The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic, 2016a

92 A Call to Poetry’s Defenders
See 606e-608b. “Hymns to the gods and eulogies of good people,” Socrates says,
“are the only poetry we can admit into our city.” And presumably he means not
just any hymns and eulogies, but only those informed by a genuine understanding
of what it is to be good. “The imitative poetry that aims at pleasure” must be
rejected, unless an argument can be brought forward that shows that such poetry
“gives not only pleasure but also benefit both to constitutions and to human life.”
It is clear that Socrates would welcome such a defense of poetry, but in the
absence of one, he recommends behaving like people who, having fallen
passionately in love, judge their passion to be harmful, and so, make a point of
avoiding the source of the temptation.
The poetry that aims at pleasure and imitation stands accused. Can you
defend it? (In thinking this through, you might look at attempted defenses
by the English poets Sir Philip Sidney and Percy Shelley.)
What would Socrates think of a work of literary art such as Plato’s Republic?
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