DEXIMENES

And don’t forget my view, which Plato says he agrees with, that art is fantasy. Art objects are fake objects, we invent them ourselves, it’s just private fantasy in our minds. Callistos said that art aspires to the condition of music, Acastos said it aspires to the condition of religion, I say it aspires to the condition of pornography.

SOCRATES

Before we proceed I am going to be a little unkind to somebody.

CALLISTOS

Oh not to me!

SOCRATES

No, to Mantias.

MANTIAS

Oh!

SOCRATES

I am going to ask you to put aside your definition of art as a socially useful craft.

MANTIAS

Why?

SOCRATES

Just now I distinguished your question of the use of art and Acastos’s question about what art is.

MANTIAS

But I define art by its use.

SOCRATES

Many things are socially useful. You say art is a socially useful craft – and if we ask what sort of socially useful craft, the answer is, an artistic one. But to understand this we must first have a more fundamental idea of what art really is.

MANTIAS

I don’t follow –

SOCRATES

Much of what you said about the effect of art is important. But we cannot define art by its effect without first considering its nature, since other things could produce the same effect.

MANTIAS

Oh all right –

Callistos embraces him.

SOCRATES

Now, my dear splendid clever boy, try to put your thoughts in order, don’t just pour them over us like a bath attendant. Think, my child, think, you can think.

PLATO after holding his head for a moment

Of course we must ask about good and bad art in order to see what art is. Bad art is nothing, it’s fantasy, like we have when we imagine ourselves great and wonderful – or like sentimental rubbish or Mantias’s dull improving stories. And of course bad art can be harmful like pornographic muck or like stories designed to make people hate each other – you know – But to see how dangerous and terrible art is we have to see what good art is like, why we tolerate it, why we love it, why we sit in the theatre –

ACASTOS

What about inspiration?

PLATO

All right, good art is not just selfish fantasy and that’s why you want to call it ‘true’. But what is this inspiration and how does it differ from what makes us have stupid fantasies and daydreams? It’s something so deep –

DEXIMENES

You mean it’s erotic.

PLATO

I don’t want to use that word, sometimes words are spoilt. I mean something which can be either bad or good –

SOCRATES

Sometimes when words fail us we have to turn to the gods and utter their holy and untainted names.

PLATO