Metaphor,Transfer,andTranslationinPlatosIon:ThePostmodernPlatonismof

PercyByssheShelleysADefencePoetry
TroyUrquhart
TheUniversityofWestFlorida

Abstract
RecognizingPlatosroleasdramatistratherthanasstenographerforSocratesrevealsthattheIonpresents a model for
thecreationandtransferofmeaningthatisremarkablysimilartothatdescribedbyShelleysADefenceofPoetry. Even
thoughSocratescriticizesthepoetfordilutingthetruth,Platostext,throughitsmetaphoroftheironringsandthrough
its own structure as a dramatic dialogue, presents and itself serves as a model of how meaning is created, a model
which serves as a basis for Shelleys text. The Ions iron rings suggest the interminable progression of metaphor by
whichmeaningisconstructedandkeptcurrent,andthisviewoflanguage,inwhichmeaningisconstructedbythepoet
ratherthanreflectedordistorted,pointstoareprieveforpoetryfromSocratessbanishmentofitinRepublicX.

Thedistinctionbetweenphilosophersandpoetshasbeenanticipated,Plato
was essentially a poetthe truth and splendor of his imagery, and the
melody of his language, are the most intense that it is possible to
conceive.
PercyByssheShelley,ADefenseofPoetry(518)
1

Inhis1981articlePoetryandLanguageinShelleysDefenceofPoetry,JohnRossBakerobservesthat
Shelley, in hisDefence, seems to give almost everyone the title of Poet, and Baker suggests that the
cynical reader [. . .] would conclude that Shelley has extended the meaning of poetry so as to
encompasswhateverhepleases(439).Fromthisperspective,ShelleysclaimthatPlatowasessentially
a poet may appear selfserving in that, simply by making Plato a poet, Shelley provides poetry with a
defenseagainstSocratessbanishmentofpoetryinRepublicsurely,Platowouldnotbanishhimselffrom
his own Republic. [1] Jerrold E. Hogles recent reading of Shelleys Defence, which interprets Shelleys
modelforpoetryasaprocessoftransferandsubstitutionratherthanasaresultofinspirationprovided
by a primal Oneness or coalescence (159), seems to underscore the dilemma presented by this
annexation of Plato into the realm of Shelleys poets, for describing poetry as a process of transference
denies the existence of the divine presence described by Socrates in Platos texts as the inspiration for
poetry. What I wish to propose here, though, is that a revisiting of PlatosIonone which distinguishes
between what Socrates says and what we can read Platos text to meanreveals that Ionpresents a
pattern of decentred transfer similar to that pointed to by Hogle in Shelleys Defence and suggests,
therefore, that Shelleys assertion that Plato was [. . .] a poet is not selfserving, but correct: from this
perspective,Platowasapoet,andhewasapoetinShelleysterms.

InhisintroductiontoShelleysDefence,DavidBaulchpointsoutthatShelleystextservesasaresponse
to Thomas Love Peacocks The Four Ages of Poetry, a text which Shelley received while reading
PlatosIon(1). [2]ThoughDefenceandIonaddresssimilarissuesconfrontingthenatureofart,literature,
andcriticism,thecriticalconversationconnectingthesetwotextsis,perhaps,notascompleteasitshould
be. One recent work which connects a reading of Shelleys Defence with one of Ion is Tracy Wares
Shelleys Platonism inA Defence of Poetry, in which Ware points to Shelleys translation of Ion, a text
whichhedescribesaslargelyneglected,suggestingthattheconceptionofpoeticinspirationdescribed
intheIonisShelleysgreatestdebttoPlato(533). [3]WareassertsthatPlatoandShelleyaresimilarin
that both see the poet as divinely inspired and that their difference lies in where each locates that
inspiration: Socrates describes an external divinity, the Muse, while Shelly locates divinity, as inspiration,
withinthepoet.WhileWaresinterpretationprovidesaproductiveconnectionbetweenthesetwotexts,it
alsoproposesthatShelleysandPlatosviewsofpoetryarefundamentallyatodds,forWareassertsthat
when Shelley argues that poetry produces positive moral effects, he is by implication arguing against
Plato(559).However,relyingonrecentreadingsofIonbyJohnRussonandJoelF.Wilcoxaswellason

