Plato: Gorgias (Focus Philosophical Library)

Anyone interested in political science, Ancient Greek Thought, or Plato will want to read the Gorgias, so I will not presume to argue why it should be read, save thus: if you wish to be educated, you need books of this caliber.Translation: Arieti and Barrus have done a conservative, literal job in giving us English for Plato's Greek, and thus there is much to praise. Occasionally the literalness seems excessive, as when they routinely insert bracketed phrases not literally present in the Greek, but I have no major complaints. Plato's style is polished and playful; the translators point out various places where he puns on different words or cracks jokes. Included in this translation are rhetorical examples taken from Thucydides; very illuminating.Aesthetics: A pretty book. The text is well-sized and the index is helpful. The size is perfect for casual reading, for it's lightweight and compact.Durability. As with most Focus books, quite durable. I treat my books (especially paperbacks) with kid gloves, and if you do the same it will remain in pristine condition, but it could stand up to a far greater abuse than it does under me.Price: Quite cheap and competitive with Nichol's translation. You will get a lot of book for your buck if you buy it.

As expected.

I assigned this to my political theory students last year, and learned what a fine job Arieti and Barrus have done. There are several other good translations out there; this one is more literal, but it makes good English sense nevertheless ("graspingness" and a few other awkward choices notwithstanding).The great value of this edition, however, is the insightful scholarly introduction, the very helpful footnotes, the three appendices, and the glossary. The first appendix includes speeches from Thucydides which are relevant to the arguments about rhetoric from the Gorgias. The second one is an outline of the rhetorical principles laid out by the interloculotrs of the Gorgias, and the third is a short discussion of Socrates' use of the terms mythos and logos. The best thing in editorial materials, however, is the glossary, which offers extended scholarly explanations of key terms in the Gorgias and in Platonic philosophy generally.On the downside: The translators have tried to show all the moving parts, as it were, of their work with the Greek text. So when they've supplied an English word not directly translated from a Greek word, they've put it in brackets. Some versions of the Bible do this as well. But the brackets are frequent and can get quite distacting at times, especially fro my undergrads I imagine. A more general concern with this choice would be: If you read Greek, you don't need Barrus and Arieti to tell you which words are direct translations and which aren't. But if you don't know Greek, you don't know what to do with this information, because you don't understand how the Greek sentence gets a long without these extra words. So it's seems like a pointless practice. Translate! And then when the readers learn Greek they can take a look at how you've done it.Overall: a very impressive work, from two very careful and insightful readers and translators of Plato.

The footnotes are the best I've seen out of any translation.