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1. Introduction: a reply to Cruiskeen Lawn 's detractors Although Myles na gCopaleen's chronicles have acquired a cult status in Ireland, Cruiskeen Lawn has never been a favorite of literary [...]

Sacrifice haunts the Phaedo. In this article, I argue that the mise-en-scene of the death scene of the Phaedo, as well as other sacrificial elements in the background of the dialogue, creates a nexus that positively integrates the birth, philosophical practice, and death of Socrates into the ritualized rhythm of the life of the city of Athens. A close reading of the death scene presented as a synopsis with Walter Burkert's well-known analysis of Greek sacrifice reveals convergences and divergences between the Phaedo and Greek sacrificial practice. Socrates appears as a willing victim who accepts the city's sacrificial practice while remaining on his own terms.

The literary allusions in the scenes 309a-314c and 314e-317e in Plato's dialogue the Protagoras are analyzed. Plato narrates an encounter related by Socrates, who quotes from Book 10 and Book 11 of the Odyssey, and thus projects Socrates as using Homeric language in his narration, turning the philosophical contest between himself and Protagoras, the fifth-century Greek sophist, into a Homeric encounter.

Several interpretations of Hume's 'Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion' suggest that Philo is the character who represents Hume's views on the 'Design Argument'. However, Philo's reversal on the merits of the 'Design Argument' rejects this opinion and the assertion that the 'Design Argument' is not a natural belief and produces a youthful indoctrination.

The question that haunted so much early criticism of Shakespeare on film, 'Is it Shakespeare?' now seems irrelevant, according to Kenneth Rothwell in his 2001 survey, 'How the Twentieth-Century Saw [...]

The rhetorical decisions on friendship and love are expressed as either as a response to the world or as a matter of will decided by the situation and making it a lesser commitment to reason. The rhetorical nature of commitment is dramatized in the play 'Lysis' which deals with issues like relation between being a friend, speaking about friendship and giving reasons for one's friendship.

The 'Philebus' is among Plato's most difficult dialogues and for this reason it is not clear whether there is support for Rickless' view in the passages he identifies. An argument is presented that some of the long-standing questions drop off when one read the relevant piece of text in 'Philebus' as containing something like the revision to Middle Period Theory of Forms that Rickless suggests.

An intriguing paragraph in Lucian's De Saltatione (Salt. 81) draws upon a hodge-podge of ethical, philosophical and performative traditions in its attempt to argue that the spectating experience of pantomime dancing equips the viewer with a marvellous instrument of self-exploration and self-revelation: seeing himself in the 'mirror' of the dancer, the bearer of the gaze illuminates himself. A symbol of extraordinary range and complexity, the mirror has multiple associations with the problems of perceiving, evaluating and knowing the self. But, while in the moralising narratives of 'high' culture the mirror-like reflective surface tends to be located in the soul of the sage or the lives of illustrious individuals, in Lucian's dialogue it is the pantomime, as opposed to the wise man, who delights and educates his audience by virtue of a body that becomes a magical kaleidoscope of individual self-reflections. The present article elucidates the ways in which Salt. 81 uses the symbol of the mirror in order to align pantomime dancing with the prestige of moralising discourse and examines the 'dancer as mirror' metaphor as the most important Graeco-Roman pedigree of the 'mirror of drama' analogy that dominates the complex theatrical optics of the Medieval and Renaissance European stages.

The Dialogue of Timothy and Aquila (TA) is an anonymous, Jewish and Christian dialogue situated in Alexandria during Cyril's episcopacy (412-444 C.E.). It is preserved in eight Greek manuscripts, the [...]

The relationship between poetry and prose in 'The Tale of Genji' is discussed, with a focus on the female voice in poetic exchanges between lovers. Topics include Motoori Narinaga's poetics and 'the Tale of Genji,' the poetic and the prosaic, the poetic ideal and fractured dialogues, conventions of poetic dialogues, 'mono no aware' and a scene of ghostly union, and female pathos.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is best known for his philosophical writing but he considered music his avocation and primary commitment throughout the course of his life. First and foremost a musician and musical theorist, Rousseau explained the harmony between his musical writings and his philosophy in the text 'Dialogues' as being essentially based on the main principle that permeated the philosopher's entire body of work: that man is good although men are wicked. Rousseau's musical theory in relation to his philosophical writings are analyzed.

The history of scholarship, philosophical or otherwise, about Plato and his writings reveals a quandary pertaining to the interpretation of the contents of Plato's dialogues. To understand Plato one must [...]

Samuel Beckett's pertinacity in refuting explications of the 'meaning' of his plays is well known;(1) less known perhaps is the fact that Beckett explicitly contrasted explications with the importance of [...]

The author examines the play on words using a gastric theme in Mardonius's references to Bessus in Francis Beaumont 'A King and No King'.

The author suggests that the 31-line dialogue between Anne Bullen and the Lord Chamberlain in 'Henry VIII', Act II, scene 3, is an interpolation by John Fletcher, William Shakespeare's co-author. The presence of a high proportion of feminine endings and specific phrases indicate that the lines are more likely to be written by Fletcher.

The author suggests William Shakespeare combined the 'Geneva Bible' and 'Bishops' Bible' translations of Isaiah 45:8 as a source for Portia's 'It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven' in 'The Merchant of Venice'.

The phrase ei mihi is used fifteen times by Plautus.(1) On all but one occasion these words introduce a new speaker. The single 'exception' is, I suggest, rather an error [...]