u/strawberryl0ve

I'm reading Tagore's "Creative Unity," specifically the essay on the creative ideal. Has anyone read this particular essay? If so, what are your thoughts?

Plato spends a majority of the book talking about his disapproval for imitation, yet he talks through the character of Socrates and uses the myth of Er at the end of the book. Isn't this a contradiction he must've noticed? Or does he only approve of imitation when it is used as grounds to emphasise the importance of reason? If so, why is a story and characters needed to convey this rather than reason alone?

This is my first foray into philosophy, might be a dumb question!

So I'm a second semester English student, and one of the courses we have this sem is Introduction to Literary Criticism. We look at various essays, such as Plato's Republic (specifically Book X), Michel Foucault's "What is An Author," Barbara Smith's "Toward A Black Feminist Criticism," etc.

I'm stuck on how to study in order to answer 10 mark essay questions about each text. We have no way of knowing what kind of questions we'll be asked in a final, and my institution is relatively new so there are only 2 past papers (and most of the texts in the syllabus have changed anyway). We also don't have access to the texts in our exams.

Any advice on how to study for a subject like this?