"We must remain firm in our conviction that hymns to the gods and praises of famous men are the only poetry which ought to be admitted into our State. For if you go beyond this and allow the honeyed muse to enter, either in epic or lyric verse, not law and the reason of mankind, which by common consent have ever been deemed best, but pleasure and pain will be the rulers in our State."
Plato suggests that by allowing poetry into the state, emotions would be the new rulers of the state, or as he puts it, "pleasure and pain" However, pragmatists like Pierce look at poetry as a vehicle of thought, not an unecessary outpouring of emotion. Plato's state would not come completely unhinged were he to allow poets in, because if we are looking at poetry as a vehicle of thought, then it is simply another way at getting at universal truths, and maxims to live by, which is what I thought Plato was all about :)
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