plato's view of poetry - w. c. greene

8/12/2019 Plato's View of Poetry - W. C. Greene

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Department of the Classics Harvard University

Plato's View of PoetryAuthor(s): William Chase GreeneSource: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 29 (1918), pp. 1-75Published by: Department of the Classics, Harvard UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/310558.

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PLATO'S VIEW OF POETRY 1By WILLIAM CHASE GREENE

ANY one who reads the dialogues of Plato even superficially sboundto be firstsurprised, henperplexed,by the treatment thatpoetry receives at the hands of the philosopher. A further readingdiscloses such apparent inconsistencies that one is tempted to askwhether Plato really had a definite view about the value of poetry.Himself an artist endowed with a richlypoetic spirit, he never weariesof quoting the poets. At times he appears to attribute their art todivine inspiration2or to a formof madness.3 In his ideal state a largepart of the education of the young is based on the study of certainkinds of poetry. Nevertheless he fiercelycriticizespoetry as a whole,and professes to banish the tribe of poets from his commonwealth;they arepervertersof morality,mereimitatorsanddeceivers,and theirart is concernedwith the world of appearance,not of reality. So, asthe founder of a city, he insists upon the ancient quarrelbetweenphi-losophy and poetry;4 the legislatorcan brookno rival.5If we turn to modem critics for an explanation of these apparentcontradictions,we are met by most divergentviews. J. Reber6holdsthat Plato criticizespoetry because it is imitation,7because the artistis ignorant of the things which he imitates,8and because poetry ad-dresses itself to the lower facultiesof man,with whichhe can not grasptruth.' Reber thereforeconcludes that Plato, loyal to a political pur-pose, definitely deprivespoetry of its freedom.10 Again, F. Stiihlin"defends a similarview with greaterthoroughness,and concludes12 that

1 This essay in its original Latin form, entitled Quidde poetisPlato censuerit,waspresented in 1917 in partial fulfilment of the requirementsfor the degree of Doctorof Philosophy in Harvard University.2 Ion, 534 c. SPhaedrus, 244 a ff. I Rep. 607 b ff. 6 Laws,858c ff.6 J. Reber, Platon und die Poesie, Leipzig, I864.Ibid., pp. 20 ff. 8 Ibid., 24 ff. 9 Ibid., pp. 27 ff. 10 Ibid.,p. 40.

n F. Stlihlin, Die StellungderPoesie in derPlatonischenPhilosophie,Munich, 1901.2 Ibid., pp. 18; 38; 46; 59 if.

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2 William ChaseGreenePlato's poet in dependingon inspirationrenouncesknowledge,and canat best attain only to rightopinion. On the otherhand,J. A. Stewart,'holding that the Platonic doctrineof ideas is a method of accountingfor concepts in use, goes so far as to contend that it is in poetry thatwe come into contact with reality that is timeless, because the poetconcentrateshis attention on that which interests him; and " groupswhich interest us as groups acquire a coherence which makes themwhat we call 'Things.' "2 Thus it is only in the world of aestheticexperiencethat there are eternal and immutablearchetypes.3 Stew-art's views are criticized by J. Burnet4 and by A. E. Taylor.5Burnet argues that for Plato the Form of the Good is the EuYLro70p40j6ya,and that judgmentsof value are impossiblewithout the exer-cise of the intellect, since they imply a referenceto the Good, whichis knownby the intellect only. He urges that for Plato everything ismythicalexcept the ideas; in the worldof senseandof time,knowledgeceases and myths become appropriate. And Taylor points out thatthe account which Stewart gives of the e677neglects the fact thatPlato representsthe scientific treatmentof them as an act of contem-plation. Further, the discussionof poetic imaginationand of mysticreverie that Stewart gives us, however interesting and valuable itmay be, can not take the place of a sober examination of the dia-logues of Plato. The question of Plato's views is, despite Stewart'scontempt for the " Critics,most of whomhave attended too much tothe letter of Plato's text," 6 not so much one for the psychologist asfor the student of Plato's own utterances. The problem which con-fronts those who are puzzledby the apparentinconsistencyin Plato'swritingsand by the disagreementof modern nterpretations, s: Whatsort of truth did Plato attribute to poetry, and what is its relation tophilosophy? Did Plato really intend to exclude the poets from hispolity ?

1 J. A. Stewart, The Myths of Plato, Oxford, Igo5; his reply to a review of thiswork by J. Burnet, in Mind, xxxi (Igo6), pp. 519 ff.; and Plato's Doctrineof Ideas,Oxford, 9gog,especially Part II, The Doctrine of Ideas as Expressing AestheticEx-perience.2 Plato's Doctrineof Ideas, p. 130. * Ibid., p. 173.4 J. Burnet, review of TheMyths of Plato in Mind, xxxi (igo6), pp. 94 ff.A. E. Taylor, review of Plato's Doctrineof Ideas, in Mind, xxv (19Io), pp. 83 ff.6 Plato's Doctrineof Ideas, p. 171.



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Plato's View of Poetry 3If modern discussions were not warrantenough for this investiga-tion, we have still the invitation of Plato himself, extended immedi-ately after what reads like a complete expulsion of the poets, " weshouldgive the championsof poetry, thoughnot themselvespoets butloversof poetry, an opportunityto speak inprosein herbehalf,to showthat she is not only pleasant but useful for states and for human life.And we shall listen in a friendly manner; for we are likely to profit ifshe proves to be not only pleasant but useful."1 For a study in Platoone could ask for no better imprimaturthan the authority of thephilosopherhimself.It is chiefly in Plato's own works, then, that we must look for theanswer to the challenge. And if we examine them carefully,perhapswe shall discover that the explanationof Plato's apparent inconsist-encies is not the hopelesstask that some writershave thought it to be.When one remembers how far divergent are the views of the mosteminent scholars on this point, it seems pertinent to ask why suchdifferencesof opinionwith regardto the same author are possible. Agreat deal of the current misunderstandingof Plato's views about

poetry is due to an examinationof only parts of his writingsand to anattempt to fit these into a formulawhich is assumed to representthePlatonic philosophy. Those who considerchiefly the Republiccarryaway only the impression hat he banishedthe poets anddeniedpoetryall access to truth; whereas those who think chiefly of the Phaedrusoften rememberonly the apotheosis of poetic madness, and supposethat Plato intended to dethrone the reason. It is therefore,of thegreatest importanceto considerevery piece of evidence, even when itis imbeddedin logical discussions. Above all, it is importantnot toregard each passage as an isolated dictum,but to consider it in itsrelation to the context, and in relation to Plato's historical and philo-sophicalmilieu. Though such a precautionwould doubtlessbe neces-sary in the case of most philosophers, t is supremelynecessary in thecase of Plato; for Plato, more than any other philosopher,adapts hisprocedureto the circumstances. It is a commonplacethat we mustnever forget that his dialoguesare dramatic; but we often forgetwhatthat implies. We must remember that Plato's own thoughts areactors in the drama, and make their exits and their entrancesin ac-1 Rep. 607 d.



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4 William ChaseGreenecordancewith the plot, sometimes,as it were,in the spiritof the mime.The phase of any subject that shall be presented on any particularoccasion is therefore determinedby the particularinterest of the oc-casion; another occasion may suggest that a contrasting phase beintroduced. Many remarks about poetry and inspirationand imita-tion are no more intended to be regardedas Plato's ultimate viewsthan are the ironicaland dialectic obiterdictaand excursusof his logicaldiscussions. Sextus Empiricus, no doubt a prejudicedwitness, tellsus: 1 " Some said that Plato was a dogmatist, others that he was adoubter, still others that he was at times a dogmatist, at times adoubter." It transpiresnevertheless that in almost every case wherePlato discussespoetry he seems to play the roleof doubter. A dilemmaconfrontshim, and he solves as best he can the particular problem,never imagining that he has disposed of the whole question. Theexaminationof the occasion and of the context ought to help us indetermininghow Plato came to make eachremark,and how far it goesto show that all his remarks ogetherimply a definitebeliefin the valueof poetry.2

At the outset we must ask what evidence is fairly to be admitted inour investigation. One would suppose, to be sure, that the naturalrecourse for light on the views of Plato would be to the dialoguesofPlato. But althoughwe have alwaysrealized that Plato is a dramaticartistand that we mustbe on ourguardagainst imagininghim to speakat all times in propriapersona,we have lately been told by Taylor3and by Burnet4 that much that we had been prone to regardas dra-matic is in truth historical,and is to be regardedas giving an accountnot of Plato's thought but of that of Socrates, who thus becomes aPythagorean and Orphic philosopher, the head of a cult, and thechampion of a well-developeddoctrine of ideas. If this is true, ourevidence for the views of Plato is much decreased. Yet the groundson which this evidence is denied us are slender.5 Unconvinced by1 Hypotyposes, i, 221.2 Cf. P. Shorey, The Unity of Plato's Thought, Chicago, 1903, pp. i-8.3 A. E. Taylor, Varia Socratica,Parker, Oxford, 1911.4 J. Burnet, edition of Phaedo, Oxford, 19II; GreekPhilosophy: Thales to Plato,London, 1914.6 In view of the host of arguments that have met the challenge of Taylor andBurnet, I need do no more than emphasize them, adding a few of my own. (See



