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216 BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS
DIALOGUE
Republic
Parmenides
Tht.-Sph.-Plt.
Phaedrus
BEGINNING
Book I: narrated. high
drama. full spectrum of
real characters. elenctic
Part A: narrated. characterized.
sanitized elenctic. a
dramatic experience for
the interlocutor
Thaetetus: direct dialogue.
speakers idealized but individualized.
sanitized elenctic
method. a dramatic
experience for the interlocutor
Early: direct dialogue. real
characters involved in debate.
competitive atmosphere
aimed at refutation
of Lysias' thesis
ENDING
Books II-X: narrated. less
drama. idealized but individuated
characters. didactic
Part B: direct dialogue.
without characterization.
without drama. didactic
Sophist-Politicus: direct dialogue.
with little characterization
and idealized speakers.
without drama. didactic
Late: direct dialogue. idealized
or tempered (but still
r a1) characters now less
involved in the debate. didactic
Three dialogues and a "trilogy" (as it became) begin with what one
might legitimately call a protreptic phase. which seeks to involve the
audience in a debate that is developing and which proceeds competitively
and with a view to the unsettling of a thesis that needed questioning.
They go on to a new stage where the interlocutors, in most
cases chosen at random. show no deep-seated need to avoid any particular
conclusions or to find the right answers, where they and the
protagonist are idealized or show little individuated character at all.
and where the protagonist proceeds in a didactic fashion while continuing
to use question and answer methods. The protreptic-didactic
division, though showing variations. persists. This makes the Clitophon
a text that cannot be ignored. That it speaks to us in the hiatus-avoiding
manner of Sophist-Statesman is of considerable interest.
HAROLD TARRANT
UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE
NSW 2308
AUSTRALIA