on Don Quixote 4

I'm further than this now, but one passage that struck me earlier in Don Quixote was on page 50 when the priest and DQ's niece are going through all his books and the priest says that there are some books they shouldn't burn. The niece objects and that they must burn them, otherwise he "will read these and want to beceome a shepherd adn wander through the woods and meadows singing and playing, and, what would be even worse, become a poet, and that, they say, is an incurable and contagious disease." I thought this was humorous when I first read it, but after some of our discussions in class I began to see a connection to other stuff we talked about. For one, this sounds like something Plato would say, given his attitude towards poets and how worseless he thought they were. Secondly, I think it's fits in with the attitude alot of people have against poets and by extension, English majors. People think being an English writer is worthless and is a truly bad thing, which necessitates people like Sidney and Shelley to write their apologies, and why we are asked to write apologies as well. I find it interesing that people have to continually be defending poetry/literature, from Plato's day til now. Some people just won't learn. tsk tsk