Plato

Plato's negative views on poetry are notorious. They are also puzzling, given Plato's own careful attention to style in the genre of philosophical dialogue. We will delve into both what Plato says about poetry - or seems to say, via his characters - and what he does with words, by closely reading the short dialogue Ion and excerpts from the Republic in Greek. We will consider Plato's critiques of the Homeric rhapsode and Attic tragedy in the context of these dominant forms of cultural production in Athens and Plato's larger truth-seeking project. With Plato, we will ask: what role does art have in our encounter with reality?