Translation Studies: A Bibliography

Translation Studies: A Bibliography

Bassnett, Susan, and Harish Trivedi, eds. Post-colonial Translation: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 1999.

Bassnett, Susan. Translation Studies, London: Routledge, 1991.

Das, Bijay Kumar. The Horizon of Translation. New Delhi: Atlantic, 1998.

Gupta, R.S., ed. Literary Translation. New Delhi: Creative Books, 1999.

Kothari, Rita. Translating India. Rev. ed. New Delhi: Foundation Books, 2006

Mukherjee, Sujit. Translation as Recovery. Delhi: Pencraft, 2004.

Mukherjee, Tutun, ed. Translation: From Periphery to Centrestage. New Delhi: Prestige, 1998.

Munday, Jeremy. Introducing Translation Studies : Theories and Applications. London/New York: Routledge, 2001.

Nida, Eugene A. The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1982.

Nida, Eugene A. Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1964

Nirajana, Tejaswini. Siting Translation: History, Post-structuralism, and the Colonial Context. Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1992.

Picken, Catriona, ed. The Translator’s Handbook. 2^nd ed. London: Aslib, 1989.

Ramakrishan, Shantha.Translation and Multilingualism: Post-Colonial Contexts. Delhi: Pencraft, 1997.

Ramakrishna, Shantha., ed. Translation and Multilingualism. Delhi: Pencraft, 1997.

Shunmugom, C., and C. Sivashanmugan. Translation: New Dimensions. Coimbatore: Bhrathiar University, 2004.

Talgeri, Pramod, and S.B. Verma, eds. Literature in Translation: From Cultural Transference to Metonymic Displacement. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1988.

Toury, Gideon. Translation Across Cultures. New Delhi: Behri, 1987.

Venuti, Lawrence, ed. The Translation Studies Reader. London: Routledge, 2001.

Vinoda, T., and V. Gopala Reddy, eds. Studies in Translation: Theory and Practice. New Delhi: Prestige, 2000.

Note: The visitors/readers of this blog are welcome to add to the bibliography in the comment section below

Digital Natives: Participation and Pedagogy - A Talk

A talk on "Digital Natives: Participation and Pedagogy"

Date: 27th August (4:00 PM-6:00 PM) and 29th August (2:00 PM-4:00 PM)

Venue: Christ University, Auditorium Block, 2nd Floor, Room No. 915

On the Talk

The two part talk by Nishant Shah explores the location of the Digital Natives in classrooms in higher education. As increasingly, the forms of information access and dissemination change, young students in classrooms are also developing newer forms of learning and education practices. The first session explores the possibilities and potentials of these new technologised conditions of learning, looking at popular spaces of cyberspatial engagement like social networking systems, peer 2 peer networks etc. The second part of the talk posits that the digital natives are not only a part of the changing academic and classroom practices but are also reconfiguring the notions of political engagement and social transformation. Focusing on digital objects which are otherwise relegated to the realms of ‘merely cultural’ or ‘trivial’, the talk explores the changing nature of the public and the political and the way the young users of technology are changing the world we live in.

The Speaker

Nishant Shah (Director - Research) has done his Ph.D. doctoral work from the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society, Bangalore. He has worked diversely as an information architect with companies as diverse as Yahoo, Partecs, and Khoj Studios, looking at questions of digital communities, identities and cultural productions online. He was a Research Analyst for Comat Technologies, working on issues of e-governance, design and accessibility. Nishant has designed and taught several courses and workshops on the aesthetics and Politics of New Digital Media, for undergraduate and graduate level students from various reputed academic institutions likeChrist College (Bangalore), CSCS (Bangalore), St. Joseph’s College (Bangalore), Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA), Women’s Studies Centre (Pune University), University of Tempare (Finland), Washington University (Seattle), and New School (New York). He has presented his work in various international and national conferences and workshops, and has published in peer-reviewed academic journals. like the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies and theEuropean Journal of English Studies. In 2006-2007, he was invited as a visiting scholar at theNational Central University, Taiwan, where he bolstered his interests in comparative work across Asia. A recipient of research grant from the Asia Scholarship Foundation (2008-2009), Nishant’s further research attempts a comparative study of Information Society in India and other developing Asian countries. His other interests are in areas of creative translation, mechanics of writing, and gender and sexuality.

