Another great essay! Thanks again, Michael. I remember reading Plato's "Gorgias" with a class of graduate students in Rhetoric and trying to line up Socrates' account of poetic mania first and then prophetic mania that also touches the poet. The first kind is associated with the Muses, the second with a god. Then we did a side glance at the speech of Theseus in MND and decided that Shakespeare and Plato covered all the topics.
Another great essay! Thanks again, Michael. I remember reading Plato's "Gorgias" with a class of graduate students in Rhetoric and trying to line up Socrates' account of poetic mania first and then prophetic mania that also touches the poet. The first kind is associated with the Muses, the second with a god. Then we did a side glance at the speech of Theseus in MND and decided that Shakespeare and Plato covered all the topics.
It also took a side glance at Diotima's speech in the "Symposium."