Meaning Of Plato's Theories Through Poetry example essay topic

I thought this reading was relatively difficult to follow. The first part went into explicit detail. This seemed unnecessary, because Havelock could have explained his logic with less detail. The second part was much easier to follow, but nonetheless was still relatively difficult. Again Havelock went into great detail when it was unnecessary.

I generally agreed with Havelock's argument. Although, I found that I did not completely understand the reading until the final pages. These pages had somewhat of a summary of what Plato's theories meant. In the last few pages I found two quotes that I found to be interesting. The first quote was: "But when we consider how utterly the function of poetry has altered, how completely the cultural situation has changed, it becomes possible to understand that when Plato is talking about poetry he is not really talking about our kind of poetry" (p. 43). I liked this quote because I felt I truly understood what Havelock was saying.

Havelock put into writing what was obvious. However, if he had not added this sentence I feel that I would have not truly understood the main point of this reading. In my opinion the main point of this reading was to illustrate how the meaning of "poetry" has changed over the many years since Plato wrote about poetry. The second quote I found interesting was: "You could not refer to a book or memorise from a book. Hence poetry exists and is effective as an educational instrument only as it is performed" (p. 43). I liked these sentences, because it put into context that they did not have books to read from back when Plato was alive.

Therefore, poetry was used as a form of schooling. Someone could perform poetry back then and people would listen and learn from their experience. I learned that over time a changing culture has the power to change the meaning of a word. This was evident through Havelock pointing out that today poetry has a different meaning or function than what it meant when Plato was walking the Earth. Poetry was used as a learning tool back then, because they did not have books to read from or learn from.

Also, the people of Plato's time seemed to understand the meaning of Plato's theories through poetry. The main problem I found with the reading was the explicit detail that Havelock tended to use. As I mentioned earlier it seemed that this detail was unnecessary. Havelock could have explained his theories with less detail, making it easier to understand. Other than that the reading flowed very well and I enjoyed learning about the different definitions of poetry. There were no issues that came to mind after reading this excerpt.

I felt that I learned a lot and seemed to enjoy this reading more than I did the first one; mainly, due to the fact that it was a little bit easier to follow.