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Excerpt from Plato's Studies and Criticisms of the Poets There is hardly any subject which the Platonic Soc rates finds more interesting than poetry, hardly any class of people to whom he refers more frequently than to the poets. And it seems clear that in this respect Plato is fairly representing the historic Socrates. In both the Memorabilia and the Symposium of Xenophon Socrates appears as one fully versed in literature. He tells Antiphon1 that he is wont to peruse with his friends the writings of the wise men of old and to make excerpts therefrom. First among these wise men of old was Homer. Socrates not only refers often2 to characters and episodes of the Iliad and the Odyssey but quotes3 freely from both poems. He also quotes more than once from Hesiod,4 as well as from Theognis5 and Epi charmus.6 He does not mention by name nor quote any Athenian dramatist, but it is evident from allusions7 to things theatrical, which he introduces, as Plato fre quently does, for purposes of illustration, that he was an observing play-goer. He has also listened to the te citals of rhapsodes, but thinks8 with Plato that they fail to understand the meaning of what they say. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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