The Dual Nature Of Allegory In Plato's Republic

From the eighteenth century, the focus of Plato's study has been shifted on the discussion on the mythological stories. There has always been fierce argument on whether these stories are myths or allegory or others. The key of understanding Plato's philosophy and his attitude towards poetry and rhetoric lies in defining the natures, functions, and philosophical features of the stories.This paper, taking Plato's most representative work Republic as the example, tries to analyze literary nature and philosophical nature of the stories. First, it analyzes sums up and sorts out the definition of the term allegory. From the literary feature of allegory, double meanings, the literal and allegorical meaning, of the six allegories in Republic are explored. Second, the philosophical meaning of the allegories is discovered. Then, it probes into the function of literary form and rhetoric in Plato's work. To conclude, in spite of his criticism of inappropriate use of mythology by poets like Homer, literary technique and rhetoric still have sense for Plato. Plato uses these techniques, including allegory, to create his own mythology to express his real meaning. In this way, Plato integrates literary form and philosophical dialect together.