Book contents
- How Plato Writes
- How Plato Writes
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Approaches to the Corpus
- Chapter 1 Plato in His Time and Place
- Chapter 2 When and Why Did Plato Write Narrated Dialogues?
- Chapter 3 Against System
- Part II Argument and Dialogue Architecture
- Part III Myth and Allegory in the Republic
- Part IV Projects, Paradoxes, and Literary Registers in the Laws
- References
- Index
Chapter 2 - When and Why Did Plato Write Narrated Dialogues?
from Part I - Approaches to the Corpus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2023
- How Plato Writes
- How Plato Writes
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Approaches to the Corpus
- Chapter 1 Plato in His Time and Place
- Chapter 2 When and Why Did Plato Write Narrated Dialogues?
- Chapter 3 Against System
- Part II Argument and Dialogue Architecture
- Part III Myth and Allegory in the Republic
- Part IV Projects, Paradoxes, and Literary Registers in the Laws
- References
- Index
Summary
Plato writes narrated (as distinct from dramatic) dialogues in his ‘middle’ period. Some are narrated throughout, others are introduced and sometimes interrupted by a dramatic frame dialogue, highlighting the fictiveness of the conversation being represented. In one group, Socrates himself narrates conversations he had with boys or teenagers or young men: Charmides, Lysis, Euthydemus. Here Plato pursues themes appropriate to the genre of ‘erotic’ dialogue, where narration can exhibit the comedy of interactions between his characters. Sometimes another speaker recounts a conversation in which Socrates participated: Phaedo, Symposium, Parmenides (Theaetetus is an abortive further example; Protagoras, narrated by Socrates himself, has many affinities with Symposium). These three dialogues employ distancing mechanisms coupled with ostentatious but self-defeating claims of veracity and reliability, indicating remoteness from what Socrates himself in fact taught. Finally, I take up the suggestion that Plato sticks with the mode of narrated dialogue in Republic because he has by now developed theoretical scruples about the ethical propriety of direct dramatic representation.
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- How Plato WritesPerspectives and Problems, pp. 42 - 51Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023