Brandeis University
Spring semester, 2003
ENG 171A: History of Literary Criticism
Miles Rind
January 14, 2003

      A short writing exercise concerning the assigned reading will be due on every day of class, apart from the first day and the days when papers are due. The assigned question should not require more than a paragraph or two to answer; in any event, no more than 500 words. These exercises will be evaluated on a credit/no-credit basis, with the corresponding component of the course grade (14%) being determined by the number of exercises completed with credit, according to the following scheme:
 

      The point of these exercises is to give you an incentive, not only to do the assigned reading, but also to come to class having done some purposeful thinking about that reading. Doing these exercises should have the benefit for you of contributing substantially to your preparation for the papers and examinations later in the semester.
      These exercises are ordinarily due in class. If you are absent with a documentable excuse, such as a medical or familial emergency or a university sporting engagement, you may submit the day’s exercise for credit without attending class, provided that you get the exercise to me by the scheduled class time. Although I will accept submissions by e-mail in such cases, I strongly prefer that you deliver a printed copy to me either in class or to my mailbox in the English Department office (Rabb 144). There is no credit for any exercise that does not arrive in my hands, in my mailbox, or in my e-mail after the due date: that means that you rely on the Brandeis e-mail system at your own risk.

      Reading: Plato, Ion (Critical Theory Since Plato (hereafter “CT”), 12–18)

      Question: On what grounds does Socrates claim that Ion’s excellence in speaking about Homer owes to inspiration?

      Socrates: Athenian philosopher, 469–399 BCE.
      Plato: Athenian philosopher, 427–347 BCE.
      Ion: Ephesean rhapsode: not known as a historical figure apart from his appearance in this dialogue.
      Ephesus: a Greek city in Asia Minor allied with Athens until 412 BCE; the action of the dialogue apparently takes place before that date.
      Rhapsode: a professional reciter of poetry.
      “Art”: this translates the Greek word technê. Other translations are “craft” and “expertise.” A technê is a specialized form of skill or practical knowledge: it is an ability that can be taught, learned, explained, and practiced. Medicine, ship-building, and carpentry are all good Platonic examples of arts in this sense. But not poetry, according to Plato, because there is no knowledge that the poet possesses, in virtue of which he is a good poet: he can succeed without knowing what he is doing or what he is talking about. And the same, he has Socrates argue in the Ion, holds of the rhapsode, whether in his proper capacity of reciting poetry or in the auxiliary one of explaining its meaning--the latter being the activity that we would call criticism. What enables poets and rhapsodes to succeed in what they do, according to Plato, is not art but divine inspiration.
      Bear in mind that the Greeks did not have a word for “art” in the modern sense that would include, say, poetry, painting, and musical composition while excluding less imaginative workaday skills. In fact, no one used the word “art” (or its equivalent in other languages) in that sense before the late eighteenth century. Plato and Aristotle did, however, group those arts together under the heading of “imitative arts,” as we shall see.

Assignment for January 21 (note that this link will not lead to anything until I have put the assignment in question on line, on January 17)