Lyric Oblivion: When Sappho Taught Socrates how to Forget

Given the limits of our human nature, oblivion can hardly be excluded from the scene of memory: most of the time, remembering involves a more or less conscious selection , whereby our memories are made possible precisely by our acts of forgetfulness. Yet the polarity between memory and oblivion is as much a cultural as a natural fact. However fascinated by glory and memory as the highest goal of human striving, Plato\u2019s fellow Greeks encouraged and praised various forms of forgetfulness. Th is, I will argue, paved the way for a radical solution, which sees the polarity in terms of a direct correlation that emphasises the positive role of oblivion: in the Phaedrus , the highest and best form of memory, that is the metaphysical recollection of the Forms , turns out to be inseparable from an extreme act of forgetfulness, which consists in the erasing of all earthly concerns. 1 I refer to this act as \u2018lyric oblivion\u2019 because it emerges from Plato\u2019s hitherto unnoticed reworking of Sappho\u2019s \u2018Ode to Helen \u2019, a poem that emphasises oblivion in the context of a pioneering juxtaposition of memory and recollection. Plato, I will argue, shapes his notion of both oblivion and memory through and against Sappho