Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T00:47:13.770Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is Plato Really in Favour of Monotonous Literature? Republic 392c6-398b9

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2013

T. F. MORRIS
T. F. MORRIS*
Affiliation:
Prince George’s Community College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Plato is not serious when he has Socrates deduce that poetry must be mostly narrative with just a little dialogue. Not only is the argumentation purposely flawed, but he also has Socrates purposely obfuscate a key distinction. He then has Socrates pretend to be confused by his own obfuscation. By forcing us to work our way through the thickets of his faulty argumentation, Plato gives us the opportunity to become more deeply involved with the underlying issues and to discover his theme: a good person is one who is stoically indifferent to both bad fortune and good fortune.

Platon n’est pas sérieux lorsqu’il conduit Socrate à déduire que la poésie doit être essentiellement narrative avec juste un peu de dialogue. Non seulement cette argumentation est-elle intentionnellement fautive, mais Platon crée aussi un Socrate qui obscurcit à dessein une distinction fondamentale. Le Socrate de Platon fait ensuite semblant d’être confus par son propre obscurcissement. En nous obligeant à nous frayer un passage à travers les broussailles de son argumentation erronée, Platon nous donne l’occasion d’avoir une participation plus profonde aux véritables problèmes sous-jacents et de découvrir son thème : une bonne personne est stoïquement indifférente à la fois au malheur et au bonheur.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 52 , Issue 3 , September 2013 , pp. 491 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adam, James 1902 The Republic of Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Annas, Julia 1981 An Introduction to Plato’s Republic. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Asmis, Elizabeth 1992 “Plato on Poetic Creativity,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plato, Kraut, Richard, ed., 338–364. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkins, J. W. H. 1961 Literary Criticism in Antiquity. Gloucester: P. Smith.Google Scholar
Avgousti, Andreas 2012 “By Uniting it Stands: Poetry and Myth in Plato’s Republic,” Polis 29, 21–41.Google Scholar
Barker, Andrew 1984 Greek Musical Writings Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barney, Rachel 2010 “Platonic ring-composition and Republic 10,” in Plato’s Republic, McPherran, Mark L., ed., 32–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Beck, Martha C. 2006 Tragedy and the Philosophical Life. Lewiston: E. Mellen Press.Google Scholar
Belfiore, Elizabeth 1984 “A Theory of Imitation in Plato’s Republic,” TAPA 114, 121–146.Google Scholar
Brann, Eva 2004 The Music of the Republic. Philadelphia; Paul Dry Books.Google Scholar
Burnyeat, M. F. 1999 “Culture and Society in Plato’s Republic,” The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 20, 215–324.Google Scholar
Cross, R. C. & Woozley, A. D. 1964 Plato’s Republic. London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Michael 1992 Aristotle’s Poetics. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Dyson, M. 1988 “Poetic Imitation in Plato Republic 3,” Antichthon 22, 42–53.Google Scholar
Else, Gerald F. 1986 Plato and Aristotle on Poetry. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Ferrari, G. R. F. 1989 “Plato and Poetry,” in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Vol. 1, Classical Criticism, Kennedy, George A., ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Freydberg, Bernard 1997 The Play of the Platonic Dialogues. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Griswold, Charles 1981 “The Ideas and the Criticism of Poetry in Plato’s Republic, Book 10,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 19, 135–150.Google Scholar
Halliwell, Stephen 2002 The Aesthetics of Mimesis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hans, James S. 2006 Socrates and the Irrational. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Hatzistavrou, Antony 2011 “’Correctness’ and Poetic Knowledge: Choric Poetry in the Laws,” in Plato and the Poets, Destree, Pierre and Herrmann, Fitz-Gregor eds., 361–385. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Havelock, Eric A. 1963 Preface to Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howland, Jacob 1993 The Republic: The Odyssey of Philosophy. New York: Twayne.Google Scholar
Husserl, Edmond 1929 Formale und transzendentale Logik: Versuch einer Kritik der logischen Vernunft. Jahrbuch für Philosophie und hänomenologische Forschung, 10. Halle a.d.S. v-xiii; 1–298.Google Scholar
Janaway, Christopher 1995 Images of Excellence. Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Janaway, Christopher 2006 “Plato and the Arts,” in A Companion to Plato, Benson, Hugh H., ed., 388–400Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Klosko, George 2006 The Development of Plato’s Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kosman, L.A. 1992 “Silence and Imitation in Platonic Dialogues,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy Supplementary Volume, 72–92.Google Scholar
Lodge, Rupert C. 1953 Plato’s Theory of Art. New York: Russell & Russell.Google Scholar
Mason, Andrew S. 2010 Plato. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKeon, Richard 1952 “Literary Criticism and the Concept of Imitation in Antiquity,” in Critics and Criticism, Crane, R. S., ed., 147–175. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mitscherling, Jeff 2009 The Image of a Second Sun. Amherst: Humanity Books.Google Scholar
Moss, Leonard 1971 “Plato and the Poetics,” Philological Quarterly 50, 533–542.Google Scholar
Naddaf, Gerard 2007 “The Role of the Poet in Plato’s Ideal Cities of Callipolis and Magnesia,” Kriterion: Revista de Filosofia 48, 329–349.Google Scholar
Naddaff, Ramona A. 2002 Exiling the Poets Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nehamas, Alexander 1988 “Plato and the Mass Media, ” The Monist 71, 214–234.Google Scholar
Nehamas, Alexander 1999 Virtues of Authenticity. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha C. 1986 The fragility of goodness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pappas, Nickolas 1995 The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Plato and the Republic. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pelosi, Fransesco 2010 Plato on Music, Soul, and Body, Sophie Henderson, trans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Peters, James Robert 1989 “Reason and Passion in Plato’s Republic,” Ancient Philosophy 9, 173–187.Google Scholar
Petraki, Zacharoula A. 2008 “The Soul ‘Dances’: Psychomusicology in Plato’s Republic,” Apeiron 41, 147–170.Google Scholar
Rosen, Stanley 2005 Plato’s Republic. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sallis, John 1975 Being and Logos: The Way of Platonic Dialogue. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.Google Scholar
Sandford, Stella 2010 Plato and Sex. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Santas, Gerasimos 2010 Understanding Plato’s Republic. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Saxonhouse, Arlene W. 2009 “The Socratic Narrative: A Democratic Reading of Plato’s Dialogues,” Political Theory 37, 728–753.Google Scholar
Sembou, Evangelia 2012 Plato’s Political Philosophy. Exeter: Imprint Academic.Google Scholar
Spiegelberg, Herbert 1964 The Socratic Enigma. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Stanford, W. B. 1973 “Onomatopoeic Mimesis in Plato, Republic 396b-397c,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 93 (1973), 185–191.Google Scholar
Statkiewicz, Max 2009 Rhapsody of Philosophy. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Strauss, Leo 1964 The City and Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Thoreau, Henry David 1960 Walden and “Civil Disobedience.”New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Tovey, Barbara 1983 “Shakespeare’s Apology for Imitative Poetry: The Tempest and the Republic,” Interpretation 11, 275–316.Google Scholar
Vlastos, Gregory 1981 Platonic Studies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Warry, J. G. 1962 Greek Aesthetic Theory. New York: Barnes & Noble.Google Scholar
White, Nicholas P. 1979 A Companion to Plato’s Republic. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Winslow, Russell 2012 “On Mimetic Style in Plato’s Republic,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 45, 45–64.Google Scholar
Zeller, Eduard 1888 Plato and the Older Academy, Sarah Francis Alleyne and Alfred Goodwin, trans. London: Russell & Russell.Google Scholar