Plato and Literature - Graduate Seminar (HT 2026)

Wednesdays, 2pm–4pm, Schwarzmann Centre (Seminar Room 10.303)

Convened by Prof Dominic Scott

In this seminar we shall look at Plato’s attitudes to literature, specifically to poetry, tragedy and comedy. He is notorious for having banned almost all forms of poetry and drama from the ideal state in the tenth book of the Republic. So one task before us will be to understand the nature and quality of his arguments for this position. But we shall also be asking about what forms of literature he might still have deemed permissable. This question is especially pertinent given that he himself is often held up as a literary writer, and we shall be looking at some cases of this to ask how such literary escapes his own strictures in Rep. X. We shall also be looking at certain points in the reception of Plato’s philosophy, two examples where well- known literary figures found their inspiration from Platonic philosophy. Given his attitude to literature in the Republic, this may initially strike one as ironic.

After a general introduction to the topic in the first session, we shall spend the next two analysing Plato’s arguments for excluding poetry (Homer, tragedy and comedy) from the ideal state in Republic book X. In the following two sessions, we shall look at two points where Plato exhibits his literary side most clearly: his comic portrayal of the sophist Hippias in the Hippias Major and Socrates’ famous speech about philosophical love in the Phaedrus, which was influenced by earlier literary works, including erotic poetry. In the rest of the seminar we shall turn to two novelists who were deeply influenced by Plato, Leo Tolstoy and Iris Murdoch, and examine how far their Platonism reaches into their fiction. In Murdoch’s case we shall look at her novel The Bell alongside the philosophical essay ‘The sovereignty of good’. In Tolstoy’s caseI shall concentrate on one of his shorter works, his novella The Kreutzer Sonata, along with another novella, Master and Man. I shall also make reference to his two most famous novels, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, to bring out the sheer extent of his Platonism, though there is no need to read these in advance of the seminar.

Provisional Schedule

  1.  Introduction: overview of Plato’s discussions of literature (poetry and drama) in the Ion, Republic II–III, and Laws II.
  2. The critique of poetry in Republic X.
  3. The critique of poetry in Republic X (cont.).
  4. Comedy in the Hippias Major.
  5. The use of poetic imagery in the Phaedrus.
  6. Tolstoy’s Platonism.
  7. Tolstoy’s Platonism (cont.)
  8. Murdoch’s Platonism: the case of The Bell.

 

Reading

In the seminar, I shall maintain a focus on primary texts. From Plato, this will include:

  • Republic, books II 377d–III 403c; book X, esp. 595a–608b (though the remainder of the book, 608c–621d (the myth of the after-life will be relevant to our interests).
  • Phaedrus, esp. Socrates’ second speech on love (244a–257b), but the opening of the work (227a–230e) is also important.
  • Ion.
  • Hippias Major.
  • Laws II 652a–671a (on art and education), esp. 652a–657c; VII 814d–817e (on comedy and tragedy).

Tolstoy

  • The Kreutzer Sonata.
  • Master and Man.

These can be found in:Tolstoy, L. (2010) The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories. Trans. R. Pevear and L. Volokhonsky. London: Vintage Books.

Murdoch

  • Murdoch, I. (2019) The Bell. London: Vintage.
  • The sovereignty of good over other concepts’. This essay can be found in Murdoch, I. (1970) The Sovereignty of Good. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 75–101.

Further reading will appear on ORLO next term.

Vacation reading
If you would like to get ahead on some reading over the vacation, I suggest focusing on:

  • Plato: Republic X, 595a–608b and Phaedrus 244a–257b.
  • Tolstoy: Master and Man or The Kreutzer Sonata.
  • Murdoch: The Bell.

 

If you want some secondary reading on Plato over the vacation, you could try some of:

  • Burnyeat, M. ‘Culture and society in Plato’s Republic’. This can be founjd in: Burnyeat, M., Atack, C., Schofield, M., & Sedley, D. (2022) Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press, ch. 8:154–238.
  • Moss, J. (2007) ‘What is imitative poetry and why is it bad?’ In G. Ferrari, (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic. Cambridge University Press, 415–44.
  • Scott, D. (2016) ‘From painters to poets: Plato’s methods in Republic X’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 116: 289–309.