The Riddle in Plato’s Ion

Abstract

Like many other Platonic dialogues, the Ion is richly ambiguous. It may be read simultaneously as praise for poetry and as a scathing critique of it. However, I contend in this paper that it is neither entirely favourable nor entirely unfavourable to poetry. Rather, the Ion seems to propose, albeit obliquely and with a generous amount of Socratic irony, a new, un-rhapsodic, philosophical model for the interpretation and evaluation of poetry. This model of poetic interpretation is presented as an alternative to the model immanent in the well-established practice of rhapsody as presented or painted in the dialogue.