Plato banned the Poets from his state,
……Yet said, if one could make a sound defense
……In lilting verse with cogent arguments
That they do more than merely imitate
An imitation and dissimulate,
……He’d take them back again. And ever since
……Our best minds have been trying to convince
His cautious Guardians of their mistake.
Sir Philip Sidney laid a firm foundation
……In his divine “Defense of Poesy”:
The Poet gives us Virtue’s exaltation
……More strong than History or Philosophy,
Concretely shows through his imagination
……Not just what is, but more: what ought to be.
From Stars through the Clouds: The Collected Poetry of Donald T. Williams, 2n edition (Lantern Hollow Press, 2020). Used by permission.
Donald T. Williams, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College, has been slanderously identified as the author of The Devil’s Dictionary of the Christian Faith (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2008), a charge which he neither confirms nor denies. He is certainly the author of a dozen other books including Ninety-Five These for a New Reformation: A Road Map for Post-Evangelical Christianity (Semper Reformanda Publications, 2021), a serious book about theology which also keeps Screwtape up at night.
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Citation Information
Donald T. Williams, “The Challenge of ‘The Republic’,” An Unexpected Journal: The Imaginative Harvest of Holly Ordway 4, no. 4. (Advent 2021), 201-02.
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