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Plato's View of Poetry 5them, I shallproceed n this study on the hypothesisthat Plato's greatinterest was not in the history of philosophy but in philosophy.in particular: G. C. Field, Socrates and Plato, Parker, Oxford, 1913; A. C. Pearson,review of Burnet's Thales to Plato, in Class. Rev. xxix (1915), pp. i4I ff.; W. A.Heidel, review of the same in Philosophical Review,xxiv (1915), p. 314; A. S. Fer-guson, The Impiety of Socrates, in Class. Quart.vii (1913), pp. 157 ff.; P. Shorey,review of Varia Socratica, in Class. Phil., vi (19ii), pp. 361 ff.; his rejoinder toTaylor, ibid., vii (1912), pp. 89 ff.; and his review of Burnet's Pkaedo, viii (1913),pp. 233 ff.)(i) It is not clear that Xenophon, the author of the Anabasis and of the Hellenica,was incapable of writing serious history, or that his picture of Socrates is essentiallyfalse. He expressly denies that Socrates was interested in mathematics and science;he is silent with regardto any " inner circle "of Pythagoreans and with regardto thetheory of ideas. If Xenophon was trying to refute charges of impiety based on no-torious facts, his silence is a strange sort of refutation.(2) Aristotle doubtless derived most of his information about Socrates fromPlato;but he need by no means have learned all that he knew from Plato's writings; infact, he frequently distinguishes between the historical Socrates and the dramaticcharacter Socrates in the dialogues. The passages in which Aristotle most ex-plicitly tells of the genesis of the theory of ideas (Met. I. 987 a 32-b o0; 13.1078 b 9;cf. also 13. io86 a 32) make it clear beyond all possibility of doubt that Aristotlesharply distinguished between Socrates, who was responsible for universals anddefinitions, and Plato, who was the author of the doctrine of ideas.

(3) The so-called Pythagorean comrades of Socrates were only in a limited sensePythagoreans; and it is at least as significant that these young men (cf. Phaedo,89 a 3) were Socratics. So it is fair, I think, to hold against Burnet (EarlyGreek Philosophy2,p. 355) that when " we " discuss a familiar theory of ideas(Phaedo, 76 d 8; 75 d 2; and passim), " we " means not an older philosophicalschool but simply " you and I," the speakers in the dialogue.(4) In adducing Plato's dialogues as evidence, we must distinguish between theone dialogue in which a certain degree of historical exactness was to be expectedand the other Socratic discourses which were, according to Aristotle (Poetics,1447 b 4) a form of poetic imitation. In the Apology,Plato could hardly make anyactual misrepresentation; in it not only is there no reference to Pythagorean orOrphic cults in either accusation or reply, but Socrates declares that his interestis not in the teaching of specific philosophical or scientific tenets but in practicallife. He expressly rules out of court one of Taylor's chief witnesses, Aristophanes(18, 19), and explicitly denies the charge of an inner circle of pupils (33). (Burnet,in The Socratic Doctrine of the Soul, Oxford, 1916, makes much of the use in theApology of the word #vx1;in a specialized sense. But that the word as used bySocrates did not imply what we mean by an " immortal soul " seems clear, I think,from Xen. Mem. 3. 10, 7; 3- 3, 14; 4. 8, 1; 1. 4, 9, 13, 14, 17.) The interest of theother Platonic dialogues varies from the purely ethical to the metaphysical. If



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6 William Chase GreeneThough he began by consideringthe topics that interested Socrates,his interests expanded and his doctrine developed far beyond theirorigin. Taylor and Burnet, on the otherhand, are in the present caseinterested in the history of philosophy; unfortunately their very in-terest has prevented them from applying a propercanon to the his-toricalevidence involved.

When Plato declared in the Republic1 that there was an ancientquarrelbetween philosophyand poetry, he was stating no more thanthe truth. He did not invent the quarrel; he found it already old, andhe was so muchimpressedby its importance hat he undertook o solveit. We are too often inclined to rememberonly that Plato used thephrase" ancientquarrel"in the Republic,and to neglectboth the longdevelopment of thought that precededhis treatment of the problemand the survivalsof older creeds that werepotent even in his day. Inorderto understandPlato's discussion,we must trace rapidly the his-tory of the quarrelab ovo. And that means that we must realize asvividly as possible the conflictbetween emotion and reason, betweenthe immediate intuition and the progressive discoveryof truth thatSocrates really had a theory of ideas at the centre of his philosophy, it is curious thatPlato should have expounded this philosophy in some ten dialogues, according tothe ordinary arrangement of the works, before he mentioned it at all. It is cer-tainly more natural to explain the silence of the dialogues before the Phaedo asindicating that Plato did not regard the doctrine as Socratic, and that he resortedto it after some years of speculation, influencednot only by the interests of Socratesbut by those of the Ionian scientists and of the Pythagoreans. Because his interestcame primarily from Socrates, however, he continued to express his opinions throughthe mouth of his master. Similarly, we are not surprised to find in the dialoguesearlier thinkers - as Parmenides - discussing doctrines that they could not haveknown, or the "Pythagorean " Cebes defending a distinctly Heracleitean view(Phaedo, 86 e ff.). We notice that although the theory of ideas is mentioned asfamiliar (Phaedo, 76 d) it is nowhere in the dialogues explained in detail. It isnatural to suppose that the introduction of the theory in this way is a mere literarydevice, and that Plato reserved a more exhaustive account of it for his oral dis-courses in the Academy; we know from Simplicius that several of his pupils pub-lished their notes on his lecture on the Good. And it is by no means necessary tohold that Plato's own conception of his doctrine was ever entirely definite and capa-ble of complete demonstration; it was a living thing, rather than a formula.1 Rep. 607 b.



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Plato's Viewof Poetry 7wasa part of Greek ife and thought. Forin Greece,as in all countries,men found that their lives were controlledby two forces; the powerof instinct and the love of reason. Man acts beforehe knows why heacts; so it is not surprising hat the earliest records of Greekciviliza-tion must be sought not in science or in history, but in religionandpoetry. In these activities the early Greeks expressedtheir concep-tions of their relation to the world about them and of the way thatthey must act towardit. When they asked what might be the sourceof theirideas, they couldnot do otherwise thanreply that the godshadinspiredthem.

The Greeks generally held that this immediateapproachto truthwas a gift of the gods. Dreams,forexample,werea vision of the truth,though there were false dreams as well as true,' and Prometheustaught men to distinguishthe true from the false.2 Pindar says thatthe soul alone " is from the gods; it sleepswhile the limbsof the bodyare active, but when they sleep it gives in dreams clear knowledgeoffuturejoys and troubles."3 Socrates s said to have inferred he dayofhis death from the dream of a woman who quoted Homer;4 andPlato distinguishesbetween dreamsin which man's lower nature con-trols and those in which the reasonrules; these may attain truth.5Somepersonsaredivinelyendowedwith a greatergift than ordinarymortals possess. In Homer, prophets like Teiresias, Helenus, andCalchasknow the divine will, and expoundit to the commonpeople;they interpretdreams and omensand portents. Others act under theinspiration of madness; the L&bvTSs especially &Oeos. Cassandrais 4pEvopav7~snd Oeo46ppros,6ince she has the bpOoavretasrb6vos.7Plato gives an account of the commonbelief of his day about avrrtKcivOeos hich is better, as a divine gift, than humanaw4poarbv.8Andhe mentions, as examples of divinely-inspiredtellers of truth, i evAeXXoZs po7^4Ats al 7' vpAowfcvy lppetat ,taveaoatu. The gods spokethroughthe lips of the prophetsat the oracles.The Olympianreligionwas closelyrelatedto the establishedorderofthe state; it could be invokedin the interest of conventionalmorality

1Od. g, 562. 2 Aesch.Prom.485.8 Pind.Frag.96 (ro8)ed. Christ. Cf. Aesch.Eum.Io4.' Crito,44 b.b Rep.571 . * Aesch. Ag. 114o.Abid., I215. 8 Phaedrus, 244 b.



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8 William ChaseGreeneand of constitutedpolities. To questionthe right of kingswouldhavebeen an offence not only against law but against religion. For theindividual, accordingly, the old religion had little significance; itcouldnot solacehim in distressorgive him hopeof a happier ife in thehereafter. In the political revolutionsof the sixth century, it is notsurprising hat the tyrants founded their claimson othergrounds,andwereinclined to favornewly-discovered orms of religionthat promisedgreater contentment to the common people whose champions theyprofessed to be. And these new forms of religionofferedimmediaterevelationsof divine things not only to privilegedpersonsbut to ordi-nary men, satisfying their desire for a more abundant life, a life ofgreater hope and significancethan their daily round. So arose theritual of the Eleusinianmysteries, so too the intoxicationof Bacchusand the ecstasy of his worshippers. His religion was purified, theGreeks supposed, by Orpheus.? The principle of Orphic worship isthat its initiates may attain divine life; they becomebo~o.2 In orderto secure this end, the initiates lived a sober life, and engaged invarioussymbolic rites that survivedfrom the more savage Dionysiacritual. In lateryears these observanceswerecarried o absurd engths,and becamethe object of ridicule.3Both the Eleusinian mysteriesand the Orphicreligion encouragedtheir adherents to believe that through initiation and their presenceat certain rites they could win blessedness.4 Yet the act of initiationor of participatingin the rites was not an intellectual act; accordingto the testimony of Aristotle, " the initiated do not learnanything somuch as feel certain emotions and are put into a certain frame ofmind." 5 And all that we know of the ritual suggests that it consistedof the enactment of a simple dramaand of spoken formulae.6 Of themysteries, the central part was the iroarrela, which meant either therevelation to sight of symbols or the beholdingof a play that repre-sented the union of the human and the divine. In the Orphicritualcarriedon at the oracleof Trophoniusnear Delphi, there was a vision1 Diod. Sic.3, 65. 2 Cf.Eur.Cret.,Frag.475: B6Kxos XnOv6r&0wels.3 Cf.Theseus n Eur.Hipp. 952; Theophrastus,Char.28; Plato,Rep.364b.4 Soph.Frag. 753 (Nauck2);Pind.Frag.1o2 (II4) ed. Christ.