HoglesinterpretationofShelleysDefence,IwanttosuggestthatPlatosIonandShelleysDefenceargue
thesamethingthattheprocessofmetaphorandtransferencemakespoetryanessentialpartofsociety
andthatPlatosIon,bymakingthisargument,suggeststhatpoetrymeetsthecriteriasetbySocrates
forremaininginhisrepublic. [4]
3

InShelleysPoetics:ThePowerasMetaphor,HoglepositsthatShelleysDefencepoints,almostinspite
ofitself,toashiftingprocessbasictothoughtandbasictopoetryateverylevel(159).Inaninteresting
turn, Hogles argument inverts the model which terms poetry the effect of divine inspiration, suggesting
instead that the ideas of a first Unity or a grounding Presence [. . .] are the products, not the sources
(159),ofpoetry.Inotherwords,HogledescribesthemodelofpoetryinShelleysDefenceassimulacrum,
privilegingmetaphorasthesourcefortheoriginalor,inPlatonicterms,assertingthattheimitationthe
shadowonthewallofthecaveisthesourceforthethinginitself,andnottheotherwayaround.This
postmodern interpretation of Shelleys text, then, suggests that Shelleys text is, itself, postmodern,
replacing the belief in the existence of any wholeness or presence (161) with a perpetual metaphor
whichhasmeaningonlybyconstructingnewassociationswithinafieldofdifferences(162).Significantly
toareadingofPlatosIon,Hoglepointsoutthat,attimesintheDefence,Shelleyishimselfresistanttoa
modelofmeaningwhichisabsolutelydecentered. [5]Indeed,intheopeningoftheDefence,Shelleydoes
a great deal of work to position poetry between two causes: humankinds corporeal experience and an
external, divine inspiration. [6] I believe that this conflict within Shelleys text points to a useful way to
viewIon,oneinwhichIonseemstoarticulateananswertoadecidedlypostmoderncrisis.WhileSocrates
revealsthefearsassociatedwiththeabsenceofordistancefromadivinereferent,Platostext,throughits
metaphoroftheironringsandthroughitsownstructureasadramaticdialogue,servesasamodelofhow
meaningiscreatedevenwhenmeaninghasnocenter.

In Platos Ion, the central conflict between Socrates and Ion, between philosophy and poetry, is that
poetry,inSocratessview,hasnotechneno craftand, therefore, is a matter of divine inspiration and
not of knowledge. [7]In CrossMetamorphosis in PlatosIon, Wilcox articulates the problem created for
philosophy and for the ideal of the philosopherking by Socratess insistence that the rhapsode cannot
knoweverycraft. [8]SocratesscritiqueoftherhapsodecreateswhatWilcoxtermsanultimatelyinsoluble
problem(4),for,tobeaneffectivegovernorwhoisabletooverseehisutopianrepublic,thephilosopher
kingmustbefluentinallcrafts.However,inRepublic,Socratesassertsthat,inanidealstate,eachcitizen
must restrict himself to only one craft. [9] Wilcox, suggesting that this conflict within Ion is distressing
because it is philosophy ultimately, not poetry, which falls short of the mark (4), does not find a
satisfactoryresolution,insteadarguingthatpossessionofacomprehensiveunderstandingofallcraftsis
patently impossible (9). Although Ion claims to have a knowledge of Homer that is allencompassing,
[10]andalthough,asWilcoxpointsout,theworldisclearlyHomersprovince(9),thesyllogismseemsto
fail, for Socrates insists that Ions comprehensive knowledge of Homer does not equate to a
comprehensive knowledge of the world, at least in Socratess own terms of techne. What Wilcoxs
argument seems to point to, I believe, is a tension running through the text of Ion between the literal
words of Socrates and what we can take the text of Plato to mean, a tension between Socrates the
philosopherandPlatothepoet.

