The Republic, from Book Seven, Plato's Cave
From the Afterword
WHAT IS MOST appealing to me about Plato is that he illustrates his arguments in the very manner of his writing. In this passage he refers to the statues and figures that are fabricated and made of various materials to be used as props in a play. They are carried on and off the stage in order to produce an effect. The eidola, or 'graven images', in his stage-show are reminiscent of poetry, or any form of art which involves fantasy, such as painting and sculpture, or rhetoric, and such as Plato's own myth of the cave. A written discourse is a work of art and as such it should not be treated too reverently, because it is crafted to appeal, and to show things in a new light. The best and most useful kind of presentation is one that reinvigorates people with what they may already know. But it's hard to see clearly, and hard to know whether one has understood the matter rightly.
Plato's description of the cave for example is not particularly clear. What starts as a fire burning outside and throwing shadows onto the back wall of the cave turns later into the sun in the sky. It's hard to work out exactly what kind of 'stage' he is talking about. Is it a puppet theatre or an ordinary scaffold for travelling players? It's important to try and follow the gist without being tripped up by the details, to catch the spirit of the piece.
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Introduction and translation
© Irene Noel-Baker 2009
2009, 36 pages
ISBN-10: 0-9531004-5-6
ISBN-13: 978 0 9531004-5-3
EAN: 9780953100453
£8.95