The Place of Poetry in Plato's and Aristotle's Sense

One of the interesting and significant discussions in the history of literary criticism in Greek classical literature is Plato’s oppositions to poetry and Aristotle’s defense of it. Although their assumptions were based on common grounds and both considered art as a type of mimesis, but they were not of the same view on the value of poetry and the concept of mimesis. Their special philosophical thought system and genius which undoubtedly shaped and influenced philosophy and literary criticism through decades, has always been open to study and criticism. this article is an attempt to investigate the bases of their intellectual and ideational systems according to which they evaluate poetry.