The Procedure for Writing a Research Paper

1. Look for the books and articles that are related to the topic

a) Primary Sources:

i) Concept

ii) Work done as historical survey in the area. Papers in Research Journals have recapitulation of the historical developments which saves you time

iii) Primary Text: Look for authentic texts, Look for the publishers

Times of India or wikipaedia are not authentic sources

b) Secondary sources: Look also to secondary sources. People who have explained the concepts of the key, original authors.

2. Where to look for books:

a) Library

i) Library usage: Find the library classification number of your interested area or areas.

ii) One must know the classification of language. E.g. Derrida may be found in Linguistics, not in philosophy

iii) Go to OPAC, use key word searches and other options. (some libraries give the content page also in the search programmes

iv) Look at journals. Well researched journals will have articles of about 20 pages. In the first five or six you will have the review of the literature in the field.

v) Then go to the bibliography of these articles

vi) Do not reinvent the wheel. So build on what others have established.

Question:

How to distinguish a good article from a bad one?

1. Look at the bibliography

2. You know them intuitively. Gadamer, Heidegger and the like tell us that we have a prereflective knowledge. Even so you will know an article for its worth when we read it.

3. The clarity of thought, is one way to look at the worth of the article

3. Make a list of all the articles and books you will have to read.

4. Start collecting them

5. Read them

6. Write or key in as you read. Do not think of writing from Alpha to Omega at one go.

7. When you write, see that complete citation is given at the time of writing. If you postpone this you waste time.

Annual of Urdu Studies

Link to Annaul of Urdu Studies http://www.urdustudies.com/index.html

Post-structuralism

Three ideas dropped with the world “Post” were:-
1. 'Post' represented time which meant after
For example – India after independence is post-independent India.
2. 'Post' represented the idea itself.
For example – Raja Rao, R K Naranyan are looked at as post colonial writers but most of their post colonial writing stated in the pre-independent era itself (1930s).
3. Result of experience – represented the unconscious shift in ideas.

For example – Post globalisatuib could be used to suggest a state created due to the experience of globalisation

1942 the issue was termed as Babri Masjid.
1990 the same issue was termed as Ram Janmabhuma.
Now it’s known as the disputed site issue.

Ideas in sciences cease to exist once proved wrong. This does not happen in Social scines and humanities. The ideas of Plato, Shakespeare and various thinkers continue to exist.

Post-Structuralism has borrowed ideas from early philosophers like Nietzsche. Thus in a way post-structuralism started even before structuralism. The new thinking in philosophy, sociology and literature in the works of Jacques Derrida, Ronald Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault gave a new dimension in the study of post-structuralism.

The relation between post-structuralism and post-modernism is similar but the two are not the same. Post-structuralism is the theory of reading and analysis, thus there can never be post-structuralist poetry, post-structuralist play or a post-structuralist painting. On the other hand post-modernism is concerned with the practicality of theory or the theory of doing. Post-modernism unlike post-structuralism can have a post modern architecture, post modern painting, or a post modern novel. Post-structuralism and post modernism does not have a certain standard to measure anything therefore challenging the "center". Nietzsche’s famous remarks, “There are no facts, only interpretation” undercuts and questions commonsensical questions and assumptions. Post-structuralism inherits the habit of skepticism and intensifies it. They distrust the very notion of reason and the idea of human being as an independent entity where by defining and individual as an entity of social and linguistic intermingling.

Documentaries

A website of online documentary films http://www.cultureunplugged.com/

Trailer of the filme Love Kichdi. Click here to view.

On Interpretation in Literature

Notes by Rini Thomas, I MA English on Hermeneutics

IDEA OF INTERPRETATION

HERMENEUTICS: Science of interpretation

HERMEON: Greek messenger whose task was to go to heaven, take God’s message and to give it to the people on earth by interpreting it to them.

INTERPRETATION:

1. Understanding what the text is exactly saying.
2. Try to understand what the author means.
3. What it means in our context.

HEIDEGGER: Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher of 20^th century. He was a nazi. Theory of interpretation is taken from Heidegger philosopher. In philosophy, he is called phenomenologist. Phenomenologist believed in existence.

