In Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare examines the relationship of the political realm to the things that are outside or beyond politics: family, society, religion, friendship, and love. The play is thus a work of political philosophy, and no less so because it is a work of art in which these things are portrayed concretely through the relationships of the play's characters. The difficulties of interpreting the play are due in part to its aesthetic particularity, but more to the familiarity (...) of its plot, the common understanding of which has been shaped by misleading statements made by the Chorus. The Chorus is persuasive, but wrong: the Capulets and Montagues are not "both alike in dignity" ;1 Romeo... (shrink)

The Eleatic Stranger plays a central role in all reconstructions of Plato’s “Platonism.” This paper is a study of the literary form of the Sophist and Statesman and its significance for interpreting the Eleatic’s account of the nature of philosophy. I argue that the Eleatic dialogues are best understood through a comparison with the source-texts in the Odyssey that Plato used in their composition. I show that the literary form of the Sophist is a straightforward reworking of the encounter of (...) Odysseus and his crewmen with Polyphemus the Cyclops; and that the form of the Statesman is a somewhat more complex reworking of the narrative in which Odysseus and those loyal to him oppose Antinoös, leader of the Ithacan suitors. The comparison reveals that the Eleatic Stranger is no way Plato’s spokesman. On the contrary: by casting the Stranger in the role of Polyphemus and the Cyclopean Antinoös, Plato intends the Sophist and Statesman to be read as an explicit critique of the metaphysical and political doctrines that have since come to be identified as Platonism. In Plato’s characterization, the Eleatic Stranger is neither a philosopher nor a sophist. He is an intellectual—the sort of person who professes to be a philosopher and is often mistaken for one. (shrink)

In memoriam: Mira Balija PlanincEuripides's Hecuba is not one of the best-known tragedies. The story is vividly memorable, however. Troy has fallen. The Greeks have finished their killing and plundering and have begun their homeward journey. As soon as they cross the Hellespont and make camp on what some might call the European side, in Thrace, they bury Achilles. The Trojan queen, Hecuba, is enslaved, as are the only two of her daughters who remain alive, Polyxena and Cassandra, the latter (...) to Agamemnon himself. Her husband Priam was killed at Troy, and so too were all of their many sons—except one: the youngest, Polydorus, who years before had been sent for his protection, along with a substantial amount of Trojan... (shrink)