![]() Not surprisingly, the novella shows how law's agents must be wise, even as their law must be philosophical, if they are to do justice. Captain Vere is a flawed but instructive version of the Republic's philosopher-king, even as his story is precisely the sort of "poetry" that Plato should willingly allow, by his own republican principles, into the ideal polity. ![]() This article shows how Melville's Billy Budd, rightly one of law and literature's most widely studied canonical texts, answers Plato's challenge in Book X of the Republic: Show how "poets" create better citizens, especially better rulers, or banish them from the commonwealth of reasoned law. ![]()
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