EDMUND HUSSURL: He was the professor of Heidegger. He began the idea of phenomenology.

HANS-GEORGE GADAMER: Heidegger’s student. He develops Hermeneutics through Heidegger’s idea. Gadamber said, “not all our knowledge is conceptual”.

PRE REFLEXIVE KNOWLEDGE: When you reflect and come to conclusion it’s called reflexive. Pre reflexive knowledge means before reflexive knowledge.

CONCEPTUAL KNOWLEDGE: Theorization

CONFLICT:

1. Scientific knowledge
2. Conceptual knowledge

REFERENCE BOOKS:

HEIDEGGER FOR BEGINNERS (UG STOCK: PHILOSOPHY SECTION)

INTERPRETATIONS (BOOK BY Joseph Dorairaj) TALKS ABOUT MYTH AND LITERATURE

LECTURES ON HEIDEGGER CAN BE FOUND IN CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITY WEBSITE

Pilgrims and Puritans: Calvinism comes to 17th Century America

Levi-strauss on Oedipus Rex

The structuralist approach cannot be understood in isolation rather they have to be seen in the context of a larger structure. This approach takes us further and further away from the text and into the large and comparatively abstract question of genre history and philosophy. There is a constant movement away from the interpretation of the individual literary work and a parallel drive towards the understanding of the larger structure.

Claude Levi-Strauss applied structuralist outlook in to the interpretation of myth. He looked at myth as an interaction between linguistics anthropology and literary criticism. Anything could happen in a myth there is no logic, no continuity. But there is a profound similarity in myths collected in different regions throughout the world. Early students of language and ancient Greek philosophers did not go beyond the use of words, they associated definite sounds with definite meanings. Modern linguistics like Saussure discovered the relation between the units of sounds. For instance Carl Jung studied myths historically wherein he tried to find the meaning in the basic units of myths construction.

Synchronic is the basic structure in language like grammar which is also the unchanging element in the study of myth. The diachronic elements are the changes in the sequence of words which is placed within the larger structure. Levi-Strauss proposed that the basic elements of myths are not isolated relations but bundles of such relations. Thus to understand myths one has to pay close attention to the various relations within between and among stories. He suggested that the individual tale ( the Parole) from a cycle of myth did not have a separate and inherent meaning but could only be understood by considering its position to the whole cycle.

In his analysis of Oedipus myth, he placed the individual story of Oedipus within the context of the whole cycle of tales connected with the city of Thebes. He then began to see repeated motifs and contrasts and he used these as a basis of interpretation. Concrete details from the Oedipus myth can be seen as a part of a larger structure and the larger structure is seen as an overall network of symbolic, thematic and archetypal resonance.

Levi- Strauss explains the origin of human life and highlights the binary between myths and human knowledge. The structuralist accept that the world is constructed through language and we do not have access to reality other than through linguistics medium. For the structuralist culture can be read like a language since culture is made up of many networks and they tend to operate in a systematic way.

Literary Theory and Criticism links to blogpost for III yr PSEng/FEP/JPEng

Folowing are the links to various blogposts related to III BA Optional English Literary Theory and Criticism course. Please click on the respective topics to access/download the posts.

1. What is Literature?

2. Rise of English

3. Intentional Fallacy

4. Historical-Biographical Approach

5. Levi-strauss on Oedipus Rex

All the best

International Conference on Socio-Cultural Approaches to Translation: Indian and European Perspectives

International Conference

“Socio-Cultural Approaches to Translation:

Indian and European Perspectives”

10 -12 February, 2010

University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Background

In recent times translation has taken on a more central role in societies, whether in India or in the rest of the world. Far from being considered as a linguistic activity only it is now seen as bridging, and sometimes broadening, gaps between different cultures. In Translation Studies, its socio-cultural dimension has been taken into account. It has been shown translation may bring new inputs into local cultures to the extent that it may even reshape them. It may develop national cultures to the detriment of more regional ones, or the reverse, or also play ambivalent roles. In contexts where many languages coexist, its role as a vehicle for mediation and communication is sometimes questioned as it may elevate one language to a higher status while downplaying the others. It may reinforce jingoism or enculturation, prejudices or awareness of differences. In other words translation modifies, or preserves, the perception of the other. Hence, translating as an activity and translation as the result of this activity are inseparable from the concept of culture.

