From: Jim Collins <jfc4319@uncwil.edu>
Subject: RE: (urth) Mystery/Metaphysics/Mythopoesis/Metaphor/Modernity
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 08:41:04 

Dan wrote:

>His attitude in the Laws, a more "realistic" approach than the
>Republic (which is, after all, "idealistic") is more moderate; and
>in one dialogue -- whose title I'm blanking on -- he has Socrates
>quite clearly conclude that poets -- actually, not poets but the
>performers of poetry -- speak for (indeed, speak under possession
>of) the gods. (This dialog is, if not _the_ source, then certainly
>_a_ source, for the modern word "inspiration" as relates to an
>artist's impulse to create.)

and Jim, unlurking, responds:

It's *Ion*.  Socrates quizzes Ion, a rhapsode (professional performer of epic 
poetry), and develops the thesis that poets create their best work when they 
have been bereft of their reason by the gods, and that when the rhapsodes are 
really cookin' (good Socratic term), they are carried out of themselves, and 
do the same for their audiences.

Jim Collins
Wilmington, NC


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