Re: R.D. Mounce
Making reality our friend is necessary to survival and finding good descriptions of reality is the better part of doing that, so I don’t imagine we have any less interest in truth than the Ancients. From what I remember of him, Plato had specific objections to specific styles of art, poetry, or their interpretation, and hardly painted art in general with a broad brush. Indeed, there is a Pythagorean tradition that reads The Republic as a metaphorical treatise on musical theory, applied no doubt to achieving harmony in society. Truth in fiction and myth is a matter of interpretation, and come to think of it, that’s not essentially different from truth in more literal forms of expression.