Ion is Plato's only dialogue entirely consecrated to the theory of literature. It is also the oldest extant book on the subject in the Western tradition. It is to be kept in mind, however, that Ion must be read in the wider context of the Platonic corpus, because it relates literature to the whole of human activity which is commented in the other works and given a place in the structure of reality.
Ion is a very short dialogue which involves two speakers: Socrates, who is usually Plato's mouthpiece in the dialogues, and Ion. Ion is a rhapsode, a curious mixture of actor, poet, singer and literary critic, who recites and praises Homer's epics in public performances. A rhapsode, the speakers agree, must understand the meaning of the poet and interpret the poet's mind to his hearers. Socrates argues that Ion does not speak of the poets by rules of art, because Ion acknowledges that he can speak only of Homer. If Ion's ability as a rhapsode were a craft or science, Socrates' argument runs, he would be able to speak of any poet, because all poets deal with the same subjects. Here Socrates makes comparisons with the art of criticising painting or sculpture. He concludes by telling Ion that his gift of word when speaking of Homer "is not an art, but an inspiration; there is a divinity moving you." Ion's gift of speech is derivative from Homer's own poetical powers, just as a magnet can infuse its power through a chain of rings hanging from it. And Homer is not the first ring of the chain: his gift of poetry is also derivative:
For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed. And as the Korybantian revelers when they dance are not in their right mind, so the lyric poets are not in their right mind when they are composing their beautiful strains: but when falling under the power of music they are inspired and possessed (Ion 14)
God uses poets as his ministers, as he uses oracles and prophets: he addresses us through them, as poets themselves claim. Poets are the interpreters of the gods. Rhapsodes must also be inspired, although, being the interpreters of poets, they are the interpreters of interpreters, and their role would seem to be less glorious. Anyway, Plato's praise of poetic inspiration is ambivalent: at times it becomes overtly ironic, so that in the end we are no longer sure that inspiration is such a good thing:
For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and there is no invention in him until he has been inspired and is out of his senses, and reason is no longer in him: no man, while he retains that faculty, has the oracular gift of poetry. (Ion 15)
Ion acknowledges that he is out of himself when he recites the poems of Homer. Furthermore, the same effect is produced on his audience, which therefore becomes the last ring hanging from the magnet. Homer, and not other poets, is Ion's first link to the source of that magnetic force; that is why he is not inspired by other poets. This magnetic force is of course an irrational inspiration, and not an art with definite rules or understandable principles. Here we must understand "art" in the sense of "craft," "knowledge," or "science," as an ability directed by reason. According to Socrates, arts differ only by their objects, and so the poet has no business talking about arts other than his own. In fact, he has no business talking about anything: poets and rhapsodes have no proper object of knowledge. Ion ridicules himself by saying that he would be a good general in virtue of his ability to sing about battles. Socrates concludes that Ion is like shape-changing Proteus, inspired but with no art or shape of his own.
It can be argued that this is a dialogue against criticism, as well as a dialogue against poetry. As a rhapsode, Ion does not have any rational technique either. Anybody who can criticise a poet through a rational technique, art or science, ought to be able to criticise any other. So poetry and criticism are two different aspects of the same madness or divine dispensation.
Setting Plato's theory as expounded in Ion against his later thought, we may notice certain tensions which are left unresolved by Plato:
Ion Phaedrus, Timaeus, etc.
Divinity Ideas
(Inspiration) (Reason)
Poet Craftsmen, Beauty or number
Philosophers
(Reason)
Rhapsode Philosopher
Audience
Figure 4
Unless Socrates in Ion is being completely ironical in calling the poet a divine being, we must admit that there exists some connection between the activity of the poet and that of the philosopher, even if it is an abnormal one, even if the philosopher knows divinity through reason and the poet through madness. The fact that in later works Plato denies that there is such a connection, or does not care to develop it, has always puzzled the readers of Ion.
In any case, Ion agrees in the main with the rest of the Platonic corpus. Reason leads to ideas, but the poet only copies shapes, he does not use reason. This view of literature is certainly an impoverished one, which ignores whatever is specific of literature: "Socrates treats the problem solely in terms of its subject matter or content: he simply ignores its existence as a formal structure" (Adams 11). Here can be found the origin of the moralistic and didactic criticism which separates form from content and sets external standards to the work of art, judging it by its subject matter and not by what the work does with that subject matter. Plato measures literature with the standards of science. This scientific approach is unfair, but nevertheless two important principles emerge from the discussion:
o Being able to compose poetry is not the same as being able to give a rationale of it.
o Poetry is not concerned with making scientific statements. This conception is in direct opposition to some contemporary views on the didactic aspect of poetry.