Editing Metempsychosis (section)

== Modern ==
Scholars have debated the extent of Plato's belief in metempsychosis since at least the [[Renaissance]]. [[Marsilio Ficino]] argued that Plato's references to metempsychosis were intended to be allegorical.<ref>See ''Platonic Theology'' 17.3–4.</ref> Modern scholars, including Chad Jorgensen and Gerard Naddaf, have tended to agree with Ficino.<ref>Jorgensen 2018: 199 says that Plato's eschatological accounts are "much better suited to a creative discourse aimed at capturing the imagination of a particular audience than to an attempt to describe an independently existing reality." See Jorgensen, Chad. ''The Embodied Soul in Plato's Later Thought''. Cambridge: Cambridge  University Press, 2018.

Naddaf 2016: 113 says that this part of Plato's thinking can be represented "only by eschatological or cosmological myths. It is inaccessible to explanation." See Naddaf, Gerard. "Poetic Myths of the Afterlife: Plato's Last Song," ''Reflections on Plato's  Poetics: Essays from Beijing''. Academic Printing and Publishing: Berrima, NSW, 2016, 111–136.</ref> 

"Metempsychosis" is the title of a longer work by the metaphysical poet [[John Donne]], written in 1601.<ref>Collins, Siobhán (2005) "Bodily Formations and Reading Strategies in John Donne's ''Metempsychosis''" ''Critical Studies'' 26: pp. 191–208, page 191</ref> The poem, also known as the ''Infinitati Sacrum'',<ref name="Donne">[http://www.luminarium.org/editions/metempsycosis.htm full text of ''Metempsychosis'' or ''Infinitati Sacrum''] from Luminarium Editions</ref> consists of two parts, the "Epistle" and "The Progress of the Soule".  In the first line of the latter part, Donne writes that he "sing[s] of the progresse of a deathlesse soule".<ref name="Donne" />

Metempsychosis is a recurring theme in [[James Joyce]]'s [[modernism|modernist]] novel ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' (1922).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rac101/concord/texts/ulysses/ulysses.cgi?word=Metempsychosis |title=List of occurrences of Metempsychosis in Ulysses |access-date=14 January 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120316170341/http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rac101/concord/texts/ulysses/ulysses.cgi?word=Metempsychosis |archive-date=16 March 2012 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In Joycean fashion, the word famously appears in [[Leopold Bloom]]'s inner monologue recalling how his wife, [[Molly Bloom]], apparently mispronounced it earlier that day as "met him pike hoses."<ref>Cf. Joyce, ''Ulysses'', §8 [http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rac101/concord/texts/ulysses/files/ulysses8.html#7285 Lestrygonians] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607123644/http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rac101/concord/texts/ulysses/files/ulysses8.html#7285 |date=7 June 2011 }}</ref>