From this viewpoint words are not taken for themselves but for their communicative functions. Translation methods and strategies, different linguistic systems and their constraints in terms of meaning and construction, worldviews, etc. are still analyzed, but in so far as they reveal and contribute to a particular case of intercultural communication.

Besides, translations never only affect words. Texts do not appear on their own but accompany or are accompanied by pre-textual elements such as book covers, figures, diagrams, colour, real products, etc. so that translation studies should analyze translations in their overall environments. As can be seen, the concept of translation that is developed here is all-embracing. Is translation only an inter-linguistic process or does it also constitutes an inter-semiotic activity across cultures and languages?

The time has now come to analyze and estimate the socio-cultural value of translation in terms of its contribution to the receiving cultures, and also the translated cultures at times. One of the possibilities to understand a culture is to learn its language(s) and the sign systems operating within it. Another complementary one is to study what parts of it are preserved in translating. Besides being a daily activity, translation is thus a means for understanding and maybe improving inter-linguistic, inter-semiotic and intercultural communication. The question whether cultural synthesis can be achieved deserves attention.

Aim of the conference: This international conference would like to bring together Indian and non-Indian perspectives on translation with a view to setting up a platform for discussion, comparison and long-term collaboration. It aims to analyze how different cultures interact and interfere with one another through translation.

Venue: Centre for Study of Foreign Languages, School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India.

Hyderabad is the capital city of Andhra Pradesh and is served by an international airport.

Organizers

Prof. J. PRABHAKARA RAO, Coordinator, Centre for Study of Foreign Languages, School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad-500 046, INDIA.

Email: pjandhyala1@gmail.com

Prof. Jean PEETERS, Université de Bretagne-Sud, 4, rue Jean Zay, BP 92 116 , 56 321 Lorient Cédex, FRANCE.

Email: jean.peeters@univ-ubs.fr

Scientific committee

Prof. J. PRABHAKARA RAO, University of Hyderabad, India.

Prof. Pramod Talgeri, Vice-President, Inter-Disciplinary University, Pune

Prof. B.R. Bapuji, CALTS, University of Hyderabad, India

Prof. Jean PEETERS, Université de Bretagne-Sud, France.

Prof. Michel BALLARD, Université d’Artois, France

Prof. Teresa TOMASZKIEWICZ, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland.

Participants

Scholars in the fields of Translation Studies, Cultural Studies, Sociolinguistics, Languages, Indology or with an interest in Intercultural Communication.

Working language: English

Hospitality: The hosting Institution, i.e. Centre for Study of Foreign Languages, University of Hyderabad will provide local hospitality to participants.

Registration fee: Indians: Rs.1,000/-, Non-Indians: Rs.2,000/-

Paper Proposals

The conference encourages paper proposals in relation with the above-mentioned theme.

The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 31^st October, 2009. Participants intending to give a paper should email an abstract of 600 words maximum as an attached file (MSWord format or RTF) to pjandhyala1@gmail.com and jean.peeters@univ-ubs.fr.

The maximum number of papers is 20 (10 Indian and 10 non Indian). The proposals will be assessed by the scientific committee on the basis of their relevance to the conference’s topic.

The scientific committee will return its decision by 30^th November, 2009.

Paper duration

The papers should be no longer than 25 minute and will be followed by 10 minutes for discussion.

Publication

A selection of papers will be published.

*****

Plato's Mimesis

(Class Note – 25th July, 09)

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Plato claims that poetry is very far removed from the truth and hence should be banned from his ideal state. The best known locus for this dramatic gesture is the Socratic dialogue Republic. Socrates, the main character, engages other characters (such as Adeimantus and Glaucon for instance) in discussions regarding moral and philosophical problems.

In the tenth and last book, Plato has Socrates (engaged in a dialogue with Glaucon) reach the conclusion that “we can admit no poetry into our city save only hymns to the gods and the praises of good men.” The reasons poets cannot be accepted into the ideal community are both epistemological and moral, but whatever the reason, they have a word in common: mimesis. Poetry delivers a poor and unreliable knowledge since it is an imitation of another imitation. It is far removed from the truth. The philosopher comes closest to first-hand knowledge of real reality: he can see the form or ideas, or ideal form of things and can therefore disregard imitations.

