Plato’s discussions of poetry and the poets stand at the cradle of Western literary criticism. Plato is, paradoxically, both the philosopher who cites, or alludes to, works of poetry more than any other, and the one who is at the same time the harshest critic of poetry. The nineteen essays presented here aim to offer various avenues to this paradox, and to illuminate the ways poetry and the poets are discussed by Plato throughout his writing career, from the Apology and the Ion to the Laws. As well as throwing new light on old topics, such as mimesis and poetic inspiration, the volume introduces fresh approaches to Plato’s philosophy of poetry and literature.

Plato has often been read as denigrating the cognitive and ethical value of poetry. In his dialogues, the faculty that corresponds to the poetic—the imagination—is located at the lowest level of human intelligence, and so it is furthest from true understanding. Simultaneously, the Platonic dialogues violate Plato’s own alleged prohibitions against quoting and imitating poets, and much of the writing in the dialogues is poetic. All too often, the voluminous literature on Plato dismisses Plato’s poetic formulations as merely the unintended contradictions of an otherwise meticulous author. In Praise of Plato’s Poetic Imagination asks whether this ubiquitous reading misses something truly significant in Plato’s understanding of the cognitive and ethical dimensions of human existence. Throughout the dialogues, Plato formulates ideas so precisely, utilizing carefully crafted images and structures, that we must question whether his flagrant and performative poetics can be mere mistakes, and inquire into how the poetic and creative arts contribute to true understanding. This book approaches the latter question by analyzing the role of the imagination in Platonic dialogues. It argues that critiquing poetry by poetic means, just as arguing against mimêsis mimetically in the Republic or writing against the written word in the Phaedrus, constitute performative contradictions that bear significant philosophical meaning on further examination. The book suggests that the elusive examples of dialectic referred to in the divided line are the dialogues themselves—the putting into practice of ethical ideals. If so, the role of the imagination is to be sought in the unfolding of the dialogues themselves, not simply in what is said, but also in what takes place within the dialogues.

The ambivalent curiosity of the young poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) towards Plato - 'but I love Plato - his dear gorgeous nonsense!' - soon developed into a philosophical project, and the mature Coleridge proclaimed himself a reviver of Plato's unwritten or esoteric 'systems'. James Vigus's study traces Coleridge's discovery of a Plato marginalised in the universities, and examines his use of German sources on the 'divine philosopher', and his Platonic interpretation of Kant's epistemology. It compares Coleridge's figurations of poetic inspiration with models in the Platonic dialogues, and investigates whether Coleridge's esoteric 'system' of philosophy ultimately fulfilled the Republics notorious banishment of poetry.

Based on author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Southern California.

"This book that shows how ancient poets broke the silence of literary gender norms to express their own voices, and thus illuminating long neglected discussions of gender in the ancient world. In How Women Became Poets, Emily Hauser provides a startling new history of classical literature that redefines the canon as a constant struggle to be heard through, and sometimes despite, gender. By bringing together recent studies in ancient authorship, gender, and performativity, Hauser offers gendered lens to issues of voice and identity in classical literature and poetry. What emerges from this is a new literary history that reframes the authors of classical literature as both enforcing and exploring gender, and shows for the first time how women broke the silence of gender norms around literary production to express their own voices. By revisiting traditional assumptions about the canon of Greek literature, and highlighting the articulated construction of masculinity in Greek poetic texts, the book places ancient women poets back onto center stage as principal actors in the drama of the debate around what it means to create poetry. Much of the importance of this work is adding in female authors to the history of Greek literature, both well-known and marginal, while demonstrating how the idea of the author was born in the battleground of gender"--

The Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy is a collection of new essays on the philosophy and philosophers of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Written by a cast of international scholars, it covers the full range of ancient philosophy from the sixth century BC to the sixth century AD and beyond. There are dedicated discussions of the major areas of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle together with accounts of their predecessors and successors. The contributors also address various problems of interpretation and method, highlighting the particular demands and interest of working with ancient philosophical texts. All original texts discussed are translated into English.

Ignorant, irrational and irresponsible: these are the terms used by Plato when referring to poets. Yet the philosopher acknowledged that he was not insensible to the charms of poetry, and many would agree that Plato’s myths are themselves poetry of the very first rank. In Plato’s Defence of Poetry—the first full-scale treatment of the subject since 1905—Julius A. Elias demonstrates that Plato offers a defence of poetry in response to his own famous challenge. This study restores the myths to their proper place in the Platonic corpus by showing their methodological relationship to the dialectic and their substantive connection to Plato’s theories of knowledge, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. While agreeing that for Plato, poetry must be harnessed to the service of truth and socially desirable values, Elias shows that poetry is indispensable to the philosopher: when the audience would reject a more obviously didactic approach, poetry makes accessible and palatable truths demonstrable by reason. Furthermore—and this is the most novel and important feature of this study—Elias argues that the myths embody the indemonstrable axioms of Plato’s system. Plato was aware that in every system, including mathematics, certain fundamental presuppositions necessarily remain unproven. Rather than assert them dogmatically, Plato expresses these undercurrents poetically so as to capture their emotional persuasiveness while defining their relevance. In Plato’s Defence of Poetry, the myths themselves are interpreted afresh in light of these claims.

The significance of Plato’s literary style to the content of his ideas is perhaps one of the central problems in the study of Plato and Ancient Philosophy as a whole. As Samuel Scolnicov points out in this collection, many other philosophers have employed literary techniques to express their ideas, just as many literary authors have exemplified philosophical ideas in their narratives, but for no other philosopher does the mode of expression play such a vital role in their thought as it does for Plato. And yet, even after two thousand years there is still no consensus about why Plato expresses his ideas in this distinctive style. Selected from the first Latin American Area meeting of the International Plato Society (www.platosociety.org) in Brazil in 2012, the following collection of essays presents some of the most recent scholarship from around the world on the wide range of issues related to Plato’s dialogue form. The essays can be divided into three categories. The first addresses general questions concerning Plato’s literary style. The second concerns the relation of his style to other genres and traditions in Ancient Greece. And the third examines Plato’s characters and his purpose in using them.

Essays that broaden the historical scope and sharpen the parameters of competitive discourses Scholars in the fields of late antique Christianity, neoplatonism, New Testament, art history, and rabbinics examine issues related to authority, identity, and change in religious and philosophical traditions of late antiquity. The specific focus of the volume is the examination of cultural producers and their particular viewpoints and agendas in an attempt to shed new light on the religious thinkers, texts, and material remains of late antiquity. The essays explore the major creative movements of the era, examining the strategies used to develop and designate orthodoxies and orthopraxies. This collection of essays reinterprets dialogues between individuals and groups, illuminating the mutual competition and influence among these ancient thinkers and communities. Features: Essays feature competitive discourse as the central organizing theme Articles present unique theoretical models that are adaptable to different contexts and highly applicable to religious discourses before and after the Late Antique Period Scholars cover a much wider range of traditions including Judaism, Christianity, paganism, and philosophy in order to provide the most complete portrait of the religious landscape