Plato's Age and Works

His age and works: Plato’s birth date is generally tracked down at 427 B. C. but he certainly died in 348 B. C. He was the most celebrated disciples of Socrates, the famous Greek master. His age glorified literature and Athenian art. While the previous age was on creative activity, Plato’s age was of critical inquiry and analysis. His chief interest was philosophical investigations and this is seen more particularly in his works, Ion, Cratylus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Symposium, Republic, Phaedrus, Philebus, and Laws. Plato’s criticism: Plato considered literature intimately bound up with the Theory of Ideas. Ideas mean the ultimate reality he says in his Republic. Art such as literature, paintings, sculptures are nothing but the reproduction of mere pastime, i.e. it copies a copy and so it’s twice removed from reality. Art takes men away from reality rather than taking them towards. According to Plato the two major things of human endeavours are moulding of character and promoting the well-being of the state, he considers neither of them got help with art. Though he does not deny the fact that if art is purely pursued one can learn a love for beauty which he questions, who does it? Plato specifically attacks poetry and drama, the two most celebrated and existed forms of literature during his age.

His attack on Poetry Source:

English Literary Criticism: An Introduction by Charles Edwyn Vaughan

An Introduction to English Criticism by B. Prasad