Plato and the Traditions of Ancient Literature

Abstract

Exploring both how Plato engaged with existing literary forms and how later literature then created 'classics' out of some of Plato's richest works, this book includes chapters on such subjects as rewritings of the Apology and re-imaginings of Socrates' defence, Plato's high style and the criticisms it attracted, and how Petronius and Apuleius threaded Plato into their wonderfully comic texts. The scene for these case studies is set through a thorough examination of how the tradition constructed the relationship between Plato and Homer, of how Plato adapted poetic forms of imagery to his philosophical project in the Republic, of shared techniques of representation between poet and philosopher and of foreshadowings of later modes of criticism in his Ion. This is a major contribution to Platonic studies, to the history of Platonic reception from the fourth century BC to the third century AD and to the literature of the Second Sophistic.

Rewriting Rivers in Ancient Literary Criticism

“…35, 4 on the Etna). 3Hunter (2012);Worman (2015). 4 On water as a metapoetic metaphor in ancient literary criticism, seeAsper (1997), 109-120 andHunter (2009), 159.…”

How Homeric is the Aristotelian Conception of Courage?

“…Even though much has been made by the commentators out of these puzzling Homeric remarks, Koziak reasonably suggests that the best way to interpret them is by remembering that a philosophical split between reason and emotion is simply nonexistent in Homer's time (2000, 1077–78). Hunter notes that “Platonic psychology is such a short step away here,” and laments that later commentators of Homer often found it difficult to resist the temptation to invoke at this point Plato's distinction between reason, spirit and appetite (, 64).…”

“… Dodds, with good reason, interprets the voice of Athena as the voice of reason [ phronesis ] within Achilles (, 14–15), which fits well with the Aristotelian requirement of channeling the power of θυμός by λόγος (1117a8). This “psychological” view is challenged by Pulleyn (, 176–77), Kirk (, 45–49) and Hunter (, 64–67), who argue for the more traditional “external agency” interpretation.…”