Poetry and the Image of the Tyrant in Plato’s Republic
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23214543 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Penelope Murray (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Pages | 199-218 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Plato and the Power of Images (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/9789004345010_013 |
| OpenAlex | W171140701 |
| ISBN | 9789004345010 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
Towards the end of the discussion of poetry in Republic X Plato describes poetry as an erōs, a passion from which all right thinking people should tear themselves away, like lovers who realise their passion is doing them no good (607b-608a). Mimetic art as a whole had earlier been figured as a hetaira who consorts with an inferior part of the soul to bring forth base offspring (603a-b), and now poetry herself is envisaged as a dangerously seductive female whose charms must be resisted at all costs. This erōs, which has been engendered since childhood by education, paideia, has its analogue in the master-passion that takes control of the tyrant’s soul at 572e-575a8. The figure of erōs tyrannos is itself a theatrical image (cf. Eur. Hipp. 538) and in this paper I shall look at how poetry and tyranny are linked through a network of imagery and verbal echoes which reinforce the argument for banishing poetry as we know it from the Republic.
Art · Image (mathematics) · Literature · Poetry · Artificial Intelligence · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Computer Science · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.17 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2020 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |