Principles & History of Literary Criticism – Chapter 2 : Plato (427 BC – 347 BC), Study notes of English Literature

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2 CRITICISM IN ANCIENT GREECE ee PLATO (427 B.C.--347 B.C.) Judicial criticism before Plato The Age of Pericles The Age of Pericles in ancient Greece is known as the golden period in the realm of art and literature in Greece. It was primarily an age of creative activity. Artists like Phidias and Polygnotus, and writers like Aeschylus ,So- phocies, Euripides and Aristophanes glorified this age by their works of art and literature. But as no era is wholly creative or critical, seeds of critical inquiry and analysis were also visible there and blossomed with full fragrance and efflorescence in the 4th century B.C. The beginnings of Greek criticism date from the sixth century B.C., though criticism in antiquity before Plato was not systematic. Itis seen in the form of fragment, stray hints and occasionai remarks in creative writings. Greek criticism developed when the philosophers Xeno- phanes and Heraclitus condemned Homer on moral grounds, and Theagenes and Anaxagoras in defence of Homer advocated an allegorical interpretation of the two Homeric epics-- the /liad and the Odyssey. Growth of Literary Criticism in Ancient Greece The writings of Homer, Hesiod, Xenophanes, Pindar and Gorgias contain stray hints which throw light on critical ideas in antiquity. The theory of inspiration was already current in connection with poetry is suggested in the first place by the opening lines of the Homeric poems. Both the iliad and Odyssey begin with an appeal to the Muse for inspiration to utter the truth of things ; and this is confirmed by Hesiod, who, in his Preface to the Theogony, explains how the Muse breathed into him the art of divine music. Then, too, each poet: pronounces indirectly on the function of poetry, but with some amount of difference. To Homer, on the one hand, the end of poetry was pleasure produced by some sort of enchantment; and this point he stresses at more than one place. To Hesiod, on the other hand, the poetic function was that of teaching or conveying a divine message. Equaily important is Homer's comment on the quality of illusion in art when on the shield of Achilles “the earth looked behind the plough; and like ta ground that had been ploughed although it was made of gold; that was a marvellous piece of work.” These stray references about the nature: and function of poetry in the writings of Homer and Hesiod indicate that criticism had made a beginning as early as 6th century B.C. (20) © scanned with OKEN Scanner