O poeta, o cultor das Musas e o entusiasmo poético

Abstract

The present paper aims to reflect upon the concept of poetical enthusiasm developed in ancient Greek culture, with focus on Plato’s philosophy. To do so, after a brief overview on the presence of such idea in the archaic poets, we proceed to the analysis of two works from Plato in which the concept of enthusiasm is mainly developed, namely the Ion and the Phaedrus. While the former deals specifically with poetical madness, the latter develop a general typology of the modalities of enthusiasm. The reflection advances to consider if poetical enthusiasm may conduct the possessed poet to the dimension of Truth and contemplation of intelligible essences. In the end of the paper, two hypotheses on that question are presented.