2. Plato's understanding of the source of poetry is obviously influenced by his objective idealism philosophy. Based on the view that knowledge is only a retrospective understanding of the conceptual world, Plato believes that the poet was able to write poems because he was immersed in a state of insanity (that is, the state of Dionysus and Apollo as Nietzsche later said), [1] was inspired by the gods, and then put this poem into practice. Without the guidance and enlightenment of the gods, the poet is just a muddled individual without his own initiative and independent spirit; Once inspired by the gods, it becomes an individual existence similar to a "megaphone". What they express is not their own thoughts, but the guidance of the gods in a crazy state.
Therefore, under Plato's thought, the poet has become a spiritual realm without clear ideological cognition, and only needs to pursue the spiritual realm guided by divine thought. Poetry is no longer an artistic way and behavior for poets to express their inner feelings through language, but a passive acceptance and reproduction. Affected by this, many poets have also fallen into such a dilemma: they have not turned inspiration from the gods into a desire for knowledge, nor have they turned inspiration from fanaticism into a driving force for self-improvement.
It must be said that Plato introduced his objective idealism philosophy into the definition of poetry, which hindered the development of poetry and the knowledge of poets to a certain extent, and made many poets at that time and later take many detours. Fundamentally speaking, Plato's understanding of the origin of the world is based on objective idealism, and many unknown or inconclusive things are attributed to the guidance of "ideas", which is very unfavorable to the development of poetic art. Of course, we can't completely deny some positive effects brought by Plato's views. Plato's "crazy" realm has also been proved by more and more facts to be an indispensable realm in the pursuit of art. In the "crazy" realm, it is indeed possible for artists to create works of art that express their highest level.
3. Aristotle put forward a completely different view from Plato's "Poetry prospers from the outside" in the cognition of the source of poetry. He believes that the origin of poetry lies not in God, but in people. On the origin of poetic art, Aristotle put forward the famous theory of "imitation". He believes that there is an imitation instinct in human nature, and we can get pleasure from this imitation instinct. [2] Therefore, Aristotle believes that in the origin and development of poetry, people are by no means idle, but participate in it with a positive and dynamic attitude. For example, the original poem may be a group of primitive people carrying big trees. In the process of resisting the tree, they heard a group of birds chirping very rhythmically, so they curiously learned the sound of "yo-ho-ho" from the chirping of these birds, and they got a kind of catharsis and relaxation from this sound symbol. This kind of pleasure urges people to learn and imitate more voices, and then integrate with society. Therefore, Aristotle insisted on the active position of man in poetry creation. He believes that poetry is an artistic way to express people's hearts, not just as a "mouthpiece of the will of the gods."