The Song of the Nightingale: Word Play on the Road to Hades in Plato’s Phaedo
Document Type
Article
Version
Author's Final Manuscript
Publication Title
Transactions of the American Philological Association
Volume
150
Publication Date
2020
Abstract
Plato uses word plays in the Phaedo as a literary technique with a double purpose: to illustrate the process of recollection that moves from the sensible particulars to the intelligible ideas and to remind his readers of the ideas discussed in the dialogue, spurring their recollective associations of unseen Forms, absence of pleasure and pain, and the absence of fear, with the traditional name of Hades. The swan song of philosophy is therefore revealed to be not a nightingale's lament but rather an incantation against fear of death, a reminder of the true reality of the unseen intelligible world.
Citation
Edmonds, R. G., III. 2020. “The Song of the Nightingale: Word Play on the Road to Hades in Plato’s Phaedo.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 150.1: 65-83.
DOI
http://doi.org/10.1353/apa.2020.0006
