Plato Through Homer

Plato Through Homer PDF Author: Zdravko Planinc
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826264506
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Plato Through Homer

Plato Through Homer PDF Author: Zdravko Planinc
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826264506
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description


The Cambridge Guide to Homer

The Cambridge Guide to Homer PDF Author: Corinne Ondine Pache
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108663621
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 974

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Book Description
From its ancient incarnation as a song to recent translations in modern languages, Homeric epic remains an abiding source of inspiration for both scholars and artists that transcends temporal and linguistic boundaries. The Cambridge Guide to Homer examines the influence and meaning of Homeric poetry from its earliest form as ancient Greek song to its current status in world literature, presenting the information in a synthetic manner that allows the reader to gain an understanding of the different strands of Homeric studies. The volume is structured around three main themes: Homeric Song and Text; the Homeric World, and Homer in the World. Each section starts with a series of 'macropedia' essays arranged thematically that are accompanied by shorter complementary 'micropedia' articles. The Cambridge Guide to Homer thus traces the many routes taken by Homeric epic in the ancient world and its continuing relevance in different periods and cultures.

Plato's Rhapsody and Homer's Music

Plato's Rhapsody and Homer's Music PDF Author: Gregory Nagy
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
This book examines the overall testimony of Plato as an expert about the cultural legacy of these Homeric performances. Plato's fine ear for language--in this case the technical language of high-class artisans like rhapsodes--picks up on a variety of authentic expressions that echo the talk of rhapsodes as they once practiced their art.

Tragic Pleasure from Homer to Plato

Tragic Pleasure from Homer to Plato PDF Author: Rana Saadi Liebert
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316885615
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
This book offers a resolution of the paradox posed by the pleasure of tragedy by returning to its earliest articulations in archaic Greek poetry and its subsequent emergence as a philosophical problem in Plato's Republic. Socrates' claim that tragic poetry satisfies our 'hunger for tears' hearkens back to archaic conceptions of both poetry and mourning that suggest a common source of pleasure in the human appetite for heightened forms of emotional distress. By unearthing a psychosomatic model of aesthetic engagement implicit in archaic poetry and philosophically elaborated by Plato, this volume not only sheds new light on the Republic's notorious indictment of poetry, but also identifies rationally and ethically disinterested sources of value in our pursuit of aesthetic states. In doing so the book resolves an intractable paradox in aesthetic theory and human psychology: the appeal of painful emotions.

Ion

Ion PDF Author: Plato
Publisher: Les Prairies Numeriques
ISBN: 9782491251277
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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Book Description
In Plato's Ion Socrates discusses with the titular character, a professional rhapsode who also lectures on Homer, the question of whether the rhapsode, a performer of poetry, gives his performance on account of his skill and knowledge or by virtue of divine possession. It is one of the shortest of Plato's dialogues. Commentary Plato's argument is supposed to be an early example of a so-called genetic fallacy since his conclusion arises from his famous lodestone (magnet) analogy. Ion, the rhapsode "dangles like a lodestone at the end of a chain of lodestones. The muse inspires the poet (Homer in Ion's case) and the poet inspires the rhapsode." Plato's dialogues are themselves "examples of artistry that continue to be stageworthy;" it is a paradox that "Plato the supreme enemy of art is also the supreme artist." Plato develops a more elaborate critique of poetry in other dialogues such as in Phaedrus 245a, Symposium 209a, Republic 398a, Laws 817 b-d. summaryIon's skill: Is it genuine? (530a-533c) Ion has just come from a festival of Asclepius at the city of Epidaurus, after having won first prize in the competition. Socrates engages him in discussion and Ion explains how his knowledge and skill is limited to Homer, whom he claims to understand better than anyone alive. Socrates finds this puzzling as to him it seems that Homer treats many of the same subjects as other poets like Hesiod, subjects such as war or divination, and that if someone is knowledgeable in any one of those he should be able to understand what both of these poets say. Furthermore, this man is probably not the poet, like Ion, but a specialist like a doctor, who knows better about nutrition. The nature of poetic inspiration (533d-536d) Socrates deduces from this observation that Ion has no real skill, but is like a soothsayer or prophet in being divinely possessed: "For not by art do they utter these things, but by divine influence; since, if they had fully learned by art to speak on one kind of theme, they would know how to speak on all. And for this reason God takes away the mind of these men and uses them as his ministers, just as he does soothsayers and godly seers, in order that we who hear them may know that it is not they who utter these words of great price, when they are out of their wits, but that it is God himself who speaks and addresses us through them." (534b-d) Ion's choice: To be skilled or inspired (536e-542a) Ion tells Socrates that he cannot be convinced that he is possessed or mad when he performs (536d, e). Socrates then recites passages from Homer which concern various arts such as medicine, divining, fishing, and making war. He asks Ion if these skills are distinct from his art of recitation. Ion admits that while Homer discusses many different skills in his poetry, he never refers specifically to the rhapsode's craft, which is acting.

