Poetry is adolescence fermented,and thus preserved – Jose Ortega Y Gasset – Spanish philosopher

philosophers on poetry? remember Plato on Homer?

"Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside you - like music
to the musician . . . or else it is nothing, an empty, formalised bore
around which pedants can endlessly drone their notes and explanations."
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

[www.amazon.com]

"remember Plato on Homer" - I'm old, but not that old! And I'm shockingly illeducated on the classics.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 10/19/05 07:06AM by marian2.

Marian, this site may help you for the outlines: [www.engl.niu.edu]

And I doubt you would have been allowed in Platos classes. I think
a) you're not male enough
b) you're not rich enough
c) probably your ancient greek is not good enough

;-)

Sorry. Plato, in his "Republic" said we must honor Homer, but must lead him out of the city, lest he corrupt the youth with his poetic lies.

Thanks Desi and Peter for the education.

Reading Desi's link I came across this:"Plato argues that the Greek poets (Homer to Euripides), who until Plato's time had been not only the primary but the sole educators of the Greeks, are the enemies of truth and with their poetry spread a mental poison. The deeds expressed in Homer, Plato argues, are hardly things in which the youth should be educated: murder, incest, cruelty, treachery, uncontrolled passions, weakness, cowardice, and malice. He argues that among the Greeks, social prestige is exalted above morality, for immorality is often more rewarded. And it is the poets who are mostly to blame for this."

and I thought - that's a very familiar argument - but not about modern poetry but about television particularly soap opera plots. Then I thought that both these things - TV and poetry in Platos time seem to hold a distorting mirror before the audience, a mirror which has the potential to alter the attitudes and thereby of the people looking in it so that they become more like what they see. So I guess it comes down to influence. At least Plato acknowledges Homer's talent and doesn't accuse him of being corrupt, just of creating something with the potential to corrupt others.

And isn't it very ironic that his teacher, Socrates, is convicted to death because of "corrupting the youth"?

I think people don't really change. The media change, but the arguments remain the same.