Abstract

This is an old-fashioned and refreshing study that focuses on literary style, rhetoric, irony, and imagery, which Rutherford rightly thinks complement philosophical analysis of Plato. Rutherford draws connections between the dialogues and other genres and styles of writing rather than between Plato and other philosophers. We are invited to pick up these texts, as if for the first time: "the Platonic dialogue is too familiar, too central to the classical tradition, for us to realise how remarkable it must have seemed at first".