Exiling the Poets. The Production of Censorship in Plato’s Republic by Ramona A. Naddaff (review)

86 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS RAMONA A. NADDAFF. Exiling the Poets. The Production of Censorship in Plato's Republic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 189. US $27.50. ISBN 0-226-567273 · Naddaff's guiding aim in this book is to reread the Republic's two extended critiques of poetry not as arm's-length judgements on nonphilosophical discourse but as dynamic attempts to test and redefine the nature of philosophy itself. By probing the ethical and psychological values of the Greek poetic tradition. and by making Socrates propose the censorship of that tradition. Plato explores and complicates the boundaries between philosophy and poetry. the two contestants to the "ancient quarrel" of Republic 607b-c. Censorship. in this context. is not just a matter of silencing other voices; it is actually (and paradoxically) a strategy for producing new forms of cultural competition and new forms of speech-indeed, "a foil, a cover, to produce literature. to produce philosophy" (xU. as Naddaff puts it with typical hyperbole. Furthermore . by ending the Republic with the myth of Er, Plato turns Socrates , the critical censor of poetry. into a philosopher-poet in his own right, confirming a kind of reciprocity between the two uses of thought and language. The myth. among other things, is a Platonic acknowledgement , according to this book. of the insufficiency of abstract. dialectical philosophical writing, and of the latter's need for the supplement of mimetic imagination. In the first of her four main chapters. Naddaff argues that the early parts of the Republic set up poetry as a "hermeneutic horizon" (12) for discussion of justice. prompting Socrates in Books 2-3 to engage in a "politicised" revision of poetic paideia. Poetry is found wanting from the assumed vantage-point of philosophical truth. and the critique of gods as "ideal ego images" for humans goes beyond the position adopted by Xenophanes; but at the same time Socrates recognises the possibility of alternatives within the mythological repertoire. Most importantly . the censorship of poetic "falsehood" (pseudos) actually leads to a conception of philosophically and politically useful falsehood. as later substantiated by the "noble lie." Chapter 2 maintains that. to convert poetry into something which can be of value to the philosopher himself. Socrates does not just discard but revises and rewrites Homeric heroism. Rather than simply rejecting poetic paideia. he reinvigorates it by refashioning poetic figures as suitable role-models for mimetic emulation on the part of the young Guardians. Indeed. he produces a new image of poetry. To achieve his aim. however. Socrates himself adopts many roles. alternating between the status of (most prominently ) student. rhapsode and poet in order to rival Homer. BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS Chapter 3 confronts the question why. if Books 2-3 try in certain ways to harmonise the functions of poetry and philosophy. Book 10 should set up such a seemingly irreconcilable conflict between them. treating the poet as an impostor. a producer of mere simulacra. and working towards a more radical censorship than the earlier discussion. As Book 10'S argument proceeds. and in particular when it reaches the "greatest charge tt against poetry. Naddaff emphasises (Chapter 4) that philosophy itself is threatened by the power of poetic pity to undermine the psychic self-mastery of (most of) "even the best of us" (605c). Philosophy 's response is to "recall" poetry from exile. to readmit the possibility of a beneficial poetry. and to enact that possibility in the myth of Er itself. In he~. Conclusion. Naddaff reads the myth as a "postcensorship " form of discourse. needed to do what even dialectic cannot (i.e.. find an image of the "pure tt soul) and to demonstrate philosophy's open-ended engagement with other forms of speech. The fundamental thesis of a Plato who engages actively and selfreflectingly with the practices of poetry. rather than simply condemning them out of hand. is not in itself new. The idea of Platonic "competition " with Horner. or with the tragedians. already existed in antiquity (a point not registered by Naddaff): it is found especially in Longinus' On the Sublime and in Proclus' essays on the Republic as well as. with hostility . in Epicurus' pupil Colotes...