Plato and The Poets - Food For Thought!
Kristyn (in my 'blogging' group), is responsible for what I am writing here. Thank you Kristyn for the comment you wrote on my submission, "The question is: but how did it all begin?" It is clear to me that you put thought and time into what you wrote, and so I wanted to try to respond in kind if possible. I am limited in my knowledge, however, so must give a disclaimer.
Although Kristyn has dragged me in over my head, I hope something of what I am posting here will be of some use for anyone from our class who reads it. It does touch on what we are/have been discussing in our course thus far, and Plato did ask good questions. And today, November 15, 2004, Professor Kuin spoke in our tutorial about learning about the past, not through the lens of "presentism" (using today's values on yesterday's reality), but by cultivating the historical imagination.
Plato had definite ideas about poets and poetry which will give us another angle on the Iliad, because it will allow us to see the historical setting in Plato's time for why Plato thought as he did. We may not 'write Plato off' as someone who didn't like what he saw in his existing community, simply because he did not like it, but because he thought about why he believed what he believed. To begin, we need to know that the Iliad and the Odessey were believed to be written in about 1200 BCE. By the 6th-century BCE they were considered to be great ancient literature. Plato lived between 428 and 328 BCD. In this time from the writing until Plato's time, social changes and values would have occurred.
I had to go back and have a look at the Republic (Plato's ideal city). I had forgotten that some poets were 'banned', or at least, what some poets would write would be banned, in connection with the Republic. Kristyn had reiterated this in her comment. In Homer's Iliad, we find gods and goddesses and heroes, and these are also found in discussions surrounding the Republic with regard to poets and what they wrote. I was specifically looking for connection with poets and poetry in Plato's Republic.
Platonic philsophy has two elements of foundation: belief in a world of intelligible Forms (or 'Ideas' existing independently of the things we see and touch), and the belief in an immortal soul existing in separation from the body, both before birth and after death. It is the philsophy that sets its hopes on things beyond the reach of time and change.
Continued in Part I (a) and (b), Part II and Part III......
Although Kristyn has dragged me in over my head, I hope something of what I am posting here will be of some use for anyone from our class who reads it. It does touch on what we are/have been discussing in our course thus far, and Plato did ask good questions. And today, November 15, 2004, Professor Kuin spoke in our tutorial about learning about the past, not through the lens of "presentism" (using today's values on yesterday's reality), but by cultivating the historical imagination.
Plato had definite ideas about poets and poetry which will give us another angle on the Iliad, because it will allow us to see the historical setting in Plato's time for why Plato thought as he did. We may not 'write Plato off' as someone who didn't like what he saw in his existing community, simply because he did not like it, but because he thought about why he believed what he believed. To begin, we need to know that the Iliad and the Odessey were believed to be written in about 1200 BCE. By the 6th-century BCE they were considered to be great ancient literature. Plato lived between 428 and 328 BCD. In this time from the writing until Plato's time, social changes and values would have occurred.
I had to go back and have a look at the Republic (Plato's ideal city). I had forgotten that some poets were 'banned', or at least, what some poets would write would be banned, in connection with the Republic. Kristyn had reiterated this in her comment. In Homer's Iliad, we find gods and goddesses and heroes, and these are also found in discussions surrounding the Republic with regard to poets and what they wrote. I was specifically looking for connection with poets and poetry in Plato's Republic.
Platonic philsophy has two elements of foundation: belief in a world of intelligible Forms (or 'Ideas' existing independently of the things we see and touch), and the belief in an immortal soul existing in separation from the body, both before birth and after death. It is the philsophy that sets its hopes on things beyond the reach of time and change.
Continued in Part I (a) and (b), Part II and Part III......
posted by maggiesong at 6:48 PM
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