The essence of art is imitation and inspiration. The core of Plato's art theory is to distinguish inspiration from imitation, inspiration from imitation, so that poetry can get rid of the shackles of skills and gain freedom. The essence of art returns to poetry, imitation, idealism, "copying" and "copying", which is a utilitarian, passive and faithful copying of the outside world. Plato reformed the imitation of nature in literature and art on the basis of rationalism. In order to reveal the essence of literature and art, Plato believes that literature and art imitate not the idea itself, but the shadow of the idea-the real thing, so literature and art are only replicas, and the shadow of the shadow is separated from the truth by three layers. In this way, because Plato denied the authenticity of the realistic perceptual world, he also denied the authenticity of art imitating the perceptual world and denied the lofty position of art, and Plato's literary thought was based on his rationalist philosophy. On the understanding of the essence of art, he thinks that literature and art are imitations of concepts without truth, and are "shadows of shadows, replicas of replicas". Plato put forward three worlds according to rational theory: idea-reality-literature (art). The world of ideas is the first, the source of the world, and the highest existence that controls everything. It exists independently of any external conditions, detached from things, invisible, colorless and immortal. Eternity (that is, some invisible absolute spirit and concept rule the world. ) The real world and the material world are secondary, and they are imitations of the conceptual world. Any imitation can only touch the appearance and image of things, but not the entity, and can only imitate a certain part and one aspect of thought. Not all and substance. Because imitation is always limited by external conditions such as time and space. Therefore, the material world in the sense is only a pale shadow and an incomplete embodiment of the conceptual world, separated from the truth by a layer. From the idea to the real world, it has lost a lot of authenticity and universality. (Shadow, copy) "Imitation is far from the real entity. It seems to make everything on the surface, because it only accounts for a small part of everything, but that small part. "
The artistic world is a three-level imitation of the real world. This is far from the truth. "The shadow of the shadow is the copy of the copy." To illustrate this point, Plato cited three kinds of beds as examples: logical bed, material bed and duplicate bed. Logical bed is an ontology, which does not depend on the existence of external substances. The reason why a bed is a bed is all a bed; The material bed is concrete and individual, and the carpenter's manufacture is limited by size, time and space, and materials, and the concept bed has not been fully reflected; A rational bed is different from a material bed, but it is only an imitation of appearance. Different opinions make the appearance different, which is even more unreal. In Plato's three worlds, the conceptual world is supreme, the real world depends on the conceptual world, and the artistic world depends on the real world. The latter two worlds are lower, and literature and art are lower. Plato belittled the role of literature and art and the status of poets and artists based on the height of thought. He believes that all poets and artists since Homer are imitators, and they only get images, but they can't grasp the truth. Their status is not as good as that of drivers and doctors with special skills. Plato's "theory of idea imitation" is essentially a cognitive route of objective idealism, leaving room for "theism". "idea"
Plato's understanding of the function of art is based on his utopia, emphasizing that literature and art must be useful to mankind, beneficial to the polis, and in line with the norms formulated by the polis.