ABSTRACT
The idea of poets as inspired by Apollo and the Muses had a long history in Greek thought; but Plato gives it a new twist: while in earlier writers the gods speak to the poet, Plato rather presents them as speaking through the poet, taking him over in such a way that he is no longer in control of his own mind. There was a tradition of belief in such divine possession, found in certain mystery cults, particularly the Bacchic rites of Dionysus and the Corybantic rites of Cybele, and Plato in places compares poets to them, but the idea of poets themselves as being out of their minds seems to have been new in his time. One might also ask why inspiration is here put forward as the source of the poets’ ability. No doubt the tradition of poetic inspiration contributes to Socrates’ reasoning here, though the way he couples it with lack of understanding is distinctive.
