Plato-Republic Books II And III And Censorship Of The Poets

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Plato-Republic Books II and III and censorship of the poets
In books II and II, Plato advocates for censoring the poets culminating in banishing them from his model city in Book X. Plato focuses on Socrates as the main character in the Republic. In book II, the case for censoring the arts is that this would guarantee education of the guardians and in book III censorship would allow the guardians to develop courage. Ideally, the young guardians ought to be educated to defend laws and customs and even serving the citizen. At the same time, poetry is seen as worthwhile when there are good intentions and representing gods as being good. To Plato, philosophy dominated poetry and this ought to have been reflected in the society including suppressing arts to elevate philosophy. Plato considered imitative poetry as harmful, but censorship rather than banishing all poets from the city was most appropriate as philosophy and art have roles in the society.
Plato highlighted that poets often deceive and have no clear stance on morality when compared to philosophers. “With one tongue, they all chant that moderation and justice are fair, but hard and full of drudgery, while intemperance and injustice are sweet and easy to acquire, and shameful only by opinion and law” (Plato and Bloom 41). Poets gave divergent views on morals and their double speak made them unsuitable to communicate about morals. However, Plato did not want to expel the poets, but rather the art form that was at times deceptive. Yoshino (1840) pointed out that poetry emerged earlier than philosophy, and by censoring poetry this would allow more philosophers to flourish.
Socrates argued that art was harmful and imitative that it was necessary to censor art. “On that account such tales must cease, for fear that proclivity for badness in our young” (Bloom 70). Poets and prose writers mainly focused on what was bad about humans and this is harmful as poetry and art can influence human behavior and censoring poetry is the best course of action to prevent the young from imitating bad behavior. To Plato, virtue and piety were important in the ideal society and censoring out aspects of literary education targeting the young was good. There were poets who were involved in virtuous acts, and expelling all poets was not ideal as there was a need to identify those with good intentions and imitations.
Poets merely focus on the afterlife rather than the people are scared of battles necessary to protect them. “What about this? Do you suppose anyone who believes Hades' domain exists and is full of terror will be fearless in the face of death and choose death in battles above defeat and slavery” (Plato and Bloom 63). One thing that distinguishes poets from courageous men, is that poets focus on scary stories, unlike the brave men who are willing to go to battle as they do not fear death. Poets focus on such tales would have to be expelled, as they were not beneficial to the cities. Nonetheless, without the poets, there would be no stories to tell and this would even validate injustice.
Poets are not entirely bad as they explore different subjects and Plato was against relying on poets for moral guidance (P...