Modern Age - Winter 2017 - 75

LITERATURE AND MORALITY

ows by preoccupying us with images that furnish only a partial,
distorted picture of what is already an illusion (597A-598B).
Second, not only does poetic representation by its very nature
lead us away from truth, but poets are given to repeating lies
about gods, and heroes, and the actual nature of human life
(380B-383C). Finally, because it is so much easier to imitate the
effects of passion than the deliberation of reason in a man, poets
and actors are drawn to what is lurid and sensational. Our word
aesthetic, is, after all, derived from the Greek word aistheta, "things
perceived by the senses, material things." As a result, poetry tends
to corrupt the character of even the better sort of men by leading
them to indulge unruly emotion, unfettered by reason, as they
see it portrayed in others (605C-606D).
If Plato's strictures on poetry seem a little extravagant, it may
be because we have devised mimetic media that capture our
sensations and passions far more effectively. He would doubtless
smile triumphantly to see his "Myth of the Cave" realized in exact
literal terms in the cinema, a large, darkened room where men
and women sit with their backs to the light, engrossed in shadows cast on the wall in front of them. Neil Postman says about
television almost exactly what Plato says about poetry: it is an
intrinsically flawed medium and leads us away from reality;3 and
modern Platonist Allan Bloom offers this disquieting image that
has resonated with many parents and educators: "A pubescent
child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings
are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing
of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating
the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into
a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy."4
If we are to make Shakespeare and other great writers cultural
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Modern Age - Winter 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Winter 2017

Contents
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Modern Age - Winter 2017 - Contents
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