World Literature: Plato

Your knowledge of Plato's Republic from Hum 110 should be sufficient. You may want to remind yourself what he says about rhetoric and poetry. You should also be aware that the Republic is an important influence on later utopian literature including Sir Thomas More's Utopia (1516) and Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888). Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was influenced by Plato's idealist philosophy. Shelley translated Plato's Symposium (1818). Shelley's lyrical drama Prometheus Unbound (1820) was modeled after the ideas of Plato.

• Biography
• E-text of the Republic
  

• "For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions."