"I am ashamed to tell you the truth, gentlemen, but I must. Almost all the bystanders might have explained the poems better than their authors could. I soon realized that poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say."
-Plato: Apology

I've often wondered about this when we are examining poems or literature in class. Personally, I'm not thinking of anything as complex as Gender roles in an emerging society or repressed sexuality while I'm writing.