Page 11 - GALIET THE TORCH, THE GODDESS: On Poesy Plato IV

Precisely because Plato witnessed the decay of Athens’ moral values and the trial of his mentor Socrates, who 3⁄4 “hemlock headed in the wood of weathers” (l.14)4 3⁄4 was poisoned by the State on charges of corrupting the youth of Athens, we become painfully aware of Plato’s all-too-human struggles to protect himself from the same fate, and of his struggles to gain deeper understanding into human nature and also to find the beautiful “Word.”
By founding The Academy 3⁄4 the first known “elitist” University of the west 3⁄4 Plato encourages dialogue, reasoning and dialectics in exploring the greater questions of knowledge, governance, conduct and justice: how to lead the right or good life. Consequently, out of Athenian chaos, we witness, throughout The Republic, his desperate attempts to create an ideal city based on a meritocracy and epistemocracy ruled by a Philosopher King where literature (and the arts) can only function as didactic and moral tools by being primarily concerned with respect for piety, authority, reason and the highest Forms of the Good.
4 Thomas, Dylan. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas 1934 – 1952. “Altarwise by Owl-Light”. New York:
New Directions. 1954. 81
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