idiosyncratic. However, there are some reasons to be suspicious of this
mode of presentation, which it seems appropriate toflag up at this point.
First, I note that I’m taking a very strict, rather literal and perhaps
therefore ungenerous interpretation of his comments on theatre. There are
many signs inThe Republicthat Plato’s understanding of and appreciation
formimesisis not nearly as one-sided as I have suggested. For one thing,
I’m assuming that Plato is using Socrates as his mouthpiece, which is
always a dangerous assumption to make. I’m also not addressing the very
reasonable point that Plato, in choosing to write a dialogue, makes use of
much that is‘theatrical’ in his own work.^13 Recall the story (of ques-
tionable accuracy) that Plato himself was a playwright before he met
Socrates; even if this was just a rumour, it is ancient enough to indicate a
regard for Plato’s artistic abilities. Furthermore, since many of the con-
versations he writes involving Socrates took place in Plato’s absence, it’s
hard to take seriously his (or Socrates’) claim that there are just true
stories or false stories. Plato’s dialogues often tell stories–both stories
about the characters in the dialogues and, more interestingly, myths
about the afterlife or about how the world was made; indeed,The Republic
itself ends with a myth. Are these stories true or false? The answer, of
course, is somewhere in between.^14 Indeed, within the imagined, just city
described inThe Republic,Socrates and his interlocutors certainly allow for
therulersto make claims or tell stories to the rest, which only the rulers
know to be false, but which serve some kind of higher purpose or general
benefit.^15 This is the so-called‘noble lie’or‘noble falsehood’. Although it
is depicted as part of Socrates’imagined just city, it has been tempting
for commentators to take the dialogues themselves or the myths within
them to be a kind of‘noble lie’told by Socrates to his interlocutors or by
Plato to his readers. At least, they leave open the intriguing possibility of
a mimesis that Plato is happy to sanction.^16
The question of the truth or falsehood of particular dialogues should
also give us pause for thought. In the case ofThe Republic, for example, it has
been shown that the combination of real people and real events brought
together in the dialogue would have been historically impossible –
as Plato and his contemporary readers would probably have known.^17
Elsewhere, Plato’sSymposiumreports a drunken evening, in celebration of
the playwright Agathon’s victory in a dramatic competition. During the
evening, Socrates argues with Agathon, a tragedian, and Aristophanes, a
comedian (amongst others, of course). The reader of the dialogue is told the
story by Appolodorus, who wasn’t there, but has heard it from
Aristodemus, who was. Much of what Socrates says is a report of a con-
versation he has had with Diotima, sometime before the event takes place.
As Freddie Rokem points out, Plato’s attempt to distance us from the
true event puts us twice removed from the‘real thing’, just as mimetic
Mimesis 27