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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

Reading Experience Database UK Historical image of readers
 
 
 
 

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Plato

  

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Plato : unknown

'I have cast up my reading account, and brought it to the end of the year 1835. [?] During the last thirteen months I have read Aeschylus twice; Sophocles twice; Euripides once; Pindar twice; Callimachus; Apollonius Rhodius; Quintus Calaber; Theocritus twice; Herodotus; Thucydides; almost all Xenophon?s works; almost all Plato; Aristotle?s Politics, and a good deal of his Organon, besides dipping elsewhere in him; the whole of Plutarch?s Lives; about half of Lucian; two or three books of Athenaeus; Plautus twice; Terence twice; Lucretius twice; Catullus; Tibullus; Propertius; Lucan; Statius; Silius Italicus; Livy; Velleius Paterculus; Sallust; Caesar; and, lastly, Cicero. I have, indeed, still a little of Cicero left; but I shall finish him in a few days. I am now deep in Aristophanes and Lucian.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : The Cratylus, Phaedo, Parmenides and Timaeus of Pl

[Marginalia]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Print: Book

  

Plato : Euthydemus

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Euthydemus]: "It seems incredible that these absurdities of Dionysodorus and Euthydemus should have been mistaken for wisdom, even by the weakest of mankind. I can hardly help thinking that Plato has overcharged the portrait. But the humour of the dialogue is admirable."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Euthydemus

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Euthydemus]: "Glorious irony!"

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Euthydemus

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Euthydemus]: "Incomparably ludicrous!"

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Euthydemus

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Euthydemus]: "No writer, not even Cervantes, was so great a master of this solemn ridicule as Plato."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Euthydemus

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Euthydemus]: "There is hardly any comedy, in any language, more diverting than this dialogue. It is not only richly humorous. The characters are most happily sustained and discriminated. The contrast between the youthful petulance of Ctesippus and the sly, sarcastic mock humility of Socrates is admirable."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Euthydemus

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Euthydemus]: "Dulcissima hercle, eademque nobilissima vita."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Euthydemus

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Euthydemus, below the last line of the dialogue]: "Calcutta, May 1835."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Republic]: "Plato has been censured with great justice for his doctrine about the community of women and the exposure of children. But nobody, as far as I remember, has done justice to him on one important point. No ancient politician appears to have thought so highly of the capacity of women, and to have been inclined to make them so important."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Republic]: "You may see that Plato was passionately fond of poetry, even when arguing against it."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Republic, by the passage where Plato recommends a broader patriotism]: "This passage does Plato great honour. Philhellenism is a step towards philanthropy. There is an enlargement of mind in this work which I do not remember to have found in any earlier composition, and in very few ancient works, either earlier or later."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Republic, in the Second Book, by the discussion of abstract justice]: "This is indeed a noble dream. Pity that it should come through the gate of ivory!"

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Republic, in the Eighth Book]: "I remember nothing in Greek philosophy superior to this in profundity, ingenuity, and eloquence."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Protagoras

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Protagoras]: "A very lively picture of Athenian manners. There is scarcely anywhere so interesting a view of the interior of a Greek house in the most interesting age of Greece."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Protagoras

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Protagoras]: "Callias seems to have been a munificent and courteous patron of learning. What with sophists, what with pretty women, and what with sycophants, he came to the end of a noble fortune."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Protagoras

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Protagoras]: "Alcibiades is very well represented here. It is plain that he wants only to get up a row among the sophists."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Protagoras

[Macaulay's marginalia in his copy of Plato's Protagoras]: "Protagoras seems to deserve the character he gives himself. Nothing can be more courteous and generous than his language. Socrates shows abundance of talent and acuteness in this dialogue; but the more I read of his conversation, the less I wonder at the fierce hatred he provoked. He evidently had an ill-natured pleasure in making men, - particularly men famed for wisdom and eloquence, - look like fools." [the comments continue at some length.]

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Macaulay's marginalia at the beginning of Plato's Gorgias]: "This was my favourite dialogue at College. I do not know whether I shall like it as well now. May 1, 1837."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Macaulay's marginalia in Plato's Gorgias]: "Polus is much in the right. Socrates abused scandalously the advantages which his wonderful talents, and his command of temper, gave him."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Maraulay's marginalia in Plato's Gorgias]: "You have made a blunder, and Socrates will have you in an instant."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Macaulay's marginalia in Plato's Gorgias]: "Hem! Retiarium astutum!" [Cunning netter].