Preface to Plato

Preface to Plato PDF Author: Eric A. HAVELOCK
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674038436
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
Plato's frontal attack on poetry has always been a problem for sympathetic students, who have often minimized or avoided it. Beginning with the premise that the attack must be taken seriously, Eric Havelock shows that Plato's hostility is explained by the continued domination of the poetic tradition in contemporary Greek thought. The reason for the dominance of this tradition was technological. In a nonliterate culture, stored experience necessary to cultural stability had to be preserved as poetry in order to be memorized. Plato attacks poets, particularly Homer, as the sole source of Greek moral and technical instruction-Mr. Havelock shows how the Iliad acted as an oral encyclopedia. Under the label of mimesis, Plato condemns the poetic process of emotional identification and the necessity of presenting content as a series of specific images in a continued narrative. The second part of the book discusses the Platonic Forms as an aspect of an increasingly rational culture. Literate Greece demanded, instead of poetic discourse, a vocabulary and a sentence structure both abstract and explicit in which experience could be described normatively and analytically: in short a language of ethics and science.

Homer's Hero

Homer's Hero PDF Author: Michelle M. Kundmueller
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 1438476671
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Draws on Plato to argue that Homer elevated private life as the locus of true friendship and the catalyst of the highest human excellence. Offering a new, Plato-inspired reading of the Iliad and the Odyssey, this book traces the divergent consequences of love of honor and love of one’s own private life for human excellence, justice, and politics. Analyzing Homer’s intricate character portraits, Michelle M. Kundmeuller concludes that the poet shows that the excellence or virtue to which humans incline depends on what they love most. Ajax’s character demonstrates that human beings who seek honor strive, perhaps above all, to display their courage in battle, while Agamemnon’s shows that the love of honor ultimately undermines the potential for moderation, destabilizing political order. In contrast to these portraits, the excellence that Homer links to the love of one’s own, such as by Odysseus and his wife, Penelope, fosters moderation and employs speech to resolve conflict. It is Odysseus, rather than Achilles, who is the pinnacle of heroic excellence. Homer’s portrait of humanity reveals the value of love of one’s own as the better, albeit still incomplete, precursor to a just political order. Kundmueller brings her reading of Homer to bear on contemporary tensions between private life and the pursuit of public honor, arguing that individual desires continue to shape human excellence and our prospects for justice. “A beautiful account of the Homeric hero, in all his complexity.” — Mary P. Nichols, author of Thucydides and the Pursuit of Freedom

Christianizing Homer

Christianizing Homer PDF Author: Dennis R. MacDonald
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195087224
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
This study focuses on the apocryphal "Acts of Andrew" (200 AD), which purport to tell the story of the travels, miracles and martyrdom of the apostle Andrew. Breaking with tradition that concludes the Acts came from scripture, the author investigates classical literature to find the sources.

Ion

Ion PDF Author: Plato
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 34

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Book Description
DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Ion" by Plato. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

"Women's Work" as Political Art

Author: Lisa Pace Vetter
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739110638
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
This book shows that the metaphor of the quintessentially feminine art of weaving in Homer's Odyssey, Aristophanes' Lysistrata, and Plato's Statesman and Phaedo conveys complex and inclusive teachings about human nature and political life that address the concerns of women mor...