Book380 BCE
Ion
Plato
Argues, through a rhapsode who cannot explain his own skill, that poets do not compose from technical knowledge but from divine inspiration that bypasses reason entirely.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeEntry
Philosophy of Literature
A topic within Aesthetics, itself one of 10 topics in that field and part of Philosophy.
Reading on Philosophy of Literature
22 works
Essay1766
Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
Argues that painting and poetry are not interchangeable ways of describing the same content, because painting works in space through simultaneous bodies while poetry works in time through successive actions.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate