The most important works for understanding Plato's critique of rhetoric and use of rhetoric are his Apology, Gorgias, Phaedrus, Republic, and Laws. Excellent translations of the Phaedrus with running commentary are by R. Hackforth, Plato’s Phaedrus (Cambridge: 1952) and C. J. Rowe, Plato: Phaedrus (Warminster: 1986). An informative
Study of the Phaedrus is G. R.F. Ferrari, Listening to the Cicadas: A Study of Plato’s Phaedrus (Cambridge: 1987). An essential book for understanding Plato’s contribution to the development of rhetoric as a discipline is T. Cole, The Origins of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Baltimore: 1991). The traditional view of Plato as the opponent of rhetoric is forcefully argued by B. Vickers, In Defence of Rhetoric (Oxford: 1988). Useful studies of Plato’s use of form include C. L. Griswold (ed.), Platonic Writings/Platonic Readings (New York: 1988), L. Brisson, Plato the Myth Maker, trans. G. Naddaf (Chicago: 1998), J. Gordon, Turning Toward Philosophy: Literary Device and Dramatic Structure in Plato’s Dialogues (University Park, PA: 1999), R. Blondell, The Play of Character in Plato’s Dialogues (Cambridge: 2002), and A. N. Michelini (ed.), Plato as Author: The Rhetoric of Philosophy (Leiden: 2003). Ancient criticism of Plato’s style by Dionysius of Halicarnassus and in the treatise On the Sublime is available in D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom (eds.), Ancient Literary Criticism: The Principal Texts in New Translations (Oxford: 1972).
C. H. Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form (Cambridge: 1996), studies Plato’s development of the Socratic discourse for his philosophical purposes. H. Yunis, Taming Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens (Ithaca: 1996), studies Plato’s theories of political rhetoric against the background ofAthenian democracy.
World History
