Framing the Margins of Philodemus and Poetry

Socrates alludes to an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy in his sustained assault on the cognitive status and ethical dangers of poetry in Book 10 of the Republic (607B). Plato knew well of what Socrates spoke, for according to one tradition Plato began his career as a poet, and the voice of poetry can be heard in almost every one of the dramatic dialogues Plato wrote. Nevertheless, he banished poetry from his heavenly city, since he heard no voice raised in her defense. But Aristotle soon appeared as the advocate of exiled poetry, and, by the end of the fourth century B.c., the quarrel between poetry and philosophy seems to have spent some of the energies that had fed it on the side of philosophy. Aristotle, who was himself a poet, turned his serious and sympathetic attention to the study of poets and poetry, and led poetry back into the city of philosophy after her brief banishment. But the situation becomes complicated once again with the emergence towards the middle of the first century B.c. of a poet who was also a philosopher. So far as we know, none of his contemporaries was shocked by Lucretius’ decision to write poetry, but the students of Epicureanism in the twentieth century have discovered an antinomy in the precept and example of Lucretius’ “master,” Epicurus, and his powerful Latin hexameter poem of six books, On the Nature of Things.

Art · Cicero · Epicureanism · Literature · Poetry · Precept · SOCRATES · Spoken word · Theology · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Philosophy

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