9/13/2023 0 Comments Calliope muse coloring pageMoreover, Ion proves pathetically unable to answer a few simple questions related to Homer’s “encyclopedia,” and he eventually gives up any pretense of knowledge. By Plato’s standards, this is a sure indication of its irrational nature. Even more alarming, it does not encompass the whole of poetry, but only Homer. Since it depends on divine mania, as opposed to rational knowledge, Ion’s wisdom is partial and intermittent. The only ability he has consists in a form of divine enthusiasm, which originates in the Muse and is then transmitted to humans, an idea conveyed in the famous image of the magnet: the Muse transmits her progressively declining magnetic force to a chain of “rings,” namely the poet, the rhapsode, and the audience. It turns out, however, that Ion is not even a competent poet, let alone militarily competent. The Ion ridicules a rhapsode who knows Homer by heart, since this leads him to believe he is omniscient, or at least very knowledgeable in important matters, such as warfare. This is an equally ambiguous notion, which surfaces in a number of dialogues: Meno, Apology, Laws, and particularly in the Ion and the Phaedrus. It would seem that Plato’s dialogues suggest precisely this dual kind of good mimêsis: Plato’s principal hero, Socrates, is a most noble character, who invites identification and Plato’s myths, by openly presenting themselves as fictional, are not meant to deceive the readers, but to direct them towards the noetic world. An argument may also be made for an explicit, and therefore non-deceptive, use of poetic images. Reproduction, moreover, might bypass the physical world and draw directly on intelligible realities, as do the divine painters described in the Republic -and as do, in their respective spheres, Timaeus and the demiurge, both described as painters in the sequel to the Republic, namely the Timaeus-Critias. For one cannot rule out in principle the possibility that audiences may identify with noble characters, and this is precisely what can be read between the lines of Plato’s otherwise ruthless attack in the first books of the Republic. On close inspection, both meanings of mimêsis leave the door open for a more favorable understanding of poetry. Mimêsis and Enthousiasmos: A Very Short Introduction Besides poetic inspiration, already discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, the Greek tradition of poetic initiation is also part of the background of the dialogue and is essential for a proper understanding of it. A more satisfactory explanation would be found if one were to reconstruct the cultural code that informs the Phaedrus-something that seems to have escaped modern readers. As for Plato’s poetry, this is often read in the light of a Freudian return of the repressed, as in Julia Annas’s influential interpretation. This accords with the common view of Plato as something of a schizophrenic, which often results in the alleged existence of two Socrateses. Other interpretations suggest that Plato’s “poetic” soul somehow got the upper hand in the Phaedrus. In contrast with the other Muses, who are arranged in two groups of four and three and represented as parallel “synchronized” figures, Ourania and Calliope diverge from (and potentially interact with) each other.Īs Emmanuel Lévinas so grandly put it, in the Phaedrus “delirium does not have an irrationalistic significance … it is reason itself, rising to the ideas, thought in the highest sense.” But how can one reconcile this with the attacks on poetic (and erotic) “delirium” found in the Ion and the Republic? I have already mentioned Martha Nussbaum’s evolutionary approach. Calliope is unique in that she is seen frontally.This gives the couple an exceptional emphasis, suggestive of author(ial)ity. The two muses are thus framed by Zeus on Ourania’s left and, on Calliope’s right, by the author’s name, which marks the culmination of the procession. Calliope and Ourania lead the procession, the boundaries of which are marked by the signature of the potter (ΕΡΓΟΤΙΜΟΣΜΕΠΟΙΕΣΕΝ), running parallel with the horses’ forelegs.Calliope, then, is at the head of the procession. On the right, a number of figures (the Horae, Dionysus, Hestia, Chariclo, Iris, Chiron and Peleus) stand in front of the Thetideion (one of the Horae is visible at the far right of the frame). The other seven Muses (not visible in this frame) follow them and Zeus from the left. In this section of the procession, the Muses Ourania and Calliope form a couple. From the third frieze of the François vase, ca.
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