[396b]
connected therewith?” “How could they,” he
said, “since it will be forbidden them even to pay any attention
to such things?” “Well, then, neighing horses1 and lowing bulls, and the noise of rivers
and the roar of the sea and the thunder and everything of that
kind—will they imitate these?” “Nay, they have
been forbidden,” he said, “to be mad or liken themselves
to madmen.” “If, then, I understand your
meaning,” said I, “there is a form of diction and
narrative in which
1 For this rejection of violent realism Cf. Laws 669 C-D. Plato describes exactly what Verhaeren's admirers approve: “often in his rhythm can be heard the beat of hammers, the hard, edged, regular whizzing of wheels, the whirring of looms, the hissing of locomotives; often the wild, restless tumult of the streets, the humming and rumbling of dense masses of people.” (Stefan Zweig). So another modern critic celebrates “the cry of a baby in a Strauss symphony, the sneers and snarls of his critics in his Helden Leben, the contortions of the Dragon in Wagner's Siegfried .”
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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