He begins his justification by illustrating what a true form is. This is popularly understood as platonic realism. The articulation of realism is found in his Republic. It refers to the idea of realism regarding the existence of universals.

Universals were considered ideal forms by Plato. In Platonic realism, universals do not exist in the way that ordinary physical objects exist, but were thought to have a sort of ghostly or heavenly mode of existence; metaphysical existence if you will. It holds that they exist in a broad, abstract sense. Thus, people cannot see or otherwise come into sensory contact with universals, but in order to conceive of universals, one must be able to conceive of these abstract forms. One need not attribute material existence to universals, but merely understand that they are. This is the truest form of anything; the truest form of existence or reality; a sort of metaphysical reality.

One type of universal defined by Plato is the Form or Idea. Although some versions of Platonic realism regard Plato's Forms as Ideas in the mind of God, most take Forms not to be mental entities at all, but rather archetypes (original models) of which particular objects, properties, and relations are copies. Due to the potential confusion of the term idea, philosophers usually use the terms "Form", "Platonic Form", or "Universal".

Forms (or Ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. The Forms are the only true objects of study that can provide us with genuine knowledge.

Forms are related to Particulars (instances of objects and properties), where a Particular is regarded as a copy of its form. For example, a particular tree is said to be a copy of the form of Treeness and the tree’s green color is an instance of the form of Greeness.

There are some forms that are not instantiated (abstractly represented by a tangible example) at all, but, he contends, that does not imply that the forms could not be instantiated. Forms are capable of being instantiated by many different particulars, which would result in the forms' having many copies, or being an innate part of many particulars. The Form is a distinct singular thing but causes plural representations of itself in particular objects. Hence you have the Form ‘Treeness’ and many trees (the Particulars of the Form) existing as proof of this Form.

This Platonic reality can thus mean that universals exist independently of particulars (A universal, as we’ve seen from above, is anything that can be predicated of a particular).

These Forms are the essences of various objects: they are that without which a thing would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless tables in the world but the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them.

A Form is aspatial (outside the world) and atemporal (outside time). A Form is an objective "blueprint" of perfection. The Forms are perfect themselves because they are unchanging. For example, say we have a triangle drawn on a blackboard. A triangle is a polygon with 3 sides. The triangle as it is on the blackboard is far from perfect. However, it is only the intelligibility of the Form "triangle" that allows us to know the drawing on the chalkboard is a triangle, and the Form "triangle" is perfect and unchanging. It is exactly the same whenever anyone chooses to consider it; however, the time is that of the observer and not of the triangle.

Plato held that the world of Forms (the metaphysical world) is separate from our own world (the world of substances) and also is the true basis of reality. Removed from matter, Forms are the most pure of all things. Furthermore, Plato believed that true knowledge/intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms with one's mind.

The imitation or representation of this true basis of reality of Forms is what is called mimesis.

In developing this in Book X, Plato tells of Socrates' metaphor of the three beds: one bed exists as an Idea/Form made by god (the Platonic ideal/reality); one is made by the carpenter, in imitation of god's idea; one is made by the artist in imitation of the carpenter's.

In simpler words, first there’s the metaphysical world (Ideas/Forms/Real reality); then the world of appearances (world of ‘becoming’/Particulars) and then the world of imitation (Mimesis). It’s this mimetic world that Plato has a problem with. He wants to make a distinction between truth and falsity, right and wrong.

The bed produced by the carpenter is a reproduction of the original (Platonic Idea/ Form) bed (mimesis through imitation), whereas the artist reproduces the carpenter’s copy (mimesis through representation). So the artist's bed is twice removed from the truth. The copier’s only touch on a small part of things as they really are, where a bed may appear differently from various points of view, looked at obliquely or directly, or differently again in a mirror. So painters or poets, though they may paint or describe a carpenter or any other maker of things, know nothing of the carpenter's (the craftsman's) art, and though the better painters or poets they are, the more faithfully their works of art will resemble the reality of the carpenter making a bed, nonetheless the imitators will still not attain the truth (of god's creation).

