Wednesday 18 May 2016

Hello, I am in a particular dilemma. This semester I have been taking a Literary Theory Course and for our final paper, we should choose a literary...

Given the list provided in the question, much could be written (and has been written) on Plato and Aristotle. Because Aristotle studied Plato and some of Aristotle's theories in the Poetics respond to what he had encountered from Plato (especially in the Republic), it seems fitting that these two authors should be linked.


As for the text of choice, one of Homer's poems would be a fitting choice. The Iliad would probably be the...

Given the list provided in the question, much could be written (and has been written) on Plato and Aristotle. Because Aristotle studied Plato and some of Aristotle's theories in the Poetics respond to what he had encountered from Plato (especially in the Republic), it seems fitting that these two authors should be linked.


As for the text of choice, one of Homer's poems would be a fitting choice. The Iliad would probably be the best to analyze because Plato seems to have more to say about the Iliad, especially in Republic 2 and 3, than he does the Odyssey.


Aristotle has a number of comments about Homer in the Poetics. For example, in Part II of Butcher's translation, we read as follows: "Homer, for example, makes men better than they are".


In contrast, in Republic III, Plato wants the educational system of his ideal state to avoid some of Homer's less virtue-inducing passages:



"Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict Achilles, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in a frenzy along the shores of the barren sea..." (Jowett translation).



So, in my view, I would say that reading Homer's Iliad through a Platonic and Aristotlean lens would be a "do-able" project.

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