Reading Response: Aristotle, Plato, and Quintilian

I had a difficult time with these readings, so please leave a comment if you think I'm off base or missed an important point. It was tough to conflate them all . . .


In both Ion and The Republic, Plato presents poetry as a danger. In the latter, it is said to have the power to corrupt, leading people to sympathize with feelings and actions of others that they would find undesirable in themselves. The poet is spellbinding, and Ion further illustrates the power of language: Ion is spellbound by Homer, who is in turn transfixed by his muse, who draws the ability to inspire from the gods. Plato compares this process of creation to a chain where each link is inspired by and held to something that came before.

Similarly, in his Institutes of Oratory, Quintilian instructs aspiring orators to study the masters that came before, prescribing a specific brand of imitation as a basis for creating something new. His approach is less like the philosophical approach of Plato and more like the pragmatic observations of Aristotle in his Poetics. Both recognize what we now call genres—that “Every species of writing has its own prescribed law, each its own appropriate dress.” Though recognizing similarities, Aristotle also notes three major ways in which forms of writing differ: the medium, the objects, and the manner of imitation.

Taken together, these readings present two ideas about authorship that seem at odds with each other. Aristotle and Quintilian see oratory more like a science that can be studied and observed at a critical distance, so perusing the masters would help aspiring rhetoricians and poets. Plato, on the other hand, focuses more on the power of speech—something you must be on guard against—and traces the sources of inspiration back to the gods.

Yet these authors agree about the nature of ideas—at least as humans use them. Whether from the gods or other orators, creation is presented primarily as a form of interpretation. Thus, the concept of authorship seems to rest in the expression of an idea rather than the idea itself.

If creation involves interpretation, then the idea of authorship takes on a collaborative aspect. Plato may have given primary credit to the gods, but Ion’s knowledge of and appreciation for poetry was channeled through Homer and his muse. At this point in time the chain is relatively short, moving from a god to a muse to a major poet. But what about modern incarnations of, say, The Odyssey? We give credit for O Brother, Where Art Thou? to the Coen brothers, but still recognize that said work is an adaptation and would not exist if not for the prior work of others. Yet it is original, mixing old and new like Quintilian suggests.

In the digital age, it seems that there are more genres, more sources of inspiration, and a more complicated history of rhetoric and art that makes forming connections between authors difficult. Text is divorced of context with a simple cut and paste, while the practice of moving conversations in and out of different forums and through different media make it difficult to tell where conversations are happening, let alone who started—er, created—it. Perhaps like conversations, ideas are simply “out there” and under constant development, thought up and placed here by someone who came before. Thus, one’s individual expression of an idea—one’s unique blend of whichever sources they choose to draw on—seems to be more important now than being the one who originally thought something up.


PS - my formatting didn't carry over, so sorry if I missed some italics here and there.