Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Truth

About this curriculum

This is the poetics book in Level 7 of the MCT language arts curriculum. Poetry, Plato, and the Problem of Truth continues the study of poetic techniques and poems and takes them to an even higher level. Using Plato’s  Dialogues  and Socratic questioning as a source of ideas and a way of thinking about the concept of truth, students are led to consider the difficult question that has absorbed philosophers, scientists, artists, and poets throughout time: What is the nature of truth? Many poems deal with the concept of truth. Great poems that stand the test of time express, at their core, something that is true. This book looks at the truth of sound, meter, and stanza and at figures of speech that explore truth through comparison. The elements discussed include everything in the previous volumes of the poetics program, as well as the most advanced techniques that poets use when constructing their poems. The book features poems by great poets such as Emily Dickinson, William Shakespeare, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Dylan Thomas, William B…