5 Synesius,Dion,p. 47d (Migne,PatrologiaGraeca,xvi, p. 1134).6 Galen,De UsuPart. 7, 14?469: "the thingsdone and the things spoken";cf. Paus.2. 37, 3 f.; 3. 22, 2.



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Plato's View of Poetry 9of -r& thXXovra; the initiate drank of the springs of A'0qrand ofMvtPoobvl;and the Orphicsometimeshad inscribedon his tomb theformula dbvolasKalCWASrAsx&pw,in the hope that he might rememberhis vision of the divine.2 OtherOrphic inscriptionstestify of the per-formance of ritual acts by which the initiate conceives that he hasachieved purity and a sort of divinity.'Not differentfrom the early Greek view of religionwas the view ofpoetry. As the gods sent dreamsand inspired prophets, so they in-spired bards. So in Homer the blind bardDemodocuswas " belovedby the Muse " who gave him the gift of song; and is " impelledby agod."4 Phemius,wefind,was"self-taughtbut god-inspired." Homerhimself appeals for knowledgeof his story to the Oet or to the MoDTa.6And the Muses are the daughtersof Memory.7 Democritusheld that" all that a poet writes under the influenceof enthusiasmand of holyinspirationis exceedinglybeautiful "; 8 he " denies that any one canbe a great poet unlesshe is mad." 9 Plato, whetherseriouslyor ironi-cally, was giving only the currentnotion of the poet when he referredto Homer as divine.10 Throughthepoets, then, the godsspeak,and inpoetry the people seek for truth.At Athens, the poems of Homer were familiarin the sixth century;by the fifth century, Homer had become the "educator of Hellas.""1In fact we have in the Protagoras f Plato, in the courseof an argumentintended to show that virtue can be taught, a pictureof the Athenianboy's educationin virtue; a large part of it consistsof the study of thepoets.12 This description,we notice, comes from the famous sophistwho was the arch-championof humanismin the conflict that was be-ginning between humanismand science.

1 Paus. 9. 39, 5-14.2 Cf. J. E. Harrison, Prolegomenato the Study of GreekReligion2,p. 583.Ibid., pp. 572 ff.* Od. 8. 63, 73.6 Od. 22. 347.

6 II. I. I Od. I. I.SHes. Theog.54, 915.8 Clem. Al. Strom. 6. i8, 168.' Cic. De Div. i. 80; cf. Hor. A. P. 295ff.10Plato, Ion, 530 b; cf. Pind. Isth. 3. 55 if. 11 Rep. 606e.2 Protag. 325 e-326 e; cf. also Laws, 8io e. Niceratus was forced by his fatherto know all Homer by heart (Xen. Symp. 3). Even Aristophanes proclaims thatthe comic poet educates as well as amuses. Cf. Butcher, Aristotle's Theoryof FineArt3,p. 218; C. L. Brownson, Reasonsfor Plato's Hostility to thePoets, T. A. P. A.,xxviii, pp. i8 ff.



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So William Chase GreeneFor Homer was not universallypraised. Xenophanes, the first torebelagainstanthropomorphic eligion,declared," HomerandHesiodhave imputed to the gods all that is blame and shame for men." 1Heracleitus exclaimed, "Homer and Archilochus deserved a soundthrashing,"because they held that happinessis dependenton the willof Heaven.2 And Pythagoraswas said to have seen in the lowerworldthe soul of Homer hanging from a tree, encircledby serpents, for hiswords about the gods.3 The poets were apt to retaliate against theserebels; the philosopherswho reduced the universe to a mechanismresembled barking dogs.4 And in reply to those critics who were

shockedby the obvious moralinferiorityof the Homericgods, judgedby the standards of their own day, the students of Homer had at-tempted to interpret the poet by findingin him allegoricalmeanings.sTheagenes of Rhegium suggested a double interpretation: the namesof the gods expressedeither the mental facultiesof man or the elementsof nature. Antisthenes was a commentatoron Homer;6 the poet rdtcav 6 arh 4&iaOe~lX~ pax, he held. He, too, interpretedthe poetallegorically,denying that Eros was a god, and callinghim mereKaKta

But the "ancient quarrel" betweenphilosophyand poetry lay stilldeeper. It was not enoughfor the humanists to apologizeforHomer'slapses in morality, to allegorizehis gods, or to turn their backs onscience as a profitlessand confusing pursuit, and to expound trivialmatters in the poets8 or to discuss the charactersof Homer, as didGorgias9and Hippias.10For scienceandphilosophywereraisingmoreprofound questions. Men wereaskingabout the natureof reality andthe meaningof knowledge. What could men know?The earliest Greekthinkers,to be sure, had not put the questioninthis form. They had not realizedthat the relationof man to natureinvolves man as much as it involves nature. But the very one-sided-ness of their viewshadbroughtto light the need for the largerquestion.Plato suggests that the contradictionsbrought to us by the evidenceof our sensesare the sourceof ourinquiryinto the nature of being. For1 Sext. Emp. Math. 9. I93.2 Diog. Laert. 9. 1.3

Ibid., 8. 21.4 Laws, 967 c; cf. Rep. 607 b.5 bir6vota, Rep. 378 d.

6 Dio Chrys. Orat.53. p. 164, ed. Dindorf.Clem. Al. Strom. 2. 20, 107.8 Protag. 338 e ff.9 Arist. Rhet. 3. 17.10Plato,Hipp.Min. 365b.



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Plato's View of Poetry IIexample, &a oap rabr&vjs9vre 6pWUpJ ai s 7repaTb rfOos.6 TheMilesianphysicists, impressedby the manifoldnessof naturalphenom-ena, had triedto discovera single essence which should explain every-thing. Water, the boundless, air- these were their names for theprimal unity in diversity. The Pythagoreans fixed upon number asthe counterpartof reality,and thereforeas theirchiefstudy. Heraclei-tus, scornful of the opinions of the mob and of the poets, declared"Wisdom is one thing. It is to know the thought by which all thingsare steered throughall things."2 This " thought" or law,3he holds,is the unity of the many conflicting things that we perceive, and thepluralityof the one. Plato says that Heracleitusremarked hat it wassafest to say that reality is both many and one and is kept togetherby Hate and Love.4 Burnet has pointed out I that the discovery ofHeracleituscan not be called a logicalprinciple. Logic, it is true, didnot exist as a specializedbranchof study; but Heracleituswas tryingwith the best logical instrumentsat his commandto state a paradoxthat has alwaysexistedand that will alwaysexist. Later thinkersdid,indeed,use the doctrineof Heracleitus as the basis fora logical theory;since the only permanentthing was change, the only knowledgemustbe relative.The Eleatics, in their several ways, demonstratedthe unity of na-ture.6 Aristotle tells us that Parmenidesbelieved only in a sensiblereality; 7 this sensible universe is one; it can not change, or it willbecome what it is not - which is absurd. In order to account forchange,it is necessaryeitherto deny that reality is one or to deny thatit is merely sensible. Empedocles therefore, supposed there were anumber of physical elements, two of which, Love and Strife, causedchange. He made no distinction between thought and perception.8Anaxagorasconceived of an infinite number of elements, whose mo-tion was caused by voDs,which, however, is nothing more than amaterial substance. Leucippus dispensed with any imputation of arationalprinciple. But it was not hard for Zeno to attack such posi-tions; his book " argues against those who upholda Many, and gives1 Cf. Rep. 523a-525 a.2 H. Diels, Fragmenteder Vorsokratiker,Heracl. Frag. 41.3 Ibid., I14.4 Plato, Soph. 242 d.

5 J. Burnet, Early GreekPhilosophy2,pp. 159 f.6 Arist. Met. I. 986 b io.De Caelo, 3. I, 298 b 21.8 De An. 3. 3, 427 a 21.



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i2 William ChaseGreeneback as good and better than they gave; its aim is to show that theirassumption of multiplicity will be involved in still more absurditiesthan the assumptionof unity, if it is sufficientlyworkedout."'Confusedby such contradictions,the teachers of Greecenaturallysupposed that science must be incapable of discoveringan absolutetruth. They therefore abandoned inquiry into the unity of theworld of sense, and sought for principlesof human conduct. Yet inthe worldof human affairsthey found no less confusion; opinionsandcustoms vary. From this Protagorasconcludedthat what appearstoeach man is for him true. Though he probablydid not himself holdthat knowledgeconsists entirely of sensations,Plato intimates in theTheaetetus that the doctrine was held in his own time, and that heregardedit as sprungfrom the doctrineof Protagoras,which in turnwas the offspringof the flux of Heracleitus. What Protagorasreallywas interested in maintaining was doubtless not the fluidity of theouter world, but the positiveness of the perceptions. The result washowever, the same; there can be no absolutely true statements whichare true for all persons, and judgments about particular things areall that we can make. This doctrinecertainlywas heldby Aristippus.Gorgiasmaintainedby meansof Eleatic dialectic that there is no truthat all.Such was the world in which Socrates began to teach. The poetsand their interpretersstill claimeda divine inspirationas the warrantfor the truth of their works. Ordinarymen believed, if not in all themythology of the old Olympic religion, at least in a world of super-natural powers that spoke to men through dreams and oracles, andthat could even be approachedby means of rites which made menblessed. Eternal things could be seen, things that satisfied men'scraving for perfectionand for union with a world larger than them-selves. Concerning he physical world, to be sure, the wisest men dif-fered, and their opinionsinvolved them in absurd contradictions. Inmatters of conduct, however, it was possible to learn enough to be agood artisan, a good soldier, a good citizen; and there were cleverforeigners o teach them how to speakwell in the courts and to explainthe old literatureto them. In human affairsall was relative; but even

1 Plato, Parm. 128 d. I Theaet. 152 a ff.



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Plato's View of Poetry 13what was accepted as ordainedby conventionwas often valuable inpractice; those who did not choose to obey it were deterredby nodictate of an absoluterightorwrong. For every man, his ownpercep-tion was the most positive thing that existed.The work that Socratesset beforehimself was to find in this worldof flux and confusion certain permanentprinciples. It is customaryto emphasizethe skepticismof Socrates,the man who knew only thathe knew nothing. We ought long ago to have been put on our guardagainst these rationaldoubters. Descartes built a colossalsystem ona smallerfoundation. It is not likely that Socrateswould have under-gone poverty, ridicule, and death simply to convince Athens of hisignorance.1 It is clear that Socrates distinguishedbetween the sub-jects in whichsureknowledgecan not be foundand those in which wecan know something. He had nothing but ridicule for those con-temporarieswho speculatedabout the physical universe and its laws;they were not only ignorantof humanaffairs,but were vainly tryingto learn what man can never learn. Speculationabout it led to themost inconsistentexplanations,and in the end had no practicalappli-cation.2 He himself, however,discoursedon human affairs,trying todefine7r eoeIbaO,7 &oaeIEs,6KaXbv,r7 alaxpb6v, nd other conceptsofthe sametype.3 And in the definitionof these qualities,he was alwaysusing an inductive method and citing analogies drawn from thosepractical arts where, for ordinarypurposes,no one could doubt thatsomethingfixed could be found. For him the type of all knowledgewas that possessed by the artisan, who knows how to apply specialknowledgeto appropriateends. Indeed, his ideal of knowledge s notreally that of science but that of art; and this conceptiontinges notonly his ethical notions but even his idea of creation as teleological.For example,his interpretationof " yvw-OLeavr6v" might almost beparaphrasedas: "know whatyou can do for the serviceof mankind."*He was in fact always trying to find the peculiar capabilitiesof his as-sociates for specialpurposes;5 hence the virtues are differentkinds ofknowledge. And his wholeaccount of the physical universe s directed

1 Cf. Burnet, The SocraticDoctrineof theSoul, pp. 7-II; A. W. Benn, TheGreekPhilosophers2,pp. Io4-Io6.2 Xen. Mem. I. I, II--IS.3 Ibid., I. I, 16. 4 Ibid., 4. 2, 24 ff.5 Ibid., 4. 7, I; and passim.



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Plato's.View of Poetry 15II

That Plato, the happy son of a happy age, grew up under the influ-ence of poetry, seems certain. As a member of an aristocraticfamilyin comfortablecircumstances,he must have had the traditional educa-tion in Homerand the otherpoets whomhe so frequentlyquotes, evento the end of his life, with signsof respect. We can detect in the wordswhich he puts into the mouth of Socrates1the affectionwhichhe feltfor Homer even when he was preparingto express the most severecensureon the whole tribeof poets: "Andyet a certainfriendshipanda respect that I have felt fromboyhoodkeepsme fromspeakingaboutHomer; for of all these fair tragic poets he seems to be the first teacherand leader." We need not believe implicitly the tradition that hewrote a great deal of poetry in his youth, but burnedit whenhe cameto know Socrates; nor are we obliged to hold that the poems whichhave come down to us under his name are genuine, or again to trustthe story that later in his life he used to sleepwith a copy of the mimesof Sophronunder his pillow. For even without these pleasant tales,we can readilyperceivein his own writingsan instinct for beauty thatis akin to poetry, and that occasionallykindles his discoursewith adivine flame. Yet his great master had discovered that the poetsunderstandnothing of what they say; their poems are the result notof ao4ia but of 4bTLs L; they write VOovmaL'OTves&rirepol OOLVTELsKaLoL XPpr'l,.~coL.2So Plato himself, in his first3considerationof poetry, takes up justthis problem: how muchdo the poets know,and what is the source oftheir knowledge? One who reads the Ion might almost imaginehim-self to be presentat one of those conversationswith the poets that arementionedin the Apology. The conceitedrhapsodeIon, whoprofessesa superlativeability to expoundHomer, is unable to account for his

1 Rep. 595 b. 2 Apology, 22 a-c.3 In this study it seems unnecessary to discuss the chronology of Plato's dia-logues; I shall assume them to have been written in the order in which they areplaced by Lutoslawski (The Origin and Growthof Plato's Logic, London, 1897). Itwill be seen that I am far from accepting all the methods and results of Lutoslaw-ski; but his arrangement of the dialogues is of service to all students of Plato,whether they acknowledge the fact or not.



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i6 William Chase Greeneinability to rhapsodizeexcept in the case of Homer.- Socrates sug-gests that it is not by virtue of any re~xtYhat Ion can discourseaboutHomer,but that a Oda bvacLsmoves him, like a magnet.2 The Musecommunicatesherinspirationfromone inspiredpersonto another. Sothepoets: " For all good poets composetheir beautifulpoemsnot by artbut by inspirationand in a state of possession; andgood composersofsongsare not in their senseswhen they write their beautifulsongs, butare just like Corybanteswho are not in their senseswhen they dance.. . . For a poet is a light and wingedand holy creature,and can notmake poetry until he is inspiredand is out of his senses and his reasonis no longer in him; and until this comes to pass, no man can makepoems or give forth oracles. For it is not by art that they make theirmany beautiful poems and speeches about things, . . . but by a divinedispensation each man can make a beautiful poem only about thesingle matter to which the Muse inspires him; . . . about all else heis incapable. . . . And this is the reason why the god chooses theirminds and uses as his servants the deliverersof oraclesand the divinesoothsayers,that we who hear them may know that it is not they whospeak who are of much account, since they have no reason,but thatit is the god himself who speaks and addresses us throughthem."3This explanationis enthusiasticallyaccepted by Ion. Socrates pro-ceeds, however, to show that in all the specialfields of action treatedby the poet, the specialist is better informed than the poet and thanthe rhapsode who derives his inspirationfrom the poet.4 Ion mustthereforeadmit either that he is a deceiveror that his pretensionsarefoundedon inspiration; he prefers to be regardedas inspired.I have quoted extensive passages of this dialoguebecause they ex-hibit the traditionalview of poetic inspiration5whichPlato was com-ing to weigh. Some suppose that Plato is here seriously upholdingthis view; others contend that the dialoguewas written expresslytoridiculeit and to discardit. Neither interpretation,I think, is right.Plato here is weighing the common Greeknotion that attributes theinspirationof the poet to an external influence. Just as the Greekstended to finda myth in orderto accountfor whateverthey happened

1 Ion, 530-533 c.2 Ibid., 533d.

3 Ibid.,533e-534 b.* Ibid.,536e-541 e.6 As expressed,orexample,by Democritus;cf. p. 9.



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Plato's View of Poetry 17to believe, and to find ancestors for everything,' in the same way,recognizingthat poetry is obviously a different thing from a man'sordinaryexpression,they assumed that some one else must have sug-gested it to him- a Muse or a god. So the poet was not his normalself; he was bO0eos,r the victim of i5Kcraal. Plato does not in theIon discardthis notion. He does, indeed, indicate the futility of ap-peals to inspirationfor special knowledge in the ordinary affairs oflife, in medicineand in chariot-driving,orexample. Like the Socrateswhom Xenophon knew, he distinguishes between things that are amatter of learningand left to human understandingand things thatare not a matter of r4xvPt.That is a distinction that Plato himselfalmostalwayspreserved,2houghhe enormously ncreased he provinceof human understanding. And the irony that undoubtedly exists inthe Ion is not that Socratesis supposedto deny the bewildered on allknowledge,but that Ion does not realize the meaningof knowledge.Plato at all periodsof his life attributesinspirationto the poets in utterseriousness,3 s giving forth wisdomin a way that can not be reducedto a -rxv77. What kind of wisdom this is, Plato had yet to consider.We must remember that at the time this dialogue was written,although the germ of the doctrine of ideas may well have been inPlato's mind, the doctrine itself had not yet been broached; the in-spiration of the poet is therefore contrasted not with the knowledgeafforded by science or by dialectic but with the purely practicalkind of knowledge requiredin ordinary life-- in other words,withthe ideal of knowledge that Socrates had sought, typified by thearts. If we had to recast the conclusionof the Ion in modern anguage,it would be somethinglike this: The poet's work is not producedinthe same rationalway that otherthings are produced; it is the resultof his having a peculiarpower, greaterat some times than at others,of giving utterance to thoughts that are in some way more preciousthan those of ordinarylife. Naturally Plato does not imply that allwho pretend to be poets are thus inspired,even though otherwise badpoets may have occasionalflashes of inspiration. And the ironyof thedialoguelies in the fact that the fatuous assumptionof the rhapsode

1 Cf. Benn, The GreekPhilosophers2,pp. 47-52.2 Not in every case,however;see pp. 52 f.3 Cf. Phaedrus, 45 a; Laws,682a.



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i8 William Chase Greenethat he, too, sharesin the inspirationof Homer,is apparentlyacceptedby Socrates.In the Meno we begin to see the emergenceof a new standard oftruth. " Can virtue be taught ? " is the question. Only that can betaught, the argumentproceeds,which can be known. Yet it appearsthat a man can not seek either for that which he knows or for that ofwhichhe is ignorant.' As a solutionof this dilemma,Socratesproposesthe previous existence of the soul, which he accepts from the priestsand from Pindar and many other poets. " The soul, then, being im-mortal and having many times come to birth, and having beheld thethings of a formerlife and of Hades and all matters, there is nothingwhichit has not learned; so it is not strangethat it can recollect whatit knew before about virtue and about other matters. . . . For intruth investigation and learningare altogether the same as recollec-tion." 2 This doctrineis confirmedby the geometricalreasoningof anuntrainedboy, whois describedas recallingopinionsthat he previouslyheld.3 Human affairs, however,are conductednot by science,but byright opinion,which must be distinguished romsciencebecause it cannot, like science, deduce things rationally from a cause.' HenceerLrLaTi7. s more valuable than b6pOi56oa,5houghin practice6pO)6rbais as effective as EntLaTr?1u6 So the statesmen, who act through '6p0564aand not througheTrLaTr77are, like the XprjqEroLand avIretsandol 7roL)TyrLKOLrarTes,divinely inspired.'In the Meno two points should especially be noted. In the firstplace, Plato is hintingat a standardof truth that shall be nothing lessthan absolute. The soul in its previous existence knew everything,8and can recoverthis knowledgeby degrees. That is differentfromtheknowledgeof practicalarts with which the inspirationof the poet andof the rhapsodewas contrastedin the Ion; for it discoversnecessaryrelationshipsamongthings, and it does not dependon inspiration. Ofthe methods of &vuvneals,lato does not here say more than that theopinionswhich a man has always held are arousedby questions;9 themethod was later to be developed further in the Pkaedo. We mustnote moreoverthat inspiration,which in the Ion was contrasted with

1 Meno, 80 e.2 Ibid., 81 cd.3 Ibid., 85 c.

* Ibid., 98 a.6 Ibid.6 Ibid., 98 bc.

7 Meno, 99 cd.8 Ibid., 81 c.9 vpavepraL,Ibid., 85 d.



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Plato's View of Poetry i9the knowledgeof the practicalarts, is hereplacedin the samecategorywith it. The reason,however,is patent; the inspired~roLTr&xoravretogether with the statesmen, are unable to refer their opinions to acause,and cannot thereforebe creditedwith science in the strict sense.But theiropinions may be as valuableforpractical purposesas if theywere causally connected. So 6po0) 6bamay imply a real possessionof truth, and is inferiorto nrLaTriIonly becauseit can not explainthetruth. It is not Plato's intention, of course, in this place to laud thepracticalvalue of inspiration,whichis in theoryonly a makeshift; onthe other hand, it becomes a makeshift only when the theoreticallypossible grasp of truth by means of Avaijymtss assumedto be not anideal but an actuality. We shall see that a similar valuation of 664aoccursin later dialogues.The Symposium s so full of imageryand of poetry that it is a hardand not altogethera gracioustask to seek in it a definite formulationof philosophicdoctrine. Yet the dialogue, in spite of its exceedinglycomplex form, throws a new light on our problem. At the home ofAgathon, the tragicpoet, the guests engage in a series of encomiaonlove. Although Socratesdoes not altogetheromit, in his own contri-bution to the discussion,the ideas of his other predecessors, t is par-ticularlythe speechof thepoet Agathonthat is takenup anddevelopedby him. For Agathonin his eulogy of Love has assertedthat Love isa poet and the sourceof poetry in others.1 " Since the birth of Love,and from the Love of the beautiful, has sprungevery good in heavenand earth."2 Using thisrhetoricalpanegyric,whichwas"half playful,yet having a certainmeasureof seriousness,"as a sortof text, Socratesproceeds to contributehis share to the discussion. Only he will not,like the others, say only what is good of Love, whether true or false;he will say only what is true. From his predecessors,then, Socratesaccepts the conceptionof Love as a force that permeatesall nature;he agreeswith Agathonthat Love is of the beautiful,and emphasizes,in a bit of dialectic,the point that it is of a beauty not in possessionofthe lover. And since the good is also beautiful, Love in wantingthe beautiful wants also the good.3The discourseof Diotima, whichSocratesrecounts,may be regardedas giving the views of Plato himself,who wishes to representSocrates1 Symp. 196 de. 2 Ibid., I97 b. 3 Ibid., 201.



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20 William Chase Greeneas too tactful to give utterance on his own authority to views that in away contradict those of his host. He is also a learner. And what doeshe learn ? Diotima explains to him, in allegory, the paradoxof theposition of Love between possession and non-possession. In theMeno, we saw, a similarparadoxwas solved by an appeal to the doc-trine of dv&upvtas;he soul recovers what it formerlyhad.' Here thesolution is in mythical form; as the childof Plenty and Poverty, Loveis neither fair nor foul, and is between divine and mortal, as he is be-tween ignoranceand knowledge.2 Love then, aims at the beautiful,or rather at the everlastingpossessionof the beautiful and the good.3Further, in accordance with its nature, Love desires to procreate,and to bringforth offspring,sinceonly in this way can mortals achievea sort of immortality. For in a world whereall is change,both in bodyand in soul, it is only reproductionon the one handand recollectiononthe other hand that conserve identity; hence the desire for immor-tality of either kind.' Diotima describes the creations of the soul:"wisdom and the otherformsof virtue,of whichall the poets and thosewho are called creative are the begetters."I And the fairest part ofwisdom is that which is concerned with the orderingof states andfamilies. Whoever has the seed of these qualities planted in him inhis youth, in maturity seeks the beautiful so that he may beget off-spring. His childrenare fairer than mortalchildren; and so it is thatHomer and Hesiod, that Lycurgus and Solon have achieved im-mortality."At this point, though there is not an actual break in the thought,Diotima indicatesby her languagethat we are passing to a new stagein the argument. She adopts the languageof the mysteries,and tellsSocrates that the mysteries so far describedare within his grasp, butthat the complete initiation and the sight of the mystic revelation towhichtheyleadareperhapsbeyondhim. Whenwe rememberhe ironicassumptionby Socratesof the r6leof pupil in thispart of the dialogue,we are justifiedin regardingwhat follows as exactly the new doctrinethat Plato is interested n putting forth,and whichhe wishesexpresslyto distinguish from what has gone before and to mark as somethingnot easily to be graspedby the averageman. In what hasgonebefore,

1 Meno, 80 c ff.2 Symp. 204 b. 3 Ibid., 206 a.4 Ibid. 207 c ff. SIbid., 209 a.6 Ibid., 209og-e.



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Plato's View of Poetry 21the aspirationfor permanence n a life of changehas resulted,throughthe loving embrace of beauty, in the begetting of wisdomand virtue.Of these the types are the productionsof the poet and of the legislator.In what follows,we have a glowingforecastof the stages by which thelover should proceed. In other words, a programmeis being an-nounced. The lover should begin with the love of a single beautifulbody, and shouldthus beget beautifulthoughts; then, perceivingthatthe beauty in any body is akin to that in other bodies, and that theirbeauty is one, he should be a lover of all beautifulbodies. Next, heshould realize the superiorityof the beauty that resides in souls, andshouldproceedto the contemplationof the beauty that is to be foundin practicesand in laws,and hence to think little of bodilybeauty. Hewill then approach the sciences and contemplate their beauty, tilldrawingnear to the vast sea of beauty he gazes upon it and begets ahost of fair thoughts in his love of wisdom, and at last he beholds asingle science, namely, that of beauty. The scholarin love who hasreachedthis point then suddenly catches sight of a wondrousbeauty,the goal of all his toils, a beauty that is eternal, absolute,and unchang-ing. It cannot be represented o sense2 or stated in termsof intellect.3It is absolute,and the sourceof the changingbeautiesof other things.This is the goal toward which tends the right love of beautifulthings,risingas by the steps of a ladderfrom the love of particular beauties,throughfair practicesand fair sciencesto the science of beauty itself,whichends in the knowledgeof the essence of beauty.4 This life, livedin the contemplationof real beauty, is the noblest ideal that a mancould have; and the lover, always desirousof procreation,would atthis stage have come into contact with truth, and so wouldbeget notmere images of virtue, but true virtue.In the Symposium,Plato develops further the notion at which hemerelyhints in the Meno- the ideal of a knowledgethat is absolute.But whereasin the Meno the method was one of simpleremembering,in the SymposiumPlato, influencedno doubt by the image of the

1 Symp. 21o a: MYv rs6pnS puert'.; bid., 21o a: Trv bp&2is 6&ra rl roivro 7rpaypcL.2 Ibid., 21I a: ob 6' af crprTaOEcra& ab6r^3rr IcaXMyior Tp6awwpr6 eo.xeapes oi68 A XX obAh (iVa^t Iat xeL.3 Ibid.,WkLsX6yoss W &k s rLr74or7.4 Ibid.,211c.