Theproblemoffindingapersonabletomeetthecriteriaforthephilosopherkingandtheusefulnessof
Socratess critique of poetry as some sort of divine madness rather than as a useful craft relies on the
assumption that the meaning we are to take from the text is that stated by Socrates it relies on our
accepting that Plato serves as a stenographer for Socrates. [11] Viewed from this perspective,
PlatosIonappearstobeanegativecritiqueoftherhapsode,forSocratesfindsrhapsodestobemerely
interpretersofinterpreters(13),constructingamodelofironringswhichplacestherhapsodeatthethird
removefromthedivinepoeticsourceandwhichplaces,byimplication,therhapsodesperformancehis
art, the experience of the audienceat the fourth remove. [12]Notably, in Republic, Socrates bases his
condemnationofimitativepoetsonasimilarmodel,assertingthatacraftsmanisanimitator[...]whose
product is at three removes from nature (597) and that the artists work merely imitates this imitation
(598) the artwork is, therefore, like the rhapsodes performance, four removes from its source. This
distancebetweenartanditssourceleadsSocratestobanishimitativepoetrybasedontheclaimthatall
poetic imitators [. . .] have no contact with the truth (600). Socratess banishment of poetry

inRepublic confirms his criticism of the rhapsode in Ion: even though the rhapsode may be well
intentioned, [13]helacksacraftwhichwouldmakehimusefultohissociety.
6

WhatIamsuggesting,however,isthatthereisasignificantdifferencebetweenwhatSocratessaysand
what we can infer from theIonas a dramatic dialogue in which Socrates is the main character and not
necessarilythevoiceofauthority.InHermeneuticsandPlatosIon,JohnRussondescribesIonasafine
pieceofhermeneuticalphilosophyandpointstoareadingofIonthatsuggeststhatthetextprovidesits
own interpretive apparatus, arguing that rather than being a critique of the rhapsode, Ion reveals the
poverty of that philosophical stance which does not recognize its own dependence on language and
interpretation(1).TakingupSocratessmetaphoroftheironrings,Russonsuggeststhatthemagnetisa
magnet only in its act of attracting (6). Although Russon indicates that his redefinition of the magnet in
termsofitsuseisAristotelian,hisinsistenceonusevaluealsoseemscompatiblewithPlatosRepublic,in
whichcitizensareexpectedtobeusefultotheircommunityandarecategorizedaccordingtotheircrafts.
[14]

Fromthisperspective,whichfocusesonthewaythemetaphoroftheironringsworksratherthanonhow
Socrates seems to use it to critique the rhapsode, the model of the iron rings ceases to be a model for
dilutedtruthandbecomesinsteadamodelfortheconstructionofmeaning.InastatementwhichSocrates
seemstoignore,Ionhimselfsuggeststhathisroleasarhapsodeisdefinedbyhisaudienceaswellasby
theinspirationhereceivesfromthepoet,stating,Ilookdownuponthem[thespectators]fromthestage,
andbeholdthevariousemotions[...]stampedupontheircountenanceswhenIamspeaking:andIam
obligedtogivemyverybestattentiontothem(15).Ionrecognizesthathisperformanceasarhapsodeis
shapedbytheactofperforming,understandsthathebecomesarhapsodeonlyintheinteractiveactof
interpreting Homer for his audience. In other words, Ions task is not merely to recite the words of the
poet,butalsototranslatethemintoaformhisaudienceunderstands,aformwhichaffectstheaudience
thewayIonbelievestheyshouldbeaffected.Thisviewsuggeststhateachlinkinthechainofironrings
reliesonboththehigherandthelowerlinks,forjustastherhapsodeisarhapsodeonlyintheactionof
bridging the mind of the poet (Plato,Ion12) and the mind of the audience, the poet is a poet only in
connecting the muse with the rhapsodeengaged in any other activity, the poet could not take the title
poet.

