Phaedrus
Plato
-428 – -348
ENPublic Domain
Summary
"Phaedrus" by Plato is a dialogue written around 370 BC. Socrates encounters the young Phaedrus outside Athens, who has just heard a speech about love. What begins as a countryside stroll becomes an intricate philosophical exploration of love, rhetoric, and the human soul. Through three competing speeches, Socrates and Phaedrus debate whether it's better to favor a lover or a non-lover, ultimately revealing deeper questions about divine madness, the soul's nature, and the proper practice of persuasive speech. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Subjects
- Classical literature
- Love — Early works to 1800
- Lysias
- Rhetoric — Early works to 1800
- Rhetoric, Ancient
- Socrates, 470 BC-399 BC
- Soul — Early works to 1800
Bookshelves
Translators
Benjamin Jowett