Appetitive: The Plato Scholar in the Room

When finals were over yesterday, all of the people from my program went out to decompress. A bunch of the people had just finished a class on the Phaedrus and they were complaining about Plato. I suddenly realized that I was in an extreme minority.

It reminded me of the other day when I asked a fellow student about GRF Ferrari and he told me that Ferrari was "a British Plato scholar" as if this was supposed to create a fairly standard and moderately negative picture in my mind. I had no idea this breed of classicist was so ill-regarded.

In reality, I actually kind of enjoy the argument: standing up opponents on every side-- so long as the opponents are good-natured. However, it was a little odd to be so outnumbered...

Spirited: A Very Poor Translation (Amended)

My original thought was to put up a translation of the German passage I am reading about Plato's Phaedrus. However, I realized that there is a very strict plagiarism policy at the school where I am taking classes and I would not want someone to think that I had taken my translation from the internet as my real name does not appear on this blog there would be little way to prove it was my work and it would be a troublesome affair. As such, I will simply post the paragraph that I have translated so far in the original language.

"Alles in allem erweist sich der Phaidros als ein Werk, dessen Teile wie bei einem Organismus (264 c2-5) wohl aufienander abgestimmt sind. Thema ist, unter welchen Bedingungen ein λόσος dem anderen uberlegen ist. Entscheidend hierfur is einmal der bedeutendere Inhalt, was in drei konkurrienden Reden vorgefurt wird. Die siegreiche ist die inhaltich reichste und tiefste: was sie entfaltet, sind die geforderten πλείονος ἄξια oder τιμιώτερα (im Vergleich zu den Reden, die sie unbertreffen will)" (Szlezak 47).

I am having a rather difficult time. The German is hard-- at least for me as I am just learning-- but I believe the endeavor is important. Wish me luck!

Spirited: Notes on My Thesis #1

I have been meaning to put up a summery of my thesis for a very long time. I have not put it up partially because the thesis took up such a part of my life and I just have not been able to look at it again [1]. I practically had to pry it from my hands before going crazy like Dow Mossman with  The Stones of Summer, as was reavealed in the lovely documentary, the Stone Reader.

I have just begun to reread it to see if it needs any editing before I send pieces of it out as a writing sample. I remember thinking, after I wrote it, that it made the ideas that I was elucidating so clear and easy to follow that anyone could read it. I even included a summery of the Republic, the Phaedrus, and the Laws for those who had not read them. However, rereading my abstract, which was essentially a page-and-a-half version of my conclusion, I realized that it actually a lot denser than I remember. This may have been because by the time I wrote my abstract I was working 5-6 hours a day on my thesis and I could no longer think straight about anything else.

My introduction was a summery of the most important parts of the three texts I referenced for my work. My first chapter was a thorough textual analysis of Republic Books 2, 3, and 10 (each of which discusses Plato's critique of tragedy and poetry). I also formulate an understanding of the various jabs at tragedy and poetry in the Laws which are scattered throughout. My analysis focuses on two aspects of the critiques: 1) the way in which Plato's texts violate the critique espoused in them and 2) the differences between the critiques in the Laws and the Republic. For the second point, I relied upon Catherine Zuckert's insightful dating scheme (presented in her excellent 2009 tome Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues) to explain the differences in the critiques by the Athenian Stranger (Laws) and Socrates (Republic).

More to come on my thesis in the next installment...

Translations I recommend:

For the Republic I would recommend either Allan Bloom's translation or the translation in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought series, edited by GRF Ferrari. Bloom's Translation is very literal because he believes that Plato's meaning comes from reading in between the lines and that the only way to do that is to have as literal a translation as possible. In some ways, I like this theory of translation and his translation is very good. His essay in the back, however, is awful. Ferrari's edition provides a solid translation-- a little less literal than Bloom's-- but also provides a set of very helpful notes that are not tainted by Bloom's ideology.

For the Phaedrus, the Aris and Phillips Classical Texts edition is fabulous. Rowe, the translator and editor, provides helpful commentary (on the English) and the edition is equipped with facing Greek. Unfortunately, there is not a particularly good grammatical commentary for the Greek in this edition, but there aren't very many commentaries for the grammar of the Phaedrus in general. Both this edition of the Phaedrus and Ferrari's edition of the Republic were recommended to me by a fabulous professor of mine who served on my thesis orals board.

For the Laws, I have only read two translations. However, the one I preferred by a wide margin (and also the one recommended by the afore-mentioned fabulous professor) was the Penguin Edition:

Endnotes

1. My blog was originally titled Fragments from Thesis Hell, after the popular phrase from a number of different universities, Postcards from Thesis Hell. I renamed it Fragments of Sulpicia when I graduated.