The Transcendence Of Poetry-Reiterating Plato's View On “The Ancient Quarrel Between Poetry And Philosophy”

Emergence of philosophy led ancient Greeks all the way to rational philosophy, rather than religious poetry, which fully consists of myth and heroic legend. Philosophers expanded a drastic retort to poets, the counterpart criticized and ridiculed back in spades, accordingly. Cognition of Muthos and Logos departed away from each other, thus, these two totally different cognitive processes stirred up a debate on either poetry or philosophy is more intelligent. With this culture background, Plato had a famous statement that “there is an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry”(Republic, 607b5–6). In the times of Plato, poetry had the reputation of pursuing intelligence and verity. Meanwhile, poetry had the same. “Controversy between poetry and philosophy” had been debated ever since Plato till nowadays. For what reasons or purposes that Plato started up the rebuke against poets, and expelled them, this might trace back to Plato's ideology of esthetics, “Logos and belief are two major components of Platonism, and they are also the main stream of Platonism.”Apart from myths and heroic legends in poetry tradition, Ancient Greeks were led to the Rationalism by the emergence of Philosophy. With ironic critiques between the philosophers and poets, the topic of “Muthos vs. Logos” did much to further polarize in cognitive style, and eventually caused the debate on whether philosophy is more intelligent than poetry. To quote Plato(Republic, 607b): there is an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. In the times of Plato, both philosophy and poetry were targeted in pursuing intelligence and verity. “Controversy between poetry and philosophy” had been argued ever since Plato. The reasons, or purposes, why Plato rebuked and sidelined against poets in his works, are ought to be orientated towards Plato's ideology of esthetics, “Logos and belief are two major components of Platonism, and they are also the main stream of Platonism.”Neglected or ignored in most Chinese researches however, the new myths in Plato's dialogue works, also a type of narrative literature, could provide nexus among the Ancient Greek's poetry tradition, spirit of Muthos, and Plato's poetics thoughts. The esoteric thinking path of Plato's poetics thought could be seen from the view of both Muthos and Logos. In a way, poem since him transcended the history and Logos.