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22 William Chase Greenelover's separationfrom the beloved, proposesknowledgeof the abso-lute as the goal of love of the beautiful. From this point of view, thediscoursemust be regardedas the sketch of the end towardwhich theaesthetic experience ogically tends. Particular beautiful things impelus to go beyond the world of sense into the world of thought wherebeauty itself is contemplated. But inasmuchas this ultimate beautyis neithercorporealnor even capableof representationn termsof intel-lect, it may be distinguished rom the absolutethat is finallyenvisagedby the philosopherwho goes through the various steps of dialecticdescribedin the Phaedoand the Republic. In this case,Plato seems tohave been carried away by the enthusiasm of his imagination, inhis attempt to assumea goal for the activity which deals with beauty.In later discussionsof the dialectic processPlato does not indeed tryto describe his absolute, but he makes it clear that he is dealingwitha postulate of reason. In a certainsense, therefore,Love may be saidto philosophize;1 but in orderto accomplishthis end, Love is forcedto give up its contact with the things of sense and to seek real beautyby the exerciseof the intellect. What he finds is somethingthat wouldordinarilyhardlybe describedas beauty at all. The laterstagesof thelover's ascent are describedmuch as are those of the b&aXeKrcK6o,hoproceedsfrom the perceptionof particularobjects to universalquali-ties andfinallyto an absolute. Is the accountin the Symposium, hen,simply an account of dialectic? The answermust be, I think, that itincludes dialectic and something more. The lover of beauty aspiresnot only to know the truth but to embraceit ardently and to begettrue virtue. His path, like that of the &aLXEKr1KbS,eads to the sum-mit of the same mountain;2 the mountain to him, however,is knownas beautiful, to the &LakeKTrK6st is known as good. That does notmean that we have in the Symposiummerely a dialectic tinged withemotion, such as we undoubtedly find in the Republic. We haverather the purifyingof emotionby the intellect. And this conceptionwas the more easily entertained by Plato by reason of the Greektradition that extended the meaning of KaX6v o conduct; it seemsto be Plato above all, however,who extended the meaningof the wordstill fartherto include the regionof the intellect. Is it then fair to sup-

1 Symp. 203 d: tXoao4,av; bid., 2zo d: v OLXoroo~i4&,eb6c.Symp. 211 C: oarep rava#aa/ots; Rep. 5z11ab: oto, brLkleaets re ,calbp/Aas.



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24 William Chase GreeneThe contributionof the Symposiumto the solution of our problem,then, is twofold. In the first place, we have a statement of the actualresults of the love of beauty, and of the productionsof the soul thatcome to birth thereby; the typical examplesof these are the worksofthe poets and the other creative artists, and of legislators. As in theMeno, there is no depreciationof the worksof poets, except, of course,as they necessarilyrank lowerthan the productionsof the idealactivitythat is to follow. Secondly, we have a statement of the end towardwhich the love of the beautiful ought to lead if carried to its logicalextreme. This end is describedas no more than a desirable,though

never attained, ideal;I and it takes us from the perceptionof particu-lar beautiful objects to the pure concept of beauty. It is really thedenial of the principleon which modern languagesdescribe the loveof the beautiful by expressionsderived from the word alaefrtzs. Itends, we notice, with the statement that he who is in contact withreality will bring forth true virtue. That means that truth can bebegotten by the ecstatic vision of the lover of beauty. The truth sobegotten, of course,would be of a purely intellectual nature.

IIIEven more than the Symposium,the Phaedo affirmsa distinctionbetweenbody and soul,between senseand thought. In the acquisitionof wisdom the body is an obstacle; the sight and the hearingcan not

give truth, still less the other senses.2 Even the soul is hamperedinits searchby the body, and can grasp the truth only as it succeeds ingetting rid of this disability. Of sucha process, the life of the philoso-pher is the supremeexample.3 He alone has learned the necessity ofpurification rombodily impedimentsthat must precedeall knowledge,and regardsthe attainment of the severalvirtues as an initiatorypur-

1 That this passagedescribesan experiencewhoserealizationcan be only ap-proximated ppearsrom helanguage:ymp.21o a: ~&Ps p0wspS perly . . . r6p0oos6vra CrioUTo7b rp'rpa . . .&a. v 6pO8s7rjytraLb ~'robfpeos;ibid., 1o e: 0&-Evos /4ei~s re Kal o6pOOsd KaX&; ibid., 211 b: &iaw4 L Ilrb rvoe bd&&6 b0is

vratSepaareiTv kArcal V kelVO Td KacbX &PX7r1c KaOOpiav,'7Xe5-v TPv r TLt roTO "TrXOvs;ibid., 211 d: bIra0a . . etrep roo AXXoM0;bid., 211 d: 8 MPvworeZSs; ibid.,211 d: ri ~ra . .. E T yboro; ibid., 212a: e"rep rT &XXW.2 Phaedo, 65 b. 3 Ibid.,65c ii.



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Plato's View of Poetry 25gation.1 Hence the philosopheris, of the many wand-bearersat themysteries, one of the few inspired.2It would seem that the severancebetween body and soul, betweensense and thought, couldgo no further. But Plato makesreservations.,In the proofof the immortalityof the soul,as in the defiihition f virtuein the Meno,Plato has recourse o the doctrineof recollection. Knowl-edge of the abstract ideas may ariseby a processof association." Forexample, the lover may be remindedof his beloved by a lyre or by agarment; to see Simmiasmay remind one of Cebes; to see a paintedhorseor lyre may remindone of a man; a pictureof Simmiasputs onein mind of Cebes or of Simmias himself.4 This reminiscence arisespartly from the perceptionof similarity,partly from the perceptionofdissimilarity.' Moreover, in addition to the recognitionof similarity,we notice whether one thing falls short of anotherwith regardto simi-larity. Now there is such a thing as abstract equality, not one of anumberof particulars. Yet we areput in mind of it by ourperceptionof particulars. On this point Socrates is explicit; it is the sensesthroughwhich we attain to our rediscoveryof the universals.6

What is modre o our purpose, T7 KaXbvs describedas being in ex-actly the same relationas the other qualitiesthat have beendiscussed.7The demonstration of the immortalityof the soul, moreover,rests onthe affirmationof these qualitiesas having a real existence priorto theparticular things which we refer to them; and this affirmation s de-scribedas familiar.8 In fact, nothing is to Socratesso clear as the ex-istence of these things.9 Unlike the particulars, they are immut~bleand invisible,and can be apprehendedonly by a process of thought.10Accordingly, the universe is divided into two types of existence: thevisible and the invisible, of which the former is ever-changing,the1 Phaedo, 65 c-69 c.2 Ibid., 69 c. 8 Ibid., 73 c.4 Ibid., 73 de. , Ibid., 74a.* Ibid., 75 ab: 765E buLoXoyoVo.Ie,J I&XXoOeabrbT [i. e. 7bTaro]Z eporP17paLjp75vwvTarpb*oatbPo)aju K&XXaLK V1BeY &OaarOa4IjS TWOS XX7SrTCvla0;arewp.

Tra67rb' 6i rdJra TaDra XEyW ... .11C ye TWJPLfcfcTOrcCEaweL bvPO7aL tr&& rdr'Ta 74 #vraT'alaOt4earw elVovre b6pierat To &V6WcTro9 , lKato,ro5vekrep& &Etw.Ibid., 75 c ff.s Ibid., 76d. I have alreadyexplained n what way it seems to me that thisstatementshouldbe understood, . 4, n. 5 (4) on p. 5-.SIbid., 77 a. 0oIbid., 79 a.



