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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: being recited, but is apt to go to sleep at the recitations of any other
poet. 'And yet, surely, he who knows the superior ought to know the
inferior also;--he who can judge of the good speaker is able to judge of
the bad. And poetry is a whole; and he who judges of poetry by rules of
art ought to be able to judge of all poetry.' This is confirmed by the
analogy of sculpture, painting, flute-playing, and the other arts. The
argument is at last brought home to the mind of Ion, who asks how this
contradiction is to be solved. The solution given by Socrates is as
follows:--
The rhapsode is not guided by rules of art, but is an inspired person who
derives a mysterious power from the poet; and the poet, in like manner, is
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