‘MIMESIS’ IN COLONIAL WRITINGS AS AN ASSERTION OF POWER: POSITIONING PLATO AS A POSTCOLONIAL THINKER

Abstract

Plato is one of the most influential thinkers since the Classical time of Greece. Most of the literary criticisms came after him were trying to reply Plato to defend the moral authority of poetry. This paper is an attempt to intertwine the two seemingly unparalleled stream of thoughts club into a common politico-critical space. Plato, the Athenian philosopher, who lived somewhere around 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC might be a strange figure in the socio-political context of the second half of twentieth century. But his critical thoughts, especially his literary criticism, find an interesting parallel in Postcolonial stream of literary criticism. It’s an attempt to read Plato from a Postcolonial angle and positioning him as a critique in Postcolonial critical space. This paper analyses Plato’s Book X of The Republic and the position taken by Socrates, the central character of Plato’s Dialogues. Plato’s ideas on Mimesis and his other major criticism against poetry are juxtaposed here with postcolonial criticism of Edward Said, Michel Foucault, Chinua Achebe and other major postcolonial critiques.