Plato Unmasked: The Dialogues Made New ( A New Translation of The Dialogues of Plato ) (PLATONIC, PHILOSOPHY, SOCRATES)

Spokane, Washington, U.S.A.: Eastern Washington Univ Pr. New. 2004. Hardcover. 0910055904 .*** FREE UPGRADE to Courier/Priority Shipping Upon Request *** - *** IN STOCK AND IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR SHIPMENT - FLAWLESS COPY, BRAND NEW, NEVER OPENED 559 pages -- A daring translator, Quincy gives the most acclaimed of ancient thinkers a saucy new voice: colloquial, pungent, and terse. Animated by a new tone, the characters in Plato's classic dialogues speak with vernacular directness as they ask Socrates why he is "always hanging around" or as they complain that he's "driving [them] nuts." But even as he gives Plato's characters license to speak in casual idioms, Quincy trims their speeches, abridging dialogues he judges verbose. As if such tampering with Plato's words weren't enough to scandalize traditionalists, Quincy supplements the chronologically arranged dialogues with historical notes that cast unflattering shadows on the Greek philosopher and his famous tutor: Plato stands exposed as a propagandist hiding his own political blunders, Socrates as an ill-tempered slanderer of a gifted rival. Such irreverence will send some readers scurrying for the cover of canonical translations. But Quincy's brashness will attract many readers glad to see Plato and Socrates rescued from their honorific spots among the museum alabasters, set free to again discomfit and perplex the complacent." Bryce Christensen, BookList, American Library Association. " - "Entirely new, vastly readable, and shockingly less polite than the standard versions, Keith Quincy’s new translation of Plato’s dialogues makes these texts truly accessible and restores to them some of their original power to provoke and inspire. Presented in chronological order, rather than the usual thematic groups, Quincy’s dialogues present a sense of the evolution of Plato’s thought, making him more clearly a subject than he appears to be in other collections. Each dialogue is preceded by an introduction linking it to historical characters and events, and providing biographical sketches of the principals and their relationship to Socrates and Plato. The resulting picture is not always flattering; some of the revelations challenge the prevailing view of Socrates as an almost saintly figure, and of Plato as his devotedly brilliant disciple. But there is good evidence for Quincy’s view, and it gives a new and enlivening slant to these treasured texts." -- with a bonus offer-- .