Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Lever Hume Trust online at

W.W. history of philosophy dot net. Today's episode, Last Judgments,

Plato, Poetry, and Myth.

In this series of podcasts I've dealt at least in passing with three bodies of ancient Greek literature.

Obviously there is the philosophical and scientific literature which has been the main focus.

Then there is history, as written by Xenophon, Thucydides and others, figures I've had

caused to mention a few times, and then there is poetry. Way back in episode two, I discussed how Xenophonies

attacked the poets Homer and Heseid for their inadequately reverential treatment of the gods.

We also saw that other presacratics, like the great Parmenides, wrote their philosophy

in poetic form, and that the comic poet Aristophanes is an important source for the historical Socrates. But the poets,

whether epic tragic or comic, haven't come up much since I've reached Plato. Some of you may

have been thinking that this was something of an omission, even

dare I say a gap. After all, Plato is famous for attacking the poets in his greatest work,

The Republic. Like Xenophonies, he criticized the way that the gods are represented in Homer and

Heseate.

But Plato's diatribe against the poets goes far beyond anything we find in the fragments of

Xenophonanes.

He proposes a program of censorship for his ideal republic, mentioning specific verses which

should be banned.

Later in the republic, he attacks the poets of ancient tragedy and comedy, and warns that, unless the poets or their adherents can show us that poetry is beneficial to society, they too will be excluded.

Plato's notoriously hostile attitude towards the poets is puzzling when you think about

it.

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