Elliot Bartky

This article challenges the view that Aristotle's Poetics provides a defense against Plato's assault on poetry. I argue that Aristotle's discussion of poetry is at least as critical of the poetic depiction of the city and the gods as is the Platonic account. In the Poetics Aristotle does break with Plato in order to establish poetry's independence from philosophy. Aristotle's account of poetry as an independent activity should not, however, be read as a defense of poetry against Plato's subordination of poetry to philosophy. Instead, it is argued that Aristotle establishes poetry's independence from philosophy as a corrective to Plato's resort to poetry, thereby establishing that philosophy is completely autonomous from poetry.

In the Poetics, Aristotle criticizes Herodotus by claiming that poetry is more philosophical and more serious than history. Aristotle's remark may be understood as a defense of poetry against Herodotus's attempt to supplant the political teaching of the poets and the wise men. Aristotle aligns poetry with philosophy because the poets' political teaching serves the city at the same time that it anticipates political philosophy. In the second section of the article Herodotus's quarrel with the political teaching of the poets, especially Homer, is considered in light of Aristotle's account of the poets. Approaching Herodotus in this manner underscores the significance, for Aristotle, of the politics of Herodotus's History. The third section of the article begins with a discussion of Herodotus's indebtedness to, and difference from, the pre-Socratic philosophers, and goes on to consider Herodotus's quarrel with the wise men. Herodotus's quarrel with the poets and the wise men provides us with a better idea of why Aristotle sought to associate poetry with philosophy, and distinguish them from history.