Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Preliminary Material / Author: Ann N. Michelini -- Preface / Author: Ann N. Michelini -- Plato as Author: The Rhetoric of Philosophy Introduction / Author: Ann N. Michelini -- How to Read a Platonic Prologue: Lysis 203a-207d / Author: Francisco J. Gonzalez -- Plato's Socratic Mask / Author: Ann N. Michelini -- Comments on Michelini and Gonzalez / Author: Gary Alan Scott -- Plato's Politic Writing and the Cultivation of Souls / Author: Jacob Howland -- Glaucon's Couch, or Mimesis and the Art of the Republic / Author: Jay Farness -- Socrates' Argumentative Burden in the Republic / Author: Hayden W. Ausland -- Comments on Howland, Farness, and Ausland: New Readings of Plato's Republic / Author: Catherine Zuckert -- To Hear the Right Thing and to Miss the Point: Plato's Implicit Poetics / Author: Michael Erler -- Rhetoric as Part of an Initiation into the Mysteries: A New Interpretation of the Platonic Phaedrus / Author: Christina Schefer -- Comments on Erler and Schefer / Author: Thomas Tuozzo -- Six Philosophers on Philosophical Esotericism / Author: Thomas Alexander Szlezák -- Subtext and Subterfuge in Plato's Cratylus / Author: Andrea Wilson Nightingale -- Comments on Nightingale and Szlezák / Author: G. R. F. Ferrari -- The Man with No Name: Socrates and the Visitor from Elea / Author: Ruby Blondell -- Metaphysics and Individual Souls in the Phaedo / Author: Allan Silverman -- Comments on Blondell and Silverman / Author: Daniel Devereux -- On the Philosophical Autonomy of a Platonic Dialogue: The Case of Recollection / Author: Charles H. Kahn -- The Rhetoric of Philosophy: Socrates' Swan-Song / Author: David Gallop -- Back Matter -- Bibliography of Works Cited / Author: Ann N. Michelini -- Topic Index / Author: Ann N. Michelini -- Modern References / Author: Ann N. Michelini.

This collection, focusing on literary aspects of the Platonic dialogues, includes stimulating and diverse essays by scholars from several different fields. Plato, the critic, satirist, and (perhaps) inventor of "rhetoric" framed his own discourse in complex ways. Republic is a mimetic text that presents a sophisticated analysis of the various types of mimesis; Phaedrus , featuring embedded exemplars of exquisite prose style, includes a severe critique of literary authorship. Texts such as these seem to demand the fullest resources of a sophisticated analysis of discourse. Essay topics include friendship and desire in the Lysis, Socratic irony in Cratylus, mystery imagery in Phaedrus, and the peculiar couch in Book 10 of Republic. Contributors include Michael Erler, David Gallop, Francisco Gonzalez, Charles Kahn, Andrea Nightingale, and Thomas Szlezák.

Description based on print version record.