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26 William Chase Greenelatter changeless. This circumstance is given as the reason for anascetic life; the senses are to be distrusted,' and one should guardagainstbeingdeceivedby the emotions,and especiallyby the emotionsthat are excited by the sense of sight, into accepting for true what isreallynot true; in this condition,above all, the soul is shackledby thebody.2Again, in order to investigate the nature of causality, Socrates hasrecourse to a second resort,3that is, to thought,4making use of hy-potheses.5 This process brings him back to what he describes as afamiliarand often discussedhypothesis, namely, the real existence ofcertain concepts." Further, how the relation of beautiful things tobeauty itself is to be expressed,he is not quite sure; he is sure, how-ever, of the fact that they are beautiful by reasonof beauty.7In the Phaedo, then, as in the Symposium,we find a sharp divisionbetween the world of sense and the world of thought. Sure knowl-edge can be only of the world of thought; it follows, therefore,that inorder to attain sureknowledgeone shouldget ridof the dependenceonthe evidence of the senses as far as possible. Whereas, however, thetransitionfrom the senses to thought is in the Symposiumeffectedbythe discovery of beauty first in sensible forms, then in intellectualforms, in the Phaedoit is effected by the discovery of an intelligibleprinciplebeyond particulars8 or inherent in them,9which is to be ac-cepted as an hypothesis as certain as anything that is known.'0 Wenote furtherthat howeveranxiousPlato is to get ridof the dependenceon the senses" and the emotions,2 the senses are indispensableas ameans of acquiringknowledgeof ideas. Of themselves, they can giveno truth; yet without them we can not recapturethe eternallyexistingrealities that we once knew. Now the doctrineof recollectionis onlya poetic way of throwinginto quasi-historical orma logical principle.

1 Phaedo, 83 a. 2 Ibid., 83 cd.3 Ibid., 99 c: 6bebrpovrXogv. Which, after all, is not worse than the sight ofthings themselves (ibid., 99 e-ioo a).* Ibid., 99 e: elts-roXb Yovs.6 Ibid., Ioo a: ibrofpevos.

* Ibid., Ioo b.7 Ibid., Ioo c-e.8 Pkaedo, 74 a: rcap&Traira Tr&vra rEp6bvL.* Ibid., zoo c 5: perTxeL; Ioo d 5: Trapovcia etZe Kotvwova etre &rrl 57) Kal 6won

2rpo'yerJ,o~ ur?.10 Ibid., Ioo a; 107 b. 11 Ibid., 83 a. 12 Ibid., 83 c.



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Plato's View of Poetry 27Just as the Greekshad tended to attribute to a power outside them-selves the inspiration that they could not account for within them-selves,' Plato findsit convenient to supposethat the knowledgeof uni-versals which we acquire, though we have previously seemed not toknow them,2 s to be explainedby a knowledgeof them beforethis life.The logical truth that is containedin this explanation,however,is notdependent on the explanation; it amounts to what modern philos-ophers would call the a priori3 possession of forms of thought andperception.Indeed,one is temptedto compare he doctrineof wAvq&iaYnswith the doctrineof Kant, in which the universals are formsof cogni-tion, and are not valid except in relation to perception. But Platowouldnever have admitted that the universalsare dependentfor theirvalidity on perception; all that he will grant to the senses is that forus they are the meansby which we first obtain our acquaintancewithuniversals.In the Symposium,the only universaldiscussed,as we saw, was thatof beauty. In his discussion of the love of beauty, he found that loveof beautiful sensible objects leads to love of beauty itself. In thePhaedo,theperceptionnot only of beautifulobjectsbut of otherobjectsmay lead to the knowledgeof their respective universals. Naturallywe find that these universalsare now not the end of desire, as wasappropriatein the Symposium,but objects of knowledge. That isbecause we have here the logical statement, in a general form, of theprinciplethat leads us from sense to thought. We note, however,thatjust as in the SymposiumPlato foreshadoweda science of beautywhich was to crownall lowerformsof experience, n the Phaedoagainwe have the presageof a science4which is to deal with the hypothesisof forms,which are to be examined so as to secure the greatest degreeof certainty of which man is capable.5 Each universal is the cause ofthe particularsto which it is related; and in general,everythingis dis-posed in the way that is best for it.6Since in the Phaedo Plato does not discuss directly the matter ofpoetry proper,7we can only reconstruct from it the views that he

I Cf. pp. 8 f.; I6 ff. 2Meno, 85 c. SCf. Pkaedo, 76 de: inr&pxovavarpbepop.4 Pkaedo, go b: tir'epl robs X6rousrrxyji. 6 Ibid., 107 b.6 Ibid., 97 c: tIX7trqLoo; cf. Symp. 205 e: Aya06v.7 Unless the passage 60 b-6z b is to be regarded as Platonic. I have already



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28 William Chase Greenewouldprobablyhaveexpressed,ndthennoteinsucceeding ialogueshowfar theseviewsareconfirmed.Knowledgef the truthmustmeanknowledge f universals;to concernoneselfonly with the worldofsenseis to shutoneselfoff fromthe onlyregionwhere truth can befound. Therefore he poet whoattemptsto conveytruthsimplybythe use of sensibleimages is lendinghimself to deception. In order tomake sure that his poems give some sort of knowledge of truth, hemust choose his images in such a way that the readeror hearershallbe reminded by the particulars of the universals. Further, Platowould deprecateany attempt by the poet to appeal so strongly to theemotions that the mind would think only of the sensible images, andforget to pass beyond them to the realities that can be apprehendedonly by the mind. So much, and perhaps not more than so much,Plato might have said. There is no suggestionyet that poetry as awhole is to be distrusted.'

IVIn the previousdialogueswe have seen Plato gradually approachingthe problemof the natureof truth. In each casehe has chosen a singleaspect of the problem,because of a special interest. In the Republicwe find his most extendedand his most seriousattempts to formulatean answerto the problem; we find in it also severaldiscussionsaboutthe value of poetry in its relation to philosophy.

indicated (p. 14) my belief that there is no reason to suppose this passage not to beSocratic. If the passage, however, is Platonic, it supports the view here defended,since Socrates is represented as trying to express in the form of a myth, dealingwith sensible material, a universal idea. Moreover, ovIcLK in the popular senseis portrayed as a form of otXowoola,he highest /ovwLKi.1 Lutoslawski suggests, TheOriginand Growthof Plato's Logic (p. 264), that in thePhaedo Plato treats the poets with less respect than in the Symposium. He saysthat they are quoted " with a certain irony " (65 b) or with a " certain air of superi-ority and contempt " (70 c). But OpvXoVTLv65 b), the word which Plato hereuses of the poets, is exactly the word which he himself uses of the precious doctrineof ideas (76 d). Cf. Plotinus io. 6 (I, ioi, ed. Kirchhoff); OpvXXof4evopurelymeans merely "frequently discussed." Again, the mention of the comic poets(KOcY05o7roL6s0c) is a good dramatic touch; it was the comic poets who had justbeen among the indirect accusers of Socrates, and they had made the very chargethat they are here said to make (cf. Apology, i8 d; 19 c). But it is impossible todeduce from these referencesa notion of Plato's attitude. Can we argue a respectfor Homer from the use of quotations (94 d-95 a) ?



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Plato'sView fPoetry 29We have already seen' that the claim of Homer to be regardedbythe Greeks as theirchief educator had been disputedon moralgroundsby several early philosophers. Further,a writer of great learningandinsight has told us: 2 " The underlyingpresumptionof the whole ofPlato's attack upon Greekpoetry is that poetry was the universallyrecognizedteacherof Greece. The head and front of his indictmentisnot that poetry does not teach, but that her doctrines so Plato atleast believed- are too often demoralizingand degrading." Thesewords sum up very aptly a part of Plato's criticism; they err, as Ithink it will appear, in pretending to explain " the whole of Plato's

attack." They describewell and truly the criticismof the second andthird books of the Republic; the criticism is there based on ethicalgrounds. They do not account for the criticism of the tenth book,which is based, as it is easy to show, on another view of the nature oftruth and of knowledge. Similarly, Stiihlinargues3 that the banish-ment of Homer is apparently founded on the impossibilityof findingknowledgein him, but that in reality the reasonis his imitation of theimmoral,and that the result of the discussionin the tenth book is es-sentially the same as that in the thirdbook. Again, it will not be hardto show that there is a real difference n the point of view of the twodiscussions,and that the differencerests on the metaphysicaldiscus-sion that has intervened.The first half of the Republicdeals with the founding of a citynot essentially different from the best Greek states.4 This fact ap-pears in the ordering of many of the social institutions on Spartanmodels.5 Indeed many of the regulationsthat deal with poetry in thesecondand third books of the Republicare like those of Sparta,whichkept ancienttraditionsabout musicandpoetry, permittingonly hymnsto the gods. Accordingly,the criticism of poetry in the earlybooks ofthe Republic s basedpartly on the differencebetween the moralityofHomer and that of his own day, partly on his observation of the psy-

1 P. Io.2 J. Adam, The Religious Teachersof Greece,p. io. Adam, of course, realizesthat there is more to the problem than this (cf. his note on Rep. 598 a); he hashere, however, committed himself to a popular half-truth.* St~hlin, Die StellungderPoesie in derPlatonischenPhilosophie, p. 28.4 Rep. 47o0 .5 Cf. Jowett, transl. Plato, iii, pp. clxx ff.



