Read the excerpt from The Republic by Plato.And so, when we hear persons saying that the tragedians, and Homer, who is at their head, know all the arts and all things human, virtue as well as vice, and divine things too, for that the good poet cannot compose well unless he knows his subject, and that he who has not this knowledge can never be a poet, we ought to consider whether here also there may not be a similar illusion. Perhaps they may have come across imitators and been deceived by them; they may not have remembered when they saw their works that these were but imitations thrice removed from the truth, and could easily be made without any knowledge of the truth, because they are appearances only and not realities? Or, after all, they may be in the right, and poets do really know the things about which they seem to the many to speak so well?
Answer
A
He uses rhetorical questions to challenge others’ opinions.
B
He uses antithesis to explain what poets do and do not know about.
C
He creates ethos by establishing an example of a famous writer.
D
He creates kairos by showing how people are presently wary of writers.
Explanation
Plato asks whether people have been deceived by imitations and whether poets truly know what they seem to describe. These questions challenge the claim that poets know all subjects, rather than simply stating a conclusion. Choice A describes this use of rhetorical questions; the excerpt does not mainly establish credibility, discuss present-day attitudes, or organize its point through antithesis.
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