December 1, 2007
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Plato’s Horses:
Rhetoric, 1; Dialectic, 0.
– Robert M. Pirsig,
Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance(Pirsig is describing the response of Phaedrus to an obnoxious member of the Academy in a discussion of Plato’s figure of the horses and charioteer.)
Wallace Stevens,
opening lines of
The Necessary Angel:
“In the Phaedrus, Plato speaks of the soul in a figure. He says:
Let our figure be of a composite nature– a pair of winged horses and a
charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteer of the gods are
all of them noble, and of noble breed, while ours are mixed; and we
have a charioteer who drives them in a pair, and one of them is noble
and of noble origin, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble origin;
and, as might be expected, there is a great deal of trouble in managing
them. I will endeavor to explain to you in what way the mortal differs
from the immortal creature. The soul or animate being has the care of
the inanimate, and traverses the whole heaven in divers forms
appearing;– when perfect and fully winged she soars upward, and is the
ruler of the universe; while the imperfect soul loses her feathers, and
drooping in her flight at last settles on the solid ground.We recognize at once, in this figure, Plato’s pure poetry; and at the
same time we recognize what Coleridge called Plato’s dear, gorgeous
nonsense. The truth is that we have scarcely read the passage before we
have identified ourselves with the charioteer, have, in fact, taken his
place and, driving his winged horses, are traversing the whole heaven.”Stevens, who was educated at Harvard, adds:
“Then suddenly we remember, it may be, that the soul no longer exists
and we droop in our flight and at last settle on the solid ground. The
figure becomes antiquated and rustic.”Many who lack a Harvard education to make them droop will prefer to remember Robert Craig Knievel (Oct. 17, 1938 – Nov. 30, 2007) not as antiquated and rustic but as young and soaring.
Related material:
the previous entry
(a story for Gennie).See also the entries for
last February’s
Academy Awards night:
Hollywood Sermon and
Between Two Worlds.
