SURVEY OF PRESOCRATIC ALLEGORICAL PRACTICES Sample Clauses

SURVEY OF PRESOCRATIC ALLEGORICAL PRACTICES. Having considered the background against which the Presocratic practice of allegory emerges, including their role in the shift from muthos to logos, the ways in which they were influenced by archaic poetry and its philosophical anticipations, and the three senses in which one might speak of a Presocratic poetics, we may now to turn to specific instances of allegorical interpretation and composition amongst these early Greek thinkers. These contributions could be said to have occurred in various stages or moments. The first stage involves the rather subtle reception of the poets once the philosophical mindset begins to supersede the long established mythical tradition. This occurs with the Ionian thinkers, and particularly by Xxxxxxxxxxx, at the outset of early philosophical speculation. The second moment is the explicit rejection of the poets because they are seen to violate many of the rational tenets that were already becoming an integral feature of Presocratic thought. The key players here are Xxxxxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxxxx, both of whom object to the poets’ role as the main educators of culture and initiate a quarrel with them on intellectual grounds. The third stage introduces allegoresis as a way to save the poets from this quarrel and to appropriate their wisdom for philosophical purposes. This stage includes peripheral figures such as Pherecydes of Syros, Theagenes of Rhegium and the author of the Derveni Papyrus, but also later, more prominent Presocratic thinkers such as Xxxxxxxxxx, Xxxxxxxxxx of Lampsacus, Xxxxxxxxxx, and Xxxxxxxx of Appollonia. The last moment consists in a return to myth with the philosopher-poets, Xxxxxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxxxx, as the central figures. Because this return to myth is mediated by xxxxxxxx, however, it results in the “philosophical myth,” which is later taken up and reshaped in the hands of Xxxxx. These are not necessarily stages or moments in a chronological sense, for there is much overlap in the practices of allegorical interpretation and composition amongst the Presocratics. Moreover, different thinkers manifested the poetic influence on their thought in different ways. For instance, Xxxxxxxxxxx’s only extant fragment is allegorical in a direct sense, but other views attributed to him reveal the implicit influence of the mythico-religious mindset on his cosmology. Xxxxxxxxxx, who comes almost a century after Xxxxxxxxxxx, also engaged in allegorical composition, though in the form of verse. Since his extant fragments a...