Începuturile teoretizării ideii de literatură: Platon –o privire sceptică aruncată „poeziei”
The Beginnings of the Theoretical Perspective on Literature: Plato – a Skeptical View on “Poetry”

Summary/Abstract: Aristotle’s Poetics is widely considered the starting point for the literary theory in Western culture. But Aristotle’s work is, nevertheless, preceded by a vast literary practice and a corpus of theoretical views about poetry that represent the basis of the way Western culture shaped the idea of literature. One of the most important moments in the historical evolution of the critical reflection on literature is Plato’s philosophy. This study analyzes Plato’s critical and theoretical views on poetry (extracted from The Apology of Socrates, Ion and The Republic) in connection with an analysis of the cultural role of poetry in the epoch: the argument is that Plato’s negative perspective on poetry is a denial of its traditional function as a repository of “popular wisdom”. Plato’s contrast between poetry (doxa) and philosophy (truth) represents in fact the birth of an analytical and critical perspective on poetry.

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