TO DESTROY OR TO REFORM? CONTROVERSIES ON PLATO’S ANTITHEATRICAL ATTITUDE

Apply

TO DESTROY OR TO REFORM? CONTROVERSIES ON PLATO’S ANTITHEATRICAL ATTITUDE

Journal Title: The Polish Journal of Aesthetics - Year 2015, Vol 3, Issue 38

Abstract

In my manuscript I engage Jonas Barish’s claim that Plato engenders an antitheatrical prejudice, arguing that Plato’s critique of poets’ creation (tragic and comic) is marked by ambivalence. To emphasize the tensions in Plato’s dialogues is not only to problematize the negative judgements against tragic and comic creation, but also to perceive Plato’s particular use of theatre in its metaphoric dimension to describe, inter alia, the phenomenon of human existence or ideal legislation. My main hypothesis is that to perceive this complexity, we must take into account the literal and metaphoric dimensions of poetry and theatre. Only then can we capture the genuine theatrical potential of Plato’s dialogues: not only critical but also reformative. Moreover, new possibilities emerge when we consider Plato as a playwright, and Socrates as his privileged character. In light of this complexity, we can contest Jonas Baris’ declaration of Plato as progenitor of the ‘antitheatrical prejudice’.

Authors and Affiliations

Magdalena Marciniak

Keywords

Plato theatre comedy tragedy metaphor legislation

Metaphysical cognition in hermeneutic interpretation: remarks on Grzegorz Sztabiński’s The Writing of Nature – Transcendence III

The article contains a hermeneutic interpretation of the art of Grzegorz Sztabiński, a contemporary Polish artist creating drawings, paintings and installations. It starts with definitions of transcendence, hermen...

Międzynarodowa konferencja Antropologia krajobrazu: obraz-zmysły-pamięć Instytut Kultury Europejskiej Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Gnieźnie, 25–27 września 2014 roku

sprawozdanie z konferencji

EP ID EP210966
DOI -
Views 64
Downloads 0