Philosophy and Poetry: A New Look At An Old Quarrel

The subordination of poetry to rational guidance has been denounced as a symptom of a specifically Western sickness, with its origin in Plato's Republic. But Plato's disposition to the poets is more complex than is often supposed. Although Book Three's education in civic virtue includes a call for an austere, civic poetry, in Book Ten Socrates finds the wisdom of this provision to need a serious reconsideration, one made necessary because philosophy has emerged as the true answer to the search for a genuinely fulfilling, happy life. Book Ten's reconsideration quietly shows that great poets like Homer are wiser than the earlier examination had suggested, especially about death, and are even indistinguishable from Socratic philosophers in their understanding of and disposition toward death and so in the related matter of the best human life.