Plato's State and the Literary Canon: A Comparison

Abstract

Plato's issue is with "orality," as embodied by "the poet," who is incapable of "telling the truth," but our current concern is with "canonized literature," in which the minority is purposefully disregarded or neglected. As a result, both the poet and canonized literature evade and/or ignore the truth. Plato looks for and sees solutions in "literacy" at his time, where the truth might be traced. We can now look for a place for the marginalized portion of literature –written by powerless, colonized, disregarded, and oppressed people who are able to express themselves and transmit their part of the truth to future generations. The main objective of this article is to analyze and present both issues and try to suggest a solution. And the method will depend on objective analysis and comparison between these two problems to understand them and accordingly contextualize them in the light of time. After all, our current time problematic canon might be solved by representing the minorities and giving them a space in the known canon.