-About the similarities and differences and connections between their views.

The source of western literary theory is ancient Greece. The ancient Greek literary theory originated in the 6th century BC and flourished in the Pericles era in the 5th-4th century BC, namely Plato and Aristotle. In this era, western literary and artistic thoughts and aesthetic thoughts developed along two different routes: Plato and Aristotle. Therefore, to truly grasp the development of western literary theory, we must understand the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle. Based on such a motive, this paper attempts to make a general explanation of their literary theory.

First, Plato's literary thought and his "Republic"

In artistic thought, Plato denied that imitation art such as drama and poetry had healthy and positive social functions. He believes that art should appeal to emotion, and emotion is the most humble and irrational part of personality, which will lead people astray and even die. Plato emphasized the social education function of literature. He believes that "no matter how beautiful poetry is, if it does not meet the educational requirements for teenagers and adults, it will be deleted and banned." Plato's artistic thought is rooted in his political views, and he conceived a perfect society-"utopia". Plato's Republic holds that society is completely controlled by acceptability, and its rulers and members must be well educated, clear-headed, emotionless and controlled by acceptability. Only in this way can they defend and build their own country.

Plato attached great importance to the education of the people in The Republic. When talking about education, he especially mentioned the education of art, because art has immeasurable appeal and guiding role. Considering his political purpose in the utopia, he denied the positive role of art education and that drama and poetry could teach people the truth. In Plato's view, the defenders of the ideal country should be "calm and rational, brave and tenacious, honest and kind, contented and good at self-control." In Homer's epic, the moral qualities of gods and heroes are often degraded. For example, Achilles is portrayed as greedy, conceited and cruel. All of these, he thinks, "this kind of story is also harmful to the audience", "heroes like this have done the same bad things" and "this kind of story must be banned so that young people will not be easy to do bad things when they hear it".

In drama, Plato believes that drama can only bring evil psychological influence to the audience. He believes that tragedies and comedies are caused by the fear and pity of the audience, which is inappropriate for the defenders of the ideal country and should be eliminated.

Second, Aristotle's artistic theory and its role

Aristotle affirmed the role of artistic imitation and linked artistic imitation with pleasure. Aristotle believes that people will feel happy after seeing the reflection and embodiment of real world things in works of art, even if they see some things that they are usually afraid of and try their best to avoid in real life, such as fierce animals and corpses, they will still feel happy, because artistic image is a beautified and idealized reality, which makes people willing and willing to face it. Aristotle once again proved that drama is "an imitation of human action" from the functional theory of drama. Aristotle believes that the positive role of drama can play a role in society because people love beauty, because works of art can make people feel happy and learn knowledge. Therefore, unlike Plato, Aristotle believes that art has many positive social functions.

Aristotle believes that making the polis and citizens happy is undoubtedly the greatest utility of art. He thinks that art has three functions: 1. Aristotle thinks that literature and art have the function of education. Plato thinks that art is the understanding of illusory entity, while Aristotle thinks that art is the understanding of "the first entity". Art comes from experience, which is higher than experience and closer to science than experience. 2. Literature and art have the function of "purification". He believes that virtue is intersubjectivity, and the golden mean is the highest goodness and the ultimate beauty. 3. Literature and art can provide "spiritual enjoyment". Aristotle believes that "people are always happy with analog works." The purification of literary and artistic works can keep people's emotions moderate, cultivate good moral quality and produce relaxed and comfortable pleasure.

In drama, Aristotle takes tragedy as an example, and thinks that the fear and pity caused by tragedy can purify the audience's fear and pity, so it is healthy, harmless and positive, in order to refute Plato's negative view of literature and art. For this reason, Aristotle specially put forward the theory of "Ka Tasis", highlighting the function of cultivating and purifying literature and art. In order to avoid the negative effects of drama, Aristotle put forward special requirements for the plot arrangement of drama. The perfect layout of tragedy should be a single layout-good people with shortcomings or mistakes turn from prosperity to adversity.

3. Comparison of Plato's and Aristotle's literary views

Plato's works adopt dialogue style and are lively. His view of literature and art is wrapped in other thoughts. The philosophical basis of his literary view is "rational form", and he believes that beauty is a division of the rational form of beauty. Aristotle's works adopt a rigorous discourse style, and the result and process of thinking are presented at the same time, while his view of literature and art is always independent of other thoughts. The philosophical basis of his view of literature and art is "substance", and he thinks that "beauty lies in volume and arrangement".

Plato's theory of imitation holds that literary imitation is like looking in a mirror, which can only get images, but can't give people knowledge and truth. Literary imitation is to cater to some despicable and irrational emotions and desires in human nature, such as pity addiction and humor desire. Aristotle's imitation theory compares literature and art with history, and holds that literature and art imitate what happens according to probability and inevitability. Literary imitation is an imitation instinct that people have since childhood, which can purify or cultivate people's emotions.

In the function of literature and art, Plato despises skills and pays attention to the practical utility of literature and art, while Aristotle pays more attention to the aesthetic pleasure of literature and art, and at the same time does not ignore the practical utility of literature and art. He discusses the skills of various literary genres in detail without mentioning inspiration. Plato is in favor of indirect narration and opposes dramatic direct narration by literary imitation. Aristotle thinks that direct narrative is superior to indirect narrative, and affirms the drama of pure direct narrative.

Fourthly, the connection and inheritance between Plato and Aristotle's literary views.

Anyone familiar with western literary theory knows that Aristotle is a high-ranking disciple of Plato. However, he is not famous for inheriting the teacher's theory. On the contrary, like Plato, he is famous for criticizing the teacher's theory in western academic history. Aristotle's famous saying "I love my teacher, and I love the truth more" has been passed down through the ages. Aristotle and Plato held different views on many literary theories, which also contributed to the prosperity of ancient Greek literary thought. On the theory of literary function, Aristotle inherited Plato's view of paying attention to social utility. But there are also some differences. Plato is concerned about whether it is beneficial to continue the political rule of slave owners optimates; Aristotle, on the other hand, focuses on whether it helps to improve the virtue of city-state citizens and realize their social ideal of "republican politics". Aristotle criticized Plato's view of belittling aesthetic pleasure. Plato regards pleasure as "the inferior part of human nature" and thinks that "pleasant pleasure" is "promoting the rationality of the disabled". Aristotle, on the contrary, links aesthetic pleasure and happiness, the greatest utility beneficial to the polis, with the ultimate goal of life "perfection".

In short, Plato denied the positive role of literature and art, especially drama, poetry and other art forms, and even obliterated its social needs for the needs of his theological and political views and the ideal of his ideal country. Aristotle, based on the needs of literary aesthetics and artistic development, refuted Plato's claim that literature has a positive social function, that is, it has the function of purifying and edifying people's hearts. Their theory on the social function of literature and art has a far-reaching impact on contemporary literary theory, the development of literary creation and the appreciation and examination of literature and art.