| This thesis explores the concern of early Greek poets with how they came to uphold the values they uphold. Out of what posture, position, or mood, thanks to what capacity, engagement, or method did these poets think that a value is able to be located, participated in, or committed to? The various ways of coming to value are called "modes of valuation." The Socratic attack upon poetry in the Republic is an attack upon the poetic mode of valuation. In order to evaluate Socrates' attack, this thesis proceeds by closely reading a short passage in Homer's Iliad (4.537-44), and single poems by Archilochus (5W), Sappho (16L-P), Mimnermus (1W), and Theognis (237-54W). Each of these poets, though never adopting the exact same mode of valuation, is concerned to draw the audience into a mode of value-assessment, and therefore to potentially expand the audience's sense of value.;Each poet does this without taking up an impartial or objective point of view. Therefore, Socrates' attack upon poetry in the Republic is validated insofar as these poets generically employ a mode of valuation. However, this generic mode also appears various and indeed particular to particular works. The poetic mode is both generic and particular precisely because the poet values in terms of "his own," rather than impartially.;Although Plato has been a source of doubt about poetry as a mode of valuation, the Euthyphro shows the need to distinguish Plato's views from Socrates'. The Euthyphro shows that the aspiration to impartiality in the case of one's sources of being (such as gods, parents, teachers, and poetic traditions) is not endorsed by Plato. If philosophy is the attempt to determine value without reference to what is one's own, both piety and poetry will lie outside its purview. But Plato's own mimetic writing can be understood as an expression of a pious mode of valuation insofar as it is a way for Plato to search for value in the words and deeds of Socrates, as opposed to just anyone else. |
