Abstract

After defining dramatic prefiguration, I show how (1) the initial meeting between Polemarchus's party and the smaller group of Socrates and Glaucon prefigures the Republic's theme of how to install the philosophical element in its proper place as ruler in the soul; (2) the relay race of torches carried on horseback prefigures the theory of the soul as tripartite, containing reason, spirit, and appetite; and (3) the opening image of Socrates descending to the Piraeus prefigures the descent of the reasoning element back from the forms to give birth to works of wisdom