However,thisreadingofPlatosIon,inwhichthemetaphoroftheironringsbecomesamodelfortheway
meaning is transferred or translated from its divine source through the poet and rhapsode to the
audience, differs from Shelleys model in one significant aspect: for Shelley, poetry is infinite (525) for
Shelley,theprocessoftransferthroughmetaphorisunending,whilethemodelintheIonseemslimitedto
a fourlink chain. I now want to suggest that this difference may be resolved by pointing, first, to the
differing positions along this metaphoric chain assigned to Homer inIonandRepublic and, then, to the
metatextualpositionofPlatoasthewriterofIon.InIon,SocratesgivesthetitlepoettobothHomerand
Hesiod,statingthatHomeristhebestandmostdivineofpoets(12)andthat,inthemodeloftheiron
rings,agreaternumber[ofrhapsodes]arepossessedandheldbyHomerthanbyanyotherpoet(15).
[15]However,inaninterestingturn,SocratesgivesthelabelofrhapsodetoHomerinRepublic,assertingto
GlauconthatifHomerhadbeenabletobenefitmenandmakethemmorevirtuous,hiscontemporaries
wouldnothaveallowedhim,orHesiodeither,towanderaroundasrhapsodes(600emphasisadded).If
Homer is a rhapsode, he must fill the role of the rhapsode: there must be an audience for whom he
performs, and there must be a poet from whom he receives inspiration. Homer is not, then, directly
connected to a divine, unearthly source of inspiration (except, perhaps, for his imagination), but to an
earlier poet. Further, not only does this transfer of Homer (and Hesiod) from one iron ring to another
underscorethedefinitionofthosepositionsintermsoffunctionHomerisapoetwhenheperformsasa
poet, a rhapsode when he performs as a rhapsodebut it also suggests that Platos iron rings are not
fixed,notfinite.IfweacceptbothtitlesgiventoHomer,poetaswellasrhapsode,Homerstaskisbothto
receive inspiration from a poet and to interpret that inspiration for an audience, and the iron rings,
therefore, suggest a model remarkably similar to Shelleys, in which the poet translates old poetryold
metaphorsintonew. [16]

PlatospositionastheauthorofIon, a dramatic dialogue, further underscores that the text points to the
creation of meaning through interpretation and transfer and suggests that Plato, himself, is a poetor
perhaps a poetic rhapsode or a rhapsodic poet, either of which seems to be very similar to Shelleys
definition ofpoet. I want to return to the question of Platos position to the text and Socratess position
within it, and I would like to conclude by addressing this question, a question central to Shelleys
postmodern reading ofIon: is Plato a dramatist or simply a stenographer for Socrates? In other words,
doesPlatomechanicallyrecordthetextthatSocratesconstructs,ordoeshetranslatethattextintoanew
form?InalettertoDionysius,Platostatesthathe[has]neverwrittenanythingabouthisownphilosophy
andthatthereisnotandwillnotbeanywrittenworkofPlatosown(CollectedDialogues314).Whilethis
admission seems to support the idea that Plato merely records the words of Socrates, Plato follows this
statement by asserting that the works which are now called [Platos] are the work of a Socrates
embellished and modernized (314). Like the poet of the iron rings, Plato records the inspiration he
receives, and, like the rhapsode, he translates that inspiration into a form accessible by his audience,
embellish[ing] and moderniz[ing] Socratess verbal text. Plato acts as both poet and rhapsode,
translating the metaphors of a previous poet into a new form. When Shelley describes the truth and
splendor of [Platos] imagery and the melody of his language, it seems easyand reasonableto
connectthisdescriptiontoPlatosclaimtohaveembellishedandmodernizedthewordsofSocrates.

