A Tale Signifying Much: How Shakespeare's Macbeth Teaches the Lessons of Plato's Republic , and Why Poetry and Philosophy Are Natural Allies

Abstract In Plato's Republic , Socrates' account of an ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy closely concerns the failure of poets to defend justice as good in itself and not merely for its external benefits. No less an exemplum of poetry than Shakespeare's Macbeth does just that. Through a side‐by‐side comparison of the two texts, this paper shows that they both ask whether a life of injustice would make people happier if they could keep their unjust deeds hidden; both answer that it would not , relying on the role of thumos , the spirited part of the soul; and both give the additional answer that it is not possible to keep an unjust character hidden, for it eventually becomes evident to human beings and is never hidden to gods (or God). Without delineating the precise boundaries either of poetry or of philosophy, this shows that the ancient quarrel is resolvable and that philosophy and poetry make natural allies.