The praisers of Homer treat him as the font of wisdom. Plato agrees that Homer is indeed the educator of Greece, and immediately adds that Homer is “the most poetic and first of the tragic poets.” Plato is setting himself against what he takes to be the entire outlook—in contemporary but not Plato's parlance, the entire “philosophy of life”—he believes Homer and his followers have successfully propagated. And since Homer shaped the popular culture of the times, Plato is setting himself against popular culture as he knew it. Not just that: the quarrel is not simply between philosophy and Homer, but philosophy and poetry. Plato has in his sights all of “poetry,” contending that its influence is pervasive and often harmful, and that its premises about nature and the divine are mistaken. He is addressing not just fans of Homer but fans of the sort of thing that Homer does and conveys. The critique is presented as a trans-historical one. It seems that Plato was the first to articulate the quarrel in so sweeping a fashion.[4] It is noteworthy that in the Apology (23e), Socrates' accusers are said to include the poets, whose cause Meletus represents.
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