A Study Of Allegory Of Plato's Writings

Allegory is a kind of literary form which is loved to see and hear by the public, note for its short pithy express by words and it is full of philosophic meaning. Allegory initially originated in myth and its original form was constituted by constantly repeated, interpreted, modified, or even created the legend. Allegory, later, assimilated other materials from various phenomena in nature, to express the author's ideas by the ways of personification, analogy, symbolic exaggeration, etc. Essentially, allegory is a reasonable thought to convey an idea conceal by an excuse, it came from legend and replaced it at last. Human minds were free from memory as the oral civilization evolved to the written civilization, then the base elements of the legend as emotion were replaced by the base elements of the allegory as think and criticize. Formally, the most unique thing of the allegory is that it built a double world, through the literal meaning (surface) to express the potential (deep) meaning, even the opposite meaning.Then, allegory has a great deal of flexibility, not only can be used to express double meaning, but also can avoid the defects of language; can express deep irony and avoid censorship and persecution; can pass the esoteric teaching and prevent the abuse of wisdom. The double world of allegory not only provides a rich presentations and themes for writing, can also give a safe excuse for the author. Therefore, one must understand the background of the allegory, analyze its literal meaning, then deduce its hiding meaning if we want to understand the allegory properly or according our needs. In a sense, the more the readers understand the allegory profoundly, the more the function of the allegory will be able to achieve satisfactorily, and the position of allegory are mostly depends on the reader's interpretation.Plato's writings and thought obviously belong to the allegory tradition. Plato's Statesman is one of most inexplicability works of Plato, since it together with Republic and Laws——constitute the core of Plato's politics and it is a ties from the model city to the reality city. As a matter of fact, we understand Plato himself according to the characteristics of his writings when we understand the statesman by the way of allegory, because the statesman explores the answer of the question literally, that is who is the real statesman?, but the potential question is, why the real statesmen could not come into being? Plato's answer is allegorical:a statesman is the shepherd of his fellow citizens, but the shepherd of man is God; the city which weave by the statesman is a extremely goodness city, but human itself is a combination of good and evil. Plato's moral teaching is:human being can not to be a God, the real statesman could not come into being; the nature has set an upper limit for man that a statesman cannot weave a extremely goodness city. Accordance to the views of custom and tradition, a statesman is the favorer of the citizens, the versatile artist who take care his fellow citizens all the time and every side by his knowledge and virtue.However, Plato believed that such a statesman is impossible according his interpretation of the myth of the gods control universe, on the one hand, only God will have such characters and competence, man unlikely to be a versatile artist to service city wholeheartedly; on the other hand, God is not willing to take care of man, because there is evil existence in man and man can not keep piety and revere, then he was gave up by the God ultimately as he become arrogant gradually. Moreover, the gods themselves are self-contained and goodness, they did not need to take care of human beings. Then, Plato demonstration this view again in the weave allegory which created by himself. It is said that the art of a statesman is the art of the weaver, the statesman reconcile various value which conflict each other in the city to weave a perfect harmony network of the city through his wisdom and fair.Plato invented an ideal city implies that the model would not be possible come into being on the one hand and strongly criticizing democracy in this world on the other. Plato believe that democracy undermines all noble thing, makes them become insipid, although it might be a second good city if it rule according to laws. The statesman who wants to rule the city must apply the strategies of persuade and force, but the irrational mass do not obey the statesman persuade, they follow the rules of custom and tradition forever and choose the democratic rule of laws in the light of fear the autocratic and tyranny. As far as the statesman who have knowledge and wisdom wouldn't be in power to apply force at all since they focus on purely reasonable contemplation and the statesman who in power wouldn't has absolutely universal and effective knowledge, so they use forced must be harmful. Anyway, the one who has knowledge and ability to contemplate must rule the city according to Plato. The solution of philosopher-king proposed in the Republic was an ideal which won't be realize in this world, neither the solution of shepherd statesman or weaver statesman proposed in the Statesman. But Plato did not despair, on the contrary, he claimed that the city rule of law is the second good city, this have been clearly put forward in the Statesman and received a detailed demonstrate and plan in the Laws. The teaching for he did so is:we must set a highest and best good end which will never be realization, we must always striving toward this direction, promote ourselves, otherwise, we would fall into the abyss of evil and helpless, become an arrogant, unbridled and loose man,and destruction for been give up by God at last.