![]() Unlike the Republic’s focus on exposing and banishing poetry’s irrational and unavoidably corrupting influence, Socrates’ theory includes poetry as subject matter for philosophical inquiry within an examined life. This philosophical approach to interpreting poetry stands at odds with the poets’ own theories - and with the Sophists’ treatment of poetry. The Socratic poetics Ledbetter elucidates focuses not on censorship, but on the interpretation of poetry as a source of moral wisdom. Examining these poets’ theories from a new angle that uncovers their literary, rhetorical, and political aims, she demonstrates their decisive influence on Socratic thinking about poetry. Ledbetter tracks the sources of this Socratic response by introducing separate readings of the poetics implicit in the poetry of Homer, Hesiod, and Pindar. Grace Ledbetter challenges this entrenched assumption by arguing that Plato’s earlier dialogues Ion, Protagoras, and Apology introduce a distinctively Socratic theory of poetry that responds polemically to traditional poets as rival theorists. ![]() Literary theory is usually said to begin with Plato’s famous critique of poetry in the Republic. ![]() It is the first to argue that there is a distinctively Socratic view of poetry and the first to connect the Socratic view of poetry with earlier literary tradition. Combining literary and philosophical analysis, this study defends an utterly innovative reading of the early history of poetics. ![]()
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