Description
Book SynopsisThis paperback edition of Dodds''s standard edition of Plato''s Gorgias is designed to meet the needs both of undergraduates and professional scholars. The text and apparatus criticus are based on a fresh survey of the evidence: two major manuscripts are here for the first time fully collated, and account has been taken both of new papyri and of the exceptionally rich indirect tradition. The text is supplemented by a full introduction giving details on the subject and structure of the dialogue, its characters and intended historical setting, the real date of composition, and the background to Plato and Athens at the time of composition. The commentary, besides explaining Platonic usages and discussing textual points, aims to treat the historical, philosphical, and literary questions which arise from the text.
Trade Review`Professor Dodds's fine edition (which both fairly overhauls the manuscript tradition and supplies a commentary as wide-ranging as it is perspicacious) fills a gap untouched in this country since 1890 ... The Gorgias should have a special appeal to contemporary students, and to historians no less than philosophers.' Times Literary Supplement `The admired qualities of [Dodd's works], a scholarship both exact and deep, an economy and lucidity in exposition (Dodds has few rivals in saying much in the fewest words with absolute clarity), and an immense level-headedness and sobriety which - combined with the sharpest acumen and independence of judgement in the handling of evidence - is never seduced by the charm of fantasy, all these once more characterize his edition of the Gorgias.' Philosophical Quarterly
Table of ContentsPart 1 The dialogue: subject and structure; personages and period; date of composition - the relative date, the absolute date; Plato and Athens. Part 2 The evidence for the text: the medieval manuscripts - the first family B T W and P, the second family F, the Byzantine recensions; the Papyri; ancient commentaries - Olympiodorus, the scholia; the indirect tradition.
