Review: Exile or Transcendence?

Author(s): Christopher Colmo

Review by: Christopher Colmo
Source: The Review of Politics, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 460-461
Published by: Cambridge University Press for the University of Notre Dame du lac on
behalf of Review of Politics
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1408729
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460 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

EXILE OR TRANSCENDENCE?

Ramona A. Naddaff: Exiling the Poets: The Production of Censors

Republic. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xv, 18

This thought-provoking book well repays its reader's effort. Its

sis is that Plato, through his Republic, becomes the founder of Wes
censorships (p. ix). The main thesis has as a corollary the assumption
Plato there existed a literature for him to censor. I have put the ce
the plural because Naddaff attributes to Plato or his Socrates both a
ship (that of Republic books 2-3) and a second censorship (that of b
book would be useful if she did nothing more than spell out the di
tween these two censorships. In fact, she shows how the second
first and how, ultimately, the second censorship subverts itself. Su
self-subversion are recurring themes of her book (pp. 3, 69, 106).
The first censorship acknowledges the need for poetry while
the poetry that does not conform to standards imposed by philo
Poetry must conform to the philosophic insights that the gods c
good and that the unchanging and perfect gods would in no way
shape, not even for the benefit of human beings (p. 31). Such an
ing of the gods is incompatible with the spectacle of a hero wracke
for the loss of a friend or with women wailing in funeral ritual
Socrates's censorship allows only for such gods as might serve a
the self-sufficient man, one who is unmoved by pain or loss (p. 46)
cal man who does not grieve because he realizes that life itself is w
gains a rare insight into the detachment of the philosophic pers
113-14). Socrates's discourse is surely self-subverting, however, if
the self-sufficient man as the goal of the education of citizens. It i
how a self-sufficient man could be a part of the city. Naddaff does
this difficulty, perhaps because she assumes that the first censorsh
niously in the service of philosophy and the city.
The second censorship is more radical than the first. While the
useful educative function for the poetry that imitates the actions o
the second excludes from the city all imitative poetry (pp. 67-9). Nad
this subversion of the earlier teaching as rooted in Socrates's self-cr
own tripartite division of the soul. While Socrates is "deeply and rel
mitted" to developing the conditions for the just and temperate lif
misses the opportunity to explore and understand instability and ins
dark side of human life" (p. 97). In book 4 of the Republic, the thu
spirited part of the soul is the ally of reason against the appetites. In b
third part of the soul disappears, and with it goes the ability of the
withstand the influence of tragic poetry. The rejection of all mimet
poetry derives from the suspicion that the indifference and detachmen
sufficient man are things that no education can instill in human be
must be excluded altogether. But Socrates's admission that even the
pleasure in tragedy subverts the second censorship and leaves open
ity of a return to the edifying poetry of the first censorship (pp. 119
Naddaff discusses at length the distinction between imitation
tion, and she explains the use that Socrates makes of that distinction
itself is narrated throughout by Socrates. One puzzling feature

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 REVIEWS 461
book is that in her frequent qu
the narrative voice ("I said," "
an imitative or performed di
knowledge this change. Of cou
imitative, since Plato everywh
ration eliminates one feature t
My short summary hardly does
argument. Like all dialectical arg
self-subversion (p. 3). She assum
censorship, and that "the act of
same, time, however, she maint
function of paideia, of educating
was political to its core. Naddaf
concept of literature as literatur
(p. 24). What she means by this
alliance of philosophy and liter
dards of philosophy (p. 67). Sh
books 2-3 is in the interest of ph
subverts itself by speaking as if t
But only if the first censorship i
does it make sense to say that th
mirror...the attack on philosoph
of the city was mounted by com
way of life. Plato did not invent
defense of philosophy a weapon
be a good offense. Socrates tries
young from the point of view of
not the only point of view. Not
tragic poet is "holy, wonderful,
is reluctant to ascribe these word
the conclusion that follows whe
ship creates literature not by sub
forcing tragic poetry to an awar
resented in poetry, transcends th
Naddaff's argument points thr
poetry. Her own account of this
non-philosopher in the face of de
can imagine are moved to sorro
losophy cannot simply ignore t
another way in which philosoph
the concern with the eternal an
things are "worth nothing" (p.
verts philosophy as a way of life
thing. Naddaff everywhere hint
is that the Platonic discourse th
the extent that it attempts to l
Naddaff's descriptions of poetry
that supplies the discourse that
this conclusion subverts her in
reader may bring to this stimu

-Christoph

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