Monk

Plato calls up a lot of mythology and writes of supernatural realms, but he strikes the humanist note so well that the modern reader happily embraces it as poetic, as when Plato writes in "Phaedrus" of the time before we lost our wings and fell to earth to become men:

Whole were we who celebrated that festival, unspotted by all the evils which awaited in the time to come, and whole and unspotted and changeless and serene were the objects revealed to us in the light of that mystic vision. Pure was the light and pure were we from the pollution of the walking sepulchre which we call a body, to which we are bound like an oyster to its shell.

How can I not appreciate that tragic sense of life? And, in Milton, I find myself a bit invested in the mythic idea of a lost paradise. And I sort of want to believe.

“We must realize that in each one of us there are two ruling and impelling principles whose guidance we follow, a desire for pleasure which is innate, and an acquired conviction which causes us to aim at excellence. These two principles are sometimes in agreement within us and sometimes at variance; at one moment the first and at another the second prevails. The conviction which impels us toward excellence is rational, and the power by which it masters us we call self-control; the desire which drags us toward pleasure is irrational, and when it gets the upper hand in us its dominion is called excess.”

-- Plato, "Phaedrus"

He doesn't sound like a lot of fun, does he? He sounds about as forgiving as a fundamentalist southern Baptist preacher, especially when you appreciate that he is focusing on love and sex in this dialogue as the pleasure that runs at variance with excellence. But, yes, a little Plato does fit in the poetry reading. I trust that this would be an instance in which the pursuit of pleasure and the pursuit of excellence are in agreement. It does have its enchantments.

Besides, his rather chilly view on love and sex goes down more easily when they are not a real option for you anyway, paving the way for the love of wisdom and divine philosophy.