THE FROGS

Here's a link for Aristophanes's The Frogs, perhaps the earliest extant example of literary criticism: http://records.viu.ca/~Johnstoi/Aristophanes/frogs.htm . In A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to the Present, published by Blackwell in 2005, M.A.R. Habib mentions this fact, and also points out that the rhapsodes who interpreted Homer's epics, from about 800 B.C.E. engaged in a sort of literary criticism (coming from a word for judgment) any time they made decisions about how to perform the Iliad or the Odyssey (Habib 9-12). So while we're going to read Plato, perhaps the rhapsode actually knows more about literature than Socrates.