As culture in those days did not consist in the solitary reading of books, but in the listening to performances, the recitals of orators (and poets), or the acting out by classical actors of tragedy, Plato maintained in his critique that theatre and poetry were not sufficient in conveying the truth. He was concerned that actors or orators were thus able to persuade an audience by rhetoric rather than by telling the truth. In the Republic (book X), through Socratic dialogue he warns that poetry should not be regarded as capable of attaining the truth and that we should be on our guard against its seductions, as the poet is very far removed from the concept of truth.

The symbolic target of his attack is Homer. Although, according to Plato, many of his contemporaries thought that Homer knew all technical skills, all human affairs concerned with good and bad and all about the gods as well (598d,e), Plato argued that Homer was a mere imitator of human behavior and did not possess, at least as far as one can tell from his poetry, any expert knowledge. Unsophisticated people, hearing Homer’s poetry recited, think that he is imparting knowledge “because they believe anything said with meter, rhyme, and tune, be it on cobbling or generalship or anything else whatever, is right--so great is the natural charm of poetry” (601a,b). This natural charm of poetic language deludes us into thinking that we are being instructed rather than merely entertained.

The poets, beginning with Homer, far from improving and educating humanity, do not possess the knowledge of craftsmen and are mere imitators who copy again and again images of virtue and rhapsodize about them, but never reach the truth, or even glimpses of this truth, in the way the superior philosophers do. Socrates ofcourse does not say so, but it seems to follow that the carpenter, who copies the original or ideal bed, is much better suited to rule the city than the poets or painters would be. In other words, the artisan should be atleast an adjunct of the philosopher. As Plato has it, truth is the concern of the philosopher only; even if a philosopher’s painstaking labor towards achieving this truth may only allow him glimpses of it.

Why should such mimetic artists be expelled from an ideal community?

Plato’s answer, which applies to our world too, is that mimetic artists do not recognize their limitations, their lack of real knowledge, and they try to instruct us as Homer did. They feel compelled to speak out on matters important to us, and they seduce us with the charm of their words. Their influence on our thinking is therefore far greater than it deserves to be. They are deceptive in the sense that their audience mistakes their imitation for reality.

Gaining real knowledge is a difficult process, one that requires serious labor and much midnight oil (as only laboring philosophers are capable of pursuing through arduous training). It is much easier to listen to the poets and absorb their convictions--much easier than learning mathematics and struggling to gain knowledge and spending years in the process. Hence, the danger poetry poses to society, his ideal state is far too critical to be ignored, and thus, his decision to ban poetry from the ideal state.

(References: Mr.Pinto’s class notes; Plato’s Republic, Stanley Rosen; Articles on Plato, Bruce Aune; Literary Theory and Criticism, Patricia Waugh; Classical Literary Criticism, Penguin Classics; The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Vincent B. Leitch; Wikipedia)

[The next post will be on Aristotle vs. Plato on Mimesis]

Claude Levi-Strauss on A Structuralist Approach to Oedipus Rex

Click here to download my ppt presentation on Levi-Strauss' Structuralist Analysis of Oedipus Rex

Understanding Mood and Context for Plato's Mimesis

PLATO AND POETRY

Before one studies Plato’s Mimesis, and does a comparison of it with Aristotle’s defense of poetry and Mimesis, it is advisable to understand the mood and the contextual implications of the period it was conceptualized in and most important, the method through which Plato addresses all his ideas in the dialogue.

Admirers of Plato are usually lovers of literary art, for Plato wrote dramatic dialogues rather than didactic volumes and did so with rare literary skill. You would expect such a philosopher to place a high value on literary art, but Plato actually attacked it, along with other forms of what he called mimesis, and argued that most of it should be banned from the ideal society that he described in the Republic. What objections did Plato have with mimesis? Do those objections apply to the sort of art we value today? Are they well-founded? With Plato entering the scene, for the first time poetry is the subject of a sustained philosophical critique, which raises fundamental and enduring questions about the nature of literature and its justification. Plato did not go out of his way to write treatises devoted specifically to poetry, yet his engagement with poetry was intense, as we can see from the explicit discussion on poetry throughout his dialogues. Certainly he writes about poetry like no other philosopher, before or since; for he is deeply imbued with poetry, and deeply attracted to it, (he admits to being a great admirer of works by Homer etc.) yet determined to resist its spell. Hence the paradox that such an ardent admirer of poetry banished it from his ideal state.