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30 William Chase Greenechological effect of contemporarydrama. It will suffice to illustratebriefly each of these points.Plato beginshis accountof the educationof the guardiansof his stateby suggestingthe traditionaltraining.' This training ncludesthe tell-ing of stories,2whichmay be either true or false. Sincethese are usedat any early age, when childrenare impressionable, t is important tochoose only good fictions. But of the old story tellersof Greeceeventhe greatest, Homerand Hesiod, not only tell lies but tell them badly,in that their stories do not give true pictures of the gods. They de-scribe the gods as committingall sorts of immoral acts of which chil-dren ought not to hear. And childrenare incapableof understandingallegorical interpretationsof these stories. At this time Socrates andAdeimantusare not poets, but foundersof a state; so they can not sayjust what poemsshall be written, but can merelyindicate what forms3will be accepted. In the firstplace, Godis always to be representedashe is; that is, as good and as the cause only of good. In the secondplace, Godnever changes. Storiesof Homer to the contraryare to becondemned. Godhas no need of any kind of lie; thoughthere is roomfor an innocent sort of lie, in which the liar is not himself deceived.This serves its purpose in mythology, where we make falsehood asmuch like truth as we can, since we know little about ancient times.4It is justifiedbecause it gives a notion of truth even before childrenarecapable of understandingthe truth by the use of their reasons;5 butthe use of lies is permittedonly to rulers.6 There is another reason forcensuringHomer; his poems tend to make men fear death and thelowerworld. No less reprehensibleare the lamentations of heroesandabove all the lamentationsand the laughterof the gods. Plato shrinksfrom accusing Homer of impiety in telling immoral stories aboutAchilles;I yet all stories that impute evil-doing to the gods and thatmake heroesno better than men are to be done away with, lest theymake theyoung lax in morals.8 Finally, the poets are not to beallowedto representwickedmen as prosperingand just men as wretched.9

1 Rep. 376 e. 2 Ibid., 376 e: 0byovs; 77 a: ,bovs. 3 Ibid.,379 a: Trbrovs,4 Ibid.,382 d: dro oro0vrsOL &AiOeXb 2~E60 sLr. AaXLMoa,orWXpiaLQovrotoi-lev; cf. 414 bc ff.1 Ibid., 402 a; 424 a; 425 a. 6 Ibid., 389 b. Ibid., 391 a.8 Ibid., 392 e. 9 Ibid., 392 b.



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Plato's View of Poetry 31So far Plato has discussed the subject matter of poetry.' All hiscriticismof Homer to this point is based on ethical grounds; it is, in-deed, a more complete and illustrated version of the criticismswhichXenophanes and Heracleitus had made.2 It wouldbe true to say thatit exemplifiesthe ancient quarrelbetween poetry and philosophy, ifwe limit philosophy in this instance to moralphilosophy. But therehas not yet been any hint of a criticismof poetry as such; stories andpoemseven thoughfictions,areretained,providedthat they arepurgedof immoralelements.Plato next discusses the forms of poetry.3 He divides poetry into

kinds, accordingto the extent to which imitation is employed. Thustragedy and comedyare altogetherimitations of action and of speech;dithyrambic is devoid of imitation; epic is in part imitative. Thequestion propounded s whetherpoets are to be admitted as imitatorsin general, or whether they shall be allowed to imitate only certainthings, and, in that case, what they may imitate, or, finally, whetherthey shall be debarredaltogether from imitation.4 This may meanonly a questionwhethertragedyandcomedyare to be admitted,or theargumentmay lead us further.5 As it turnsout, the argumentin thispassage is concernedwith the effect of imitative poetry on the mindsand charactersof the public. Plato begins by asking whether theguardiansought to be imitators; this question,however,he finds,hasbeen settled by the rule already laid down that one man can do onlyone thing well. If a man is to play a seriouspart in life, he can not atthe same time imitate other parts also. Even when two kinds of imi-tation seem to be close to each other, the samepersonscannot succeedin both; they can not write comedy and tragedy equally well.6 The

I Rep.392 d. 2 Cf.p. Io. * Rep. 392 d. " Ibid., 394 d.5 This is not a reference to the discussion of epic in the tenth book, as Jowett andCampbell wrongly hold. (Cf. Adam on 294 d; 595 a.) Here the reference isclearly to the question that immediately follows: shall the guardians be imitatorsat all (394 e)? Note the word rolivy, 394 e i; this word introduces the b6-yosjust mentioned, 394 d 8.6 But in Symp. 223 d Socrates tries to make Agathon and Aristophanes admitthat the same man ought to be able to write both tragedy and comedy. We noticethat the two poets do not quite follow the argument (ob acr6pa bropvovs); as amatter of history, the Greek comic writers did not write tragedy, nor did the Greektragedians write comedy (in the strict sense). That, perhaps Socrates meant toargue, was because their notions were derived from the world of sense about them,



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Plato's View of Poetry 33ever, imitationwas not a problem,except so far as techniquewas con-cerned: it was Plato who first found that the obvioussenseof the termhad to be explained and changed.' In the present passage, Platodivides literature according to the extent to which direct imitationenters into the various forms; tragedy has a largeramount of directimitation than epic. At first, then, it seems as if Plato is going to basehis decision about the admissionof poetry strictly on the questionofliterary form. That, indeed, is the conclusion to which Adeimantusleaps.2 But that is just what Socrateswill not say; all that he will laydown at thispoint is that the questionmust be determinedas the argu-ment leads.3 Now the argumentthat follows, we must note particu-larly, is basednot on the distinction of literaryform,but on the effectproduced by poetry on its hearers. The question that immediatelyfollows is whether the guardiansought to be imitators,and, if so, whatthey ought to imitate. Plato almost seems to suggest that his guardi-ans are actually to becomeactors on the stage; but that he expresslydenies.4 Yet he proceedsat once to suggest that if they are to imitateat all, they shall imitate only charactersthat are becoming to theirprofession. It is clearthat his meaningis not that they are to becomeactors, but that they shall by force of imaginationand sympathy enterinto the spiritof poetic imitations; they shall imitate,not on the stage,but with their mindsand emotions,and as result, in their character.5In this sense, the spectatorof a play is as muchan imitator as the poetor the actor. Now it can not be doubted that Plato is thinkingin thepresentpassageespeciallyof the sort of plays that werebeingexhibited

1 Aristotle, of course, changed the meaning, too, but in a different way. It willbe seen that in this study I make a very sparing use of Aristotle. That is partlybecause the relation of Aristotle's theory of art to Plato's has been well discussed(C. Belger, De Aristotele etiam in Arte Poetica ComponendaPlatonis Discipulo,Berlin, 1872; G. Finsler, Platon und die AristotelischePoetik, Leipzig, igoo), partlybecause although, as all writers agree, the germs of most of Aristotle's ideas aboutart are to be found in Plato, Aristotle's purposes and views are so different that hiswritings are in this matter a misleading guide to the meaning of Plato.2 Rep. 394 d: avrebouaL ... aKolrqtaaiOeehe7rapcabe6jOa pay ita rt oaulKw/B5lav Eirsr)v ir6Xv, eTereKal o.3 Ibid., 374 d: 6rVi&v6 6,oyo rrep rvpEtAa pP, 67abrv174010.Cf. p. 31, n. 5.4Rep. 395 bc.

6 On this point, cf. the admirable discussion of R. L. Nettleship, Lectureson theRepublicof Plato, London, 19io, pp. 99-1o8.



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34 WilliamChase Greenein his own day, in which strangeand debasedtypes of characterwereshown in morbid or questionablesituations,and in which at the sametime every device that the stage could devise was being used to makethe representationseem lifelike. And the purpose of this drama,asPlato hadalreadypointedout, was not to be of profitto the spectators,but to give them merepleasureof a low sort, and to flatter the mob.1This appeal was all the more dangerous f the poet happenedto be aman of talent.2 Yet Plato does not here attempt to decide on a basisof literary form what kinds of poetry are to be admitted. What hedoes lay down as a principleis that poets must not be allowed to pre-sent realisticallyall sorts of personsand situations; only those thingsare to be imitated which would serve as examplesfor imitationby thecitizens.In this passage, several points should be especially noted. In thefirst place, although we are led to suppose that the argumentis to beone of literaryform,it turnsout that the argument s reallyconcernedwith ethical questions. That is becausePlato begins by definingthetypes of literatureaccordingto their use of imitation, but then asks,not which is the best type, but quite a differentquestion. He askswhat sort of human nature ought to be imitated. The conclusionis,the sort of humannature that we ought in actual practiceto imitate isthe sort that poets ought by their art to imitate. The answer, then, isethical. In the second place, we note that Plato does not here raiseat all the question whether it is possible for poetic imitation to giveany graspof truth. Here it is assumedthat imitationmay, so far as itgoes, give a true picture of its object. In a word, the metaphysicalcriticism of imitation has not come into the argument. We notefurther what is impliedin the view of imitation that is hereadvanced.Plato seems to hold that poetic imitationmay to a certainextent dealwith universals. He has blamedHomer for not representingthe godsas they are;3 that impliesat least that a true representationof themis not impossible. Again, he says that there is a sort of style in whicha good man would speak,4and he admits the poet who imitates the1 Gorgias,502 b-d.2 Cf. Rep. 387 b (about " Homer and the other poets ").3

Rep. 377 e; 388 c. Cf. also p. 68, n. 2.4 Ibid.,396b: g7L T 76Ioc cLKrc77 7?hT6M~, , ~ avj70L 6ob T(J6r^KcaXMSKIcYLO6.



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plato's view of poetry - w. c. greene

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