Drama on Trial
Gorgias; Arguing Two
Sides to a Question; Plato
Republic; Aristotle
Poetics
Plato
Socrates
Midterm
 Genre irrelevant?
• The what of plays to their original audiences
 Quotes
• generic answers
• overlooked issues
 Essay (i.e., critical thinking)
• accurate grasp of “lenses”
• unreflective dismissal
• superficial critique
2
Agenda
 Critique in Action, Or,
• What Would Plato Say?
 Introduction to Readings
• Evolution of a Debate
 Debate: Drama in the Classroom
• Pros and Cons …
3
Critique in Action, Or,
What Would Plato Say?
Plato Republic: Book
3 (opening), Socrates
speaking:
“But if they [young
Guardians-to-be] are to
be courageous, must
they not learn … lessons
of such a kind as will
take away the fear of
death?”
“And can he be fearless of death …
who believes the world below to be
real and terrible?”
London Telegraph:
“Disney’s hags drawn
into ageism debate”
“A study by American
researchers at Brigham
Young University, Utah,
looked at 93 characters who
appeared to be aged 55 or
older from 34 Disney films
going back 70 years.” ...
“But a significant minority were portrayed as
unintelligent, nasty, bad-tempered or useless, giving
children a bad impression.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/31/wdisney31.xml
School systems across U.S. challenge books on
reading lists
<www.freedomforum.org>
Each school year as teachers and administrators decide
which books are appropriate for their students to read,
they may exclude or ban certain books such as The
Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird and Song of
Solomon because of their mature themes. . . .
Many books that have been banned, such as The
Catcher in the Rye, teach tolerance, self-worth and
individuality, Krug wrote. . . .
In Georgia, after hearing complaints from some
parents, the Glynn County school board discussed
banning The Catcher in the Rye from the high school’s
curriculum.
http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=14624
MEDEA: “I know indeed what evil I intend to
do, But stronger than all my afterthoughts is
my fury (thumos), / Fury that brings upon
mortals the greatest evils.”
(Euripides Medea p. 35, trans. Warner)
“We may state the matter thus: Imitation imitates the
actions . . . on which human beings imagine a good or bad
result to have ensued. And human beings will be glad or
grieve accordingly. . . . But in all this variety of
circumstances is . . . is there not strife and inconsistency
in a person’s life? . . . For he indulges the irrational nature
which has no discernment of greater and less, but thinks
the same thing at one time great and at another small —
he is a manufacturer of images and is very far removed
from the truth.” (Plato Republic, in “Drama on Trial” pp. 36-38)
Introduction to Readings
Evolution of a Debate
Gorgias
(483-376 BCE)
 from Helen:
• “Speech is a mighty potentate”
 from another work:
• “Tragedy is a form of deception in
which the deceiver is more righteous
than the non-deceiver, and the
deceived wiser than the undeceived”
10
Your thoughts…
“Tragedy is a form of deception in which the
deceiver is more righteous than the non-deceiver,
and the deceived wiser than the undeceived”
how?
 [comments]
11
myth of cave
Plato’s
(429-347 BCE)
475)
 Justice, via…
 “City of Words”
• guardians
• craftsmen
• farmers
 BOOKS 2-3
•
•
•
•
(a)moral myth
administrative lies
(a)moral imitation
“noble lie”
Republic
(ca.
 BOOK 7 (opening)
• Myth of the Cave
 BOOK 10
• (meta)physical
imitation
• challenge to
poetry
12
Ethics, Aesthetics, Metaphysics,
Paedeutics
forms/ideas
instances
philosophers
crafts-persons artists/poets
(originals)
(copies)
imitations
(copies of
copies)
14
Imitation: Aristotle v Plato
Emotional dimension
Plato: “[We] delight in giving way to sympathy. ... Few
persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the
evil of others something of evil is communicated to
themselves.”
Aristotle: “Tragedy … is … imitation … with incidents arousing
pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such
emotions.”
Educational dimension
Plato: “Thus far then we are pretty well agreed that the
imitator has no knowledge worth mentioning of what he
imitates.”
Aristotle: “Poetry is something more philosophic and of
graver import than history, since its statements relate to
things of universal import, whereas those of history relate
to particulars.”
15
Debate: Drama in the
Classroom
Pros and Cons …
Arguments pro and contra…
pro-Plato
 artists don’t represent
life
• real professions
better

embody the false
anti-Plato
 acting allows people
to feel emotionally
outside your life
 acting can promote
empathy
17