Preface to Plato
Eric Alfred Havelock
Reading Time
at 250 WPM5h 28m
The average reader, reading at a speed of 250 WPM, would take 5h 28m to read Preface to Plato.
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11
days at 30 min/day
328
total minutes
Preface to Plato
Published
1963
Publisher
Blackwell
Pages
328
Description
Plato's frontal attack on poetry has always been a problem for sympathetic students, who have often minimized or avoided it. Beginning with the premise that the attack must be taken seriously, Mr. Havelock shows that Plato's hostility is explained by the continued domination of the poetic tradition in contemporary Greek thought. The reason for the dominance of this tradition was technological. In a nonliterate culture, stored experience necessary to cultural stability had to be preserved as poetry in order to be memorized. Plato attacks poets, particularly Homer, as the sole source of Greek moral and technical instruction--Mr. Havelock shows how the Illiad acted as an oral encyclopedia. Under the label of mimesis, Plato condemns the poetic process of emotional identification and the necessity of presenting content as a series of specific images in a continued narrative. The second part of the book discusses the Platonic Forms as an aspect of an increasingly rational culture. Literate Greece demanded, instead of poetic discourse, a vocabulary and a sentence structure both abstract and explicit in which experience could be described normatively and analytically: in short a language of ethics and science.
Subjects
Frequently Asked Questions
How many pages are in Preface to Plato?
This edition of Preface to Plato has approximately 328 pages. Please note, this is an estimate and the exact page count can vary between hardcover, paperback, and e-book versions.
How long does it take to read Preface to Plato?
For most readers, Preface to Plato typically takes between 6h 50m and 4h 33m to complete. This is based on the book's length of approximately 82,000 words and common reading speeds.
Here's a detailed breakdown: • Continuous reading at 250 WPM: approximately 5h 28m of focused reading • Casual reading (30 minutes/day): you could finish in roughly 11 days • Estimated word count: 82,000 words
Your individual reading time will vary based on your personal reading pace, the amount of daily reading time, and your familiarity with the subject matter.
What is the word count of Preface to Plato?
The estimated word count for Preface to Plato is approximately 82,000 words. This figure is calculated using industry-standard methods that consider genre-specific word density patterns, typical formatting and layout characteristics, and standard words-per-page ratios for published books.
This is an approximation — actual word count may vary based on font size, formatting, edition, and the presence of illustrations or charts.
Who is the author of Preface to Plato?
Preface to Plato was written by Eric Alfred Havelock.
When was Preface to Plato published?
The publication date for this specific edition is 1963. The original work may have been published on a different date.