PLATO'S LEGACY: A REVISION

The purpose of the text is to suggest the need to reconsider and reevaluate Plato's legacy, particularly his contribution to literary theory and practice. Contrary to the unqualified admiration for the 'founder' of European philosophy, or less than convincing arguments concerning his legacy in the Romantic and Symbolist poetics, in what follows I will claim, with Bela Hamvash, that Plato's ambition was not to found anything, but to rescue, and not mankind but the state, and that in doing so he corrupted the more original spiritual traditions, which, in fact, underlie what is best in Romanticism, Symbolism, and also in earlier poetic movements wrongly referred to as Platonic, or Neo-Platonic. Far from inspiring significant poetic achievement, Plato's views of poetry and their metaphysical premises deserve close study for the sole reason that they represent an exemplary model for much of the subsequent reactionary use of philosophy and literary theory.