Preface to Plato (History of the Greek Mind,) [Paperback]

Eric Havelock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1982 | Series: History of the Greek Mind,

Plato's frontal attack on poetry has always been a problem for sympathetic students, who have often minimized or avoided it. Beginning with the premise that the attack must be taken seriously, Mr. Havelock shows that Plato's hostility is explained by the continued domination of the poetic tradition in contemporary Greek thought.

The reason for the dominance of this tradition was technological. In a nonliterate culture, stored experience necessary to cultural stability had to be preserved as poetry in order to be memorized. Plato attacks poets, particularly Homer, as the sole source of Greek moral and technical instruction--Mr. Havelock shows how the Illiad acted as an oral encyclopedia. Under the label of mimesis, Plato condemns the poetic process of emotional identification and the necessity of presenting content as a series of specific images in a continued narrative.

The second part of the book discusses the Platonic Forms as an aspect of an increasingly rational culture. Literate Greece demanded, instead of poetic discourse, a vocabulary and a sentence structure both abstract and explicit in which experience could be described normatively and analytically: in short a language of ethics and science.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The frontiers of several fields of research meet in this rich and germinal study. Professor Havelock is concerned with Greek epic poetry and Plato's attack on it, with the whole of the Greek paideia as it existed before and after Plato, with the technological problems of communication, and, finally, with the emergence of Plato's doctrine of "forms," in its total cultural setting...In brief, Havelock's point is that Plato's attack on poetry is integral to his philosophy as such if we see poetry as what it really was in his day...Havelock's thesis is a sweeping one, and, on the whole, utterly convincing, tying in with the findings of an increasing number of recent psychological, historical, philosophical, and cultural studies.
--Walter J. Ong

A book bursting with new ideas, all of them exciting. It may well turn out to be a landmark in the study of Greek thought and literature.
--B. M. W. Knox

This book makes a major contribution...will offer the reader many hours of stimulating thought and a powerful challenge to reexamine some basic assumptions about the early Greek mind. (The Classical Bulletin )

Review

The frontiers of several fields of research meet in this rich and germinal study. Professor Havelock is concerned with Greek epic poetry and Plato's attack on it, with the whole of the Greek paideia as it existed before and after Plato, with the technological problems of communication, and, finally, with the emergence of Plato's doctrine of "forms," in its total cultural setting...In brief, Havelock's point is that Plato's attack on poetry is integral to his philosophy as such if we see poetry as what it really was in his day...Havelock's thesis is a sweeping one, and, on the whole, utterly convincing, tying in with the findings of an increasing number of recent psychological, historical, philosophical, and cultural studies. (Walter J. Ong ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 342 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (April 15, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674699068
• ISBN-13: 978-0674699069
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #205,629 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The place to start with Plato, December 3, 1999

By 

J. C. Woods "silvannus" (Malden, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Preface to Plato (History of the Greek Mind,) (Paperback)

If you want to start with Plato, this is the place. Plato, through Socrates, indulges in a huge polemic. The problem with a polemic is that unless you have a clear idea of who he is arguing against and why you won't understand what is being said. Havelock's aim is to situate you in the ancient Greece of Plato's day and explain exactly what Plato is on about. Suddenly Plato doesn't seem quite so bizarre if you have some idea why he says what he says. Havelock starts with the tenth book of the Republic: why does Plato ban poets and poetry (especially Homer) from his utopia? Plato was no mean poet himself, so what does this mean? Havelock tells you in technicolor the why's and wherefore's of the historical situation so that you can read Republic (and the other dialogues as well) without flying blind.

4.0 out of 5 stars An essential read, April 10, 2011

By 

Douglas A. Jordon (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Preface to Plato (History of the Greek Mind,) (Paperback)

for anyone interested in Plato. The empirical mindset is so ingrained in us that it's hard to imagine that it was once otherwise, especially in a classical civilization so influential to our history. Cultural knowledge and values were retained and passed down through practices that resemble ritual more than anything else. Knowledge and myth were indistinguishable.

Havelock's book is an valuable contribution, but I do have some reservations about it. Havelock feels that Plato's mysticism is regrettable and this to me is a mistake. However valuable reason is to our lives, we still are not emotionally integrated beings. The ritualistic practices of classical Greeks may be obsolete from an empirical point of view, but not at all from an emotional one. For Plato to put spirituality on a rational basis was as important a contribution as putting science on a rational basis. Plato is not Aristotle, and that's a good thing.

But read it and decide for yourself. You won't be wasting your time.

10 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Plato would substitute reason for emotionalism, February 27, 2001

By 

Kenneth G. Ramey (Paso Robles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Preface to Plato (History of the Greek Mind,) (Paperback)

Frequently I receive comments via the Internet some of which prove to be of value. One such was the Class of 2000/2002 that points out that these graduates have very little direct knowledge of even their recent past. It only proves that if they are to be enculturated, they must first be taught. In Plato's day, the means was by oral transmission, the effect of which was to perpetuate what might not be true. "Memesis," the total act of representation, that part of of our individual consciousness to which it is designed to appeal, is the area of the non-rational, of the pathological emotions, the unbridled and fluctuating sentiments with which we feel but never think. It is the affect imagery of emotion that hits us directly in the gut before being filtered through the brain, there to be digested before accepted. When indulged in this way emotion weakens and destroys that rational faculty in which alone lies hope of personal salvation and scientific assurance. Memesis is the "active" personal identification with which the audience sympathies and is enculturated because it is taught. He who cannot justify his own conclusions cannot be considered a totally educated person. Still, there is a need for guidance if the pupil is not to get in over his head and tend to drown rather than learn to swim and particpate for the good of all.