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BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 213
Plato without reference to the literary and dramatic vehicles by which
he seeks to have us think through the issues. Even so. doctrinal approaches
to Plato have a long modern history. while literary and dramatic
approaches are only just acquiring the discipline needed to
achieve the required level of persuasiveness. There are books which
take several times the length of a dialogue in order to say little more of
value than an attentive reading of the dialogue would offer. losing in
the meantime the immediacy and attractiveness of the original. and
straying unnecessarily into speculative intertextual by-ways where the
exacting reader never needs to go. While passages in the current book
fail to persuade me of their accuracy or relevance. it is overall a substantial
contribution towards giving discipline to the study of the literary
Plato. and hence it can make a greater impact on the study of Plato
the philosopher.
In the opening chapter on "Drama and dialogue" the author. though
giving most attention to the didactic Socrates and the Eleatic Visitor
who will at some point oust him. takes a rather strong line against the
idea of finding Platonic "spokesmen" within the dialogues (18). and emphasizes
Plato's non-authoritarian manner (39). She sees the historical
contexts as a means of relating the questions to real life (48). and the
dialogue form itself "as an assertion of human plurality" (49). I should
take this further. since the separate situations in which the speakers are
embodied necessarily gives them different perspectives on issues under
discussion. something that cannot have escaped an age in which Protagoras'
influence was so deeply felt. Dialogue is required to overcome
any perspective that is tied to the individual.
In Chapter 2. "Dialogue and the imitation of character." I was impressed
by the first section. which discusses character by taking the
components of ethos. dianoia. and personality separately. There is a
section on the Platonic Socrates. which gives more emphasis than I
should to matters of physiognomony. and strangely uses the picture of
Socrates' students in Clouds as somehow relevant to Socrates (71). As an
admirer of Socrates. Plato had no choice but to draw a sharp distinction
between his superficial ugliness and his inward attractiveness. and
hence to highlight the difference between appearance and reality beyond
what had been seen in Homer or Archilochus (73). But this distinction
is nicely linked with the idea of the serio-comic (72). The chapter's
final section deals (tentatively and at excessive length. 80-112) with mimetic
pedagogy. certainly an important topic in Greek education. but of
debatable importance for understanding Plato. "Socrates." it emerges. is
a character whom we might try to imitate. emulating his philosophical
powers, but there are limits to the desirability of such imitation. In the