10

Certainly,ShelleysDefencepoints to the decentering of meaning and removes language from a fixed,

divinesource,butarevisitingofIonsuggeststhatPlatostextisalsoremarkablypostmoderninitsviewof
language.ForPlato,meaningalreadylacksacenterandtheironringsarealreadydistantfromanymuse,
forIonitselfmetaphoricallydescribesaprocessofmetaphorofinterpretation,translation,andtransfer
by which meaning is constructed. This view of language, in which meaning is constructed rather than
reflected, points to a reprieve from Socratess banishment of poetry in at least two ways.
First,Ionsuggeststhatthevalueoflanguage,thepresenceofmeaninginaPlatonicworld,dependsupon
poets such as Plato to construct that meaning, so the Ionanswers the challenge made by Socrates
inRepublic, proving that [poetry] must have a place in a wellgoverned city and that Socrates and his
utopiangovernmentshould,infact,begladtowelcomeit(607).Second,andperhapsmoreimportantly,
thisinterpretationofIonsuggeststhatIoneliminatesthebasisforSocratessobjection,foriteliminatesthe
needforconcernregardingmimesis.BecauseHomeroccupiesvariouspositionsalongthechainofiron
rings and because Plato himself serves as an interpretive link on this chain, the model of the iron rings
becomes,ratherthanafinitemodelfordivinetruthtobetransmitted(anddiluted)frommusetoaudience,
a remarkably postmodern, selfperpetuating model for the creation of meaning in which each link
translates the meaning generated by the previous link into a form effective for its audience: the poet
createsmeaningbyrepeatingwithadifference.Theironrings,then,suggesttheinterminableprogression
of metaphor found in Shelleys Defence, [17] and the issue of accurate representation becomes one of
effectratherthanofthemimeticrepresentationofanabstract,divineTruth:thepoetscraftbecomesthe
transmissionofexperienceratherthanthereproductionofanideal.

11

IsuggestthatweviewShelleysDefencenotonlyasaresponsetoPeacocksTheFourAgesofPoetry,
butalsoasatranslationofPlatosIon. [18]Rather than proposing a theory radically different from that in
Platos Ion, the Defenceembellishes and modernizes the text of Ion in the same manner that Plato
embellishes and modernizes the words of Socrates, making their meaning current for his audience.
ShelleysDefencereconstructsIon,representingandrearticulatingtheprocessofpoetictranslationand
thevalueofmetaphorIonimplies,constructinganewtextforanewaudience.Shelley,indeed,wasapoet
aswasPlato.

Notes
[1]

I am sure, I said, that when we founded the city we were entirely right about many of its features, and
whenIsaythisIamespeciallythinkingof[...]thefactthatwedidnotadmitsuchpoetryasisimitative.

Nowthatthepartsofthesoulhavebeenseparatelydescribed,itisevenclearer,Ithink,thatsuchpoetry
shouldmostcertainlybeexcluded(Plato,Rep.595).
[2]

BaulchpointstoM.H.Abrams,TheMirrorandtheLamp(NewYork:Norton,1958)126.

[3]

Ware cites this passage from Shelleys translation ofIon: Therefore God takes reason from poets, and
usesthemashisministers,ashealsousesthepronouncersoforaclesandholyprophets,inorderthat
we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves, who utter these priceless words
while bereft of reason, but that God himself is the speaker and that through them he is addressing us
(533).

[4]

Nevertheless it should be said that we at least, if poetry that aims at pleasure and imitation has any
argument to bring forward to prove that it must have a place in a wellgoverned city, should be glad to
welcomeit(Plato,Rep.607).

[5]

UltimatelyIwillclaimthatShelleysDefence,inspiteofthepoetsownmomentsofresistance,revealsthe
natureoftheinauguraldivergencethataccountsforthevisibledriftinginhisfamouspoeticvoice(Hogle
159).

