakens and nourishes and strengthens the feelings and impairs the reason. … the imitative poet implants an evil constitution, for he indulges the irrational nature which has no discernment of greater and less … he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed from the true” (42).
   

The greatest danger, however, is that the imitative arts inculcate us in this weakness of reason.  “The power which poetry has of harming even the good (and there are very few who are not harmed)” (42).  Though we may not acknowledge it, we are given license by these arts to follow the base parts of our souls.  When we see or hear of the victims in art giving full way to weeping and intemperate behavior, when we find ourselves victim to sorrow, we feel some license that it is okay to be intemperate ourselves; when we see comedies with lewd and wretched jests, we may never think we would reduce ourselves to that level, but, perhaps in private, we crack the same jokes; when we see lust or anger unleashed, we may feel more inclined that this is okay to do.  “Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves” (43). 

1. What do you think of this?  Do you believe that exposure to imitative arts corrupts the order of your soul (your good character or moral behavior) by inculcating you to a sense of normalcy of irrational responses or by granting you a sense of free license that it is okay to be melodramatic or intemperate or crass or lustful or angry, etc.?  Can you, for example, always watch violent movies, but never become violent?  Can you indulge in exploitative arts, but never exploit or condone this in everyday life?  
   

Thus, while we do not diminish the truth of Homer’s brilliance, we still judge that he is not to be permitted in our ideal State.  We will permit all the imitative arts to defend themselves, and permit them to enter our city, but only if they can prove through reason that they will not corrupt or promise to convert their arts to forms that only promote the good, and not the evil.  

This ends our selection of Book X, and all of the selections from the Republic in our anthology.  Below, you will find discussion post prompts.

III) Discussion Post Prompts:

On Blackboard, thoughtfully and thoroughly engage any one set of the three discussion prompt options below:  Due Friday, July 11:

(1) As Tolstoy clearly demonstrates, the definition of art is inextricable from feeling (emotion): emotion is experienced in the artist, who thereby communicates it to us through his/her art.  Plato is clearly wary of feelings—he recognizes how dangerous they can be.  Instead, he upholds the “Forms” (aka “Ideas,” the truth of something in itself that is accessible through reason alone) as the better, higher, righter goal we ought to seek.  Do you agree that art (the emotional) and truth (the rational) are two different pursuits?  When is art better?  When is truth better?  Can art ever be true?  Can truth ever be artistic/aesthetic?   

(2) Plato’s Republic expresses the typical Greek view that we are naturally mimetic (i.e., we naturally imitate things, this is how we learn), and therefore, to create the ideal society, we must censor what art children are exposed to so that they will grow up to be virtuous.  Discuss whether you think we are naturally mimetic or not, and whether you agree that to make the ideal society, there should be censorship.  What are some examples of things our society has censored (or does censor)?  Is this censorship right/just? 

(3) Would Tolstoy consider something art if the artist created it to be expressive of his/her feeling of fear, yet it aroused in viewers the feeling of hilarity?  If not, is it the artist’s fault, or the fault of the viewers for ‘not getting it?’  Can you come up with examples of “art” that seem to fail?  Are they, for you, still art?