Plato’s notorious hostility to poetry strikes the modern reader as very odd: in the Republic he is concerned not merely with censoring poetry, but with removing it altogether and his target is the entire heritage of Greek literature. Though hymns to the gods and encomia to good men will be permitted in the ideal state, there will be no place for the epics of Homer, or the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, long since canonized as high art.

Why is Plato so afraid of poetry that he has to abolish even its greatest masterworks?

One factor that we need to remember when considering this question is that poetry in Plato’s day was not simply a minority interest indulged in by the leisured few, but a central feature in the life of the community. Greek education was centered round poetry (together with its accompanying elements of music, song and dance), and it was through the medium of poetry that the values of society were transmitted. Poetry played a central role not only in the education of the young but also in the lives of adult citizens through their participation (as performers or as the audience) in the various public festivals in which drama, lyric and epic were performed.

The fervor of his attack can thus be as a sort of reaction against the moral authority and cultural prestige of poetry. For his project is none other than to replace poetry by philosophy as the central educational discourse in Athenian society.

Plato was the first thinker to formulate major questions about the function and role of art in society. The several dozen dialogues attributed to Plato engage almost every issue that interests philosophers. Although he did not set out to write systematic literary theory – unlike his student Aristotle, who produced a treatise on poetics – his consideration of philosophical issues in several of the dialogues leads him to reflect on poetry, and those reflections have set the terms of the questions which we still debate today.

What is poetry, and indeed art in general, and how does it operate?

What is and should be the function of imaginative literature in society?

Is it dangerous in that it encourages emotions and feelings which ought to be kept in check, or is it therapeutic in that it allows us to give vent to our emotions in a harmless way?

Should there be censorship?

Is literature (which now, of course, includes television and film) a form of escapism or does it deepen our insight into the nature of people and the world around us?

How can literature justify itself?

These questions might seem to us somewhat academic when confined to poetry, but if we ask them in relation to popular entertainment and the mass media, the closest modern analogue to poetry in classical Athens, the force of Plato’s critique is immediately apparent.

Like all the poets before him, Plato is acutely aware of the pleasure that poetry affords its listeners; but for him that is the source of poetry’s greatest danger. He was highly dubious about the doubtlessly emotive power of poetry. In the Republic, one of the central arguments against poetry is that it is psychologically damaging, for it appeals to an inferior element in the soul, and encourages us to indulge in emotions which ought to be kept firmly in check by the control of reason (606d). It draws us into an emotional identification with the characters it portrays in a way that threatens the health of one’s mind. And the worst of it is that poetry has the power to corrupt even the best of men in this way, since surrendering to our emotions is so intensely pleasurable (605c-d). Hence, the only defense against poetry is to banish it altogether.

What binds together Plato’s various arguments and theories regarding poetry is a distrust of mimesis (representation or imitation). It becomes apparent on reading his dialogues that his objections to mimesis in literature, especially poetry, take on not only a metaphysical and epistemological dimension, but also a strong ethical dimension. However, it is helpful when reading Plato to remember that his dialogues don’t always present a straightforward argument or arrive at a single unambiguous conclusion, but what is going to be helpful is always keeping in mind the context in which the dialogues were written.

(Mimesis will be continued in detail in my next post)

[References: Mr. Pinto’s class notes; The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, Vincent B. Leitch; Classical Literary Criticism, Penguin Classics.]

Enhancing Quality of Answers

What does a question test?

• Comprehension of the question
• Logic of answering- sentences, paragraphs
• Spelling, punctuation
• Expression within the given word limit

Common Mistakes/Errors

Mistakes/Errors	Appropriate Usage
english	English
actually, basically	???????????
tough	Difficult, challenging
don’t, can’t	do not, cannot (Contractions)
called as	called
eg, for eg,	e.g.
Yours Faithfully	Yours faithfully
Your’s	Yours

• Difference between speaking and writing
• No religious symbols – Malpractice
• Draw margins and write question numbers outside the margin
• Make paragraphs for longer answers
• Do not write answers in points

• Single inverted commas for titles of poems or essays
• Underline titles of books, plays, films
• Names begin with capital letters
• Quote only if you know exactly
• Avoid use of green or red ink

…All the best