Greek Literary Criticism (Classic Reprint) - Hardcover

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Excerpt from Greek Literary Criticism

Isocrates is depicted by Plato as halting between the road of philosophy and the road of mere rhetoric. That description accurately gives his logical position in the development of Greek criticism. On the one hand he revolted against the shallowness of sophistic teaching, but on the other be confined himself to teaching by precept and example a purer rhetoric, without venturing on those higher grounds whence all literary criticism must ultimately take its spring.

The beginnings of philosophic criticism properly so called are shrouded in obscurity. We know that Socrates, like his great disciple, was divided between a tendency to estimate poetry solely by the standard of moral utility, and a tendency to find in plastic art the manifestation of an abstract ideal beauty. We know too that he concerned himself with the problems of resemblance in art, of the imitation of mental moods, and of the apparent relativity of beauty. But we have only a statement of the problems-without any indication of the method of solution. We must look to Plato for a full statement of the difficulties, and the free development of the thought which could place those difficulties in their true li ht.

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