Drummond Dawson - Topic of Choice #2

Plato's views on poetry interest me. Plato deliberately attacks poetry. He states that poets are divinely inspired and do understand truly what they write. For Plato, poetry is located on the left hand side of the reality; it is less real. Because of this, does poetry create emotions that are less understood and therefore less real as well? Is this also dangerous because of the power of words through rhyme? Since the words hold no real meaning because the divinely inspired poets do not really know what they are writing, only the gods do, no truth can be inferred from poetry. This reminds me of first learning poetry, I was only confused. In addition, I felt like the words had no truth to validate any of my emotions and therefore I did not like poetry. For this, I found Plato's attacks on poetry interesting.