Michael Platt

Tragical, Comical, Historical

The long quarrel between poetry and philosophy is hard to judge, in part because the two quarrelers speak in different modes and if either adopts the other’s mode he concedes half the quarrel. For the poet who writes a philosophic defense of poetry would seem to concede that poetry cannot defend itself and the philosopher who resorts to poetry to defend philosophy (or perhaps to show its superiority) would seem to concede that philosophy needs poetry. Moreover, when it comes to quarrels and defenses, there is an inequality in the capacities of the two. It is easier for philosophy to carry on a defense, for reasoning and giving arguments is its usual mode; poetry need not be against reason but it is not fond of the mode that pure reason or pure argument favors, namely, the treatise. Poetry is chary of arguments, even ones in its own defense, for it is the way of poetry to present or show things by imitating them.