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A Review of Plato's Banishment of Poetry

In Republic, Plat expels the poetry of Homer and his followers from his ideal state. Plato's critique on poetry is based on his belief that poetry is morally defective by imitating the appearance, the shadow of the original, and fostering passion, the inferior part of soul. Plato's insistence that the poet's knowledge is third remove from the truth has been a controversial issue not only to literary critics but to philosophers. In fact, Plato's banishment of poetry corresponds to his attempt to establish philosophy as an educational tool for the young Guardians in his city. Plato regards the creative poet as dangerous because he can be a strong rival to the philosopher. The victory of philosophy over poetry in Plato's state, in turn, has been rejected by many literary critics and philosophers including Plato's pupil Aristotle. The conflict and quarrel between philosophy and poetry cannot be resolved in terms of the Platonic dialogues. A post-modern approach to the two domains, however, leaves a possibility to open the way of becoming poetry. Post-modern theorists like Gadamer argue that poetry and philosophy are essentially the same. Philosophy without poetry, like poetry without philosophy, is worthless because the world itself as a poetic version is a readable and writable text to both poets and philosophers.