[6]

ShelleybeginswiththeimageoftheAeolianlyre,apassiveinstrumentonwhichsoundsaremadebyan
externalforce,buthealsoinsiststhat[i]tisasifthelyrecouldaccommodateitschordstothemotionsof
that which strikes them (516). The issue regarding who or what is the prime moverthe poet or the
divineinShelleystextseems,attimes,unstable.

[7]

Then,Ion,IshallassumethenobleralternativeandattributetoyouinyourpraisesofHomerinspiration,
andnotart(Plato,Ion18).

[8]

Then upon your own showing the rhapsode, and the art of the rhapsode, will not know everything?
(Plato,Ion17).

[9]

Bothproductionandqualityareimprovedineachcase,andeasier,ifeachmandoesonethingwhichis
congenialtohim,doesitattherighttime,andisfreeofotherpursuits(Plato,Rep.370c).

[10]

ION.Thereisnopart,Socrates,aboutwhichIdonotspeakwell:ofthatIcanassureyou./SOCRATES.
SurelynotaboutthingsinHomerofwhichyouhavenoknowledge?/ION.AndwhatisthereinHomerof
whichIhavenoknowledge?(Plato,Ion15).

[11]

Citingletter2ofTheCollectedDialoguesofPlatoIncludingtheLetters,WilcoxstatesthatPlatoclaimsto
haveneverdisclosedhisdoctrinesinthedialogues(10),apointwhichIwilladdresslaterinthiswork.

[12]

Do you know that the spectator is the last of the rings which, as I am saying, receive the power of the
original magnet from one another? The rhapsode like yourself and the actor are intermediate links, and
the poet himself is the first of them. Through all of these God sways the souls of men in any direction
whichhepleases,causingeachlinktocommunicatethepowertothenext(Plato,Ion15).

[13]

In what seems a condescending moment in Republic, Socrates tells Glaucon that those who praise
Homershouldnotbecondemnedbecausetheyareasgoodastheyarecapableofbeing(607).

[14]

SeeRep.421422,434.

[15]

But how did you come to have this skill about Homer only, and not about Hesiod or the other poets?
(Plato,Ion13).

[16]

Poetryenlargesthecircumferenceoftheimaginationbyreplenishingitwiththoughtsofevernewdelight,
whichhavethepowerofattractingandassimilatingtotheirownnatureallotherthoughts,andwhichform
new intervals and interstices whose void forever craves fresh food (Shelley, Defence 520). See also
Hogle1912.

[17]

Allhighpoetryisinfiniteitisasthefirstacorn,whichcontainedalloakspotentially.Veilafterveilmaybe
undrawn,andtheinmostnakedbeautyofthemeaningneverexposed.Agreatpoemisafountainforever
[...](Shelley525).

[18]

InhisDefence,Shelleyassertsthatitwereaswisetocastavioletintoacruciblethatyoumightdiscover
the formal principle of its color and odor, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the
creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower (518). When I
suggestthatShelleytranslatesPlato,ImeanthathetranslatesPlatointhepoeticsenseofthewordnot
inthepurelylinguisticsense.

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Criticism39.4(Summer1981):43749.DOI:10.2307/430243

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Adams.1218.

. The Collected Dialogues of Plato Including the Letters. Ed. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns.
Trans.L.A.Post.NewYork:Pantheon,1961.1563568.

.Republic.Trans.G.M.A.Grube.Indianapolis:Hackett,1974.

Russon,John.HermeneuticsandPlatosIon.Clio24.4(1995):399418.

Shelley,PercyBysshe.ADefenseofPoetry.Ed.HazardAdams.51529.

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TroyUrquhart
Metaphor,Transfer,andTranslationinPlatosIon:ThePostmodernPlatonismofPercy
ByssheShelleysADefencePoetry
RomanticismontheNet,Numro31,aot2003
http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/008700ar
10.7202/008700ar