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Macaulay's marginalia in Plato's Gorgias]: "There you are in the Sophist's net. I think that, if I had been in the place of Polus, Socrates would hardly have had so easy a job of it."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Macaulay's marginalia in Plato's Gorgias]: "What a command of his temper the old fellow [Callicles] had, and what terrible, though delicate, ridicule! A bitter fellow, too, with all his suavity."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Macaulay's marginalia in Plato's Gorgias]: "This is not pure morality; but there is a good deal of weight in what Callicles says. He is wrong in not perceiving that the real happiness, not only of the weak many, but of the able few, is promoted by virtue. [...] When I read this dialogue as a lad at college, I wrote a trifling piece for Knight's Magazine, in which some Athenian characters were introduced, I made this Callicles the villain of the drama. I now see that he was merely a fair specimen of the public men of Athens in that age. Although his principles were those of aspiring and voluptuous men in unquiet times, his feelings seem to have been friendly and kind."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Macaulay's marginalia at the end of the dialogue in Plato's Gorgias]: "This is one of the finest passages in Greek literature. Plato is a real poet."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Macaulay's marginalia at the end of the dialogue in Plato's Gorgias. He marks the the doctrine "that we ought to be more afraid of wronging than of being wronged, and that the prime business of every man is, not to seem good, but to be good, in all his private and public dealings" with three pencil lines, and writes]: "This just and noble conclusion atones for much fallacy in the reasoning by which Socrates arrived at it [...] it is impossible not to consider it [the Gorgias] as one of the greatest performances which have descended to us from that wonderful generation."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Macaulay's marginalia in Plato's Gorgias, by the trial of Socrates, when Socrates expressed a serene conviction that to die is gain, even if death were nothing more than an untroubled and dreamless sleep]: "Milton thought otherwise" [Macaulay quotes the lines "Sad cure! For who would lose,/Though full of pain, this intellectual being;/ Those thoughts that wander through eternity?"] "I once thought with Milton; but every day brings me nearer and nearer the doctrine here laid down by Socrates."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Gorgias

[Macaulay's marginalia in Plato's Gorgias, at the end of the trial of Socrates]: "A most solemn and noble close! Nothing was ever written, or spoken, approaching in sober sublimity to the latter part of the Apology. It is impossible to read it without feeling one's mind elevated and strengthened."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Crito

[Macaulay's marginalia on the last page of the Crito]: There is much that may be questioned in the reasoning of Socrates; but it is impossible not to admire the wisdom and virtue which it indicates. When we consider the moral state of Greece in his time, and the revolution which he produced in men's notions of good and evil, we must pronounce him one of the greatest men that ever lived."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Babington Macaulay      Print: Book

  

Plato : Unknown

'... C[oleridge]was reading Plato during the mid-1790s ... '

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Print: Book

  

Plato : Parmenides

'[during winter 1801] C[oleridge] read Parmenides and Timaeus "with great care" ... '

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Print: Book

  

Plato : Timaeus

'[during winter 1801] C[oleridge] read Parmenides and Timaeus "with great care" ... '

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Print: Book

  

Plato : The Republic

[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Engine tenter, age twenty-seven...Often attends operas...Methodically building up a personal library following the guidelines of Arnold Bennett's Literary Taste. Has read the Bible, Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, Much Ado about Nothing), Pope, Tennyson, Masefield, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Emerson, William Morris, most of Ruskin, Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, A Christmas Carol), The Cloister and the Hearth, GK Chesterton, Bernard Shaw (Major Barbara, John Bull's Other Island, The Doctor's Dilemma, Man and Superman, The Shewing up of Blanco Posnet, The Devil's Disciple, You Never Can Tell, Socialism and Superior Brains, Fabian Essays, An Unsocial Socialist, The Irrational Knot), John Galsworthy, about a dozen books by H.G. Wells and perhaps twenty by Bennett, Sidney and Beatrice Webb's Industrial Democracy and other books on trade unionism, Sir Oliver Lodge, Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy and The Intermediate Sex, J.A. Hobson and Alfred Marshall on Economics and Plato's Republic'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent      Print: Book

  

Plato : Death of Socrates

Letter H 21 - 12/11/1855 - "At the death of Socrates - when hemlock is brought - his friends exclaimed - "The sun is not yet set - It is only on the mountains" But he drank the hemlock immediately."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : 

"I finished Daudet who is stupid & took to Plato who is first rate for sleeping purposes. I can just puzzle it out enough to get muddled."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen      Print: Book

  

Plato : 

?the snow left off a bit after lunch & we strolled out for a walk? so after pounding a mile or two out & home along slushy snow-paths we came home rather disgusted & bought some queer earthenware animals at a shop & then I sat down in the hall & puzzled out a bit of Plato. It is first rate reading to take on a journey; because a small volume would last one month; & there is the pleasure of guessing at each sentence before I make something out of it.?

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen      Print: Book

  

Plato : Protagorus

"I had Plato in my pocket & intermittently read through the Protagorus - as well as I could - which lasted me till Bristol & I hope improved my Greek."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen      Print: Book

  

Plato : [unknown]

'Charlie Chaplin was a classic autodidact, always struggling to make up for a dismally inadequate education, groping haphazardly for what he called "intellectual manna"... Chaplin could be found in his dressing room studying a Latin-English dictionary, Robert Ingersoll's secularist propaganda, Emerson's "Self- Reliance" ("I felt I had been handed a golden birthright"), Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman, Twain, Hazlitt, all five volumes of Plutarch's Lives, Plato, Locke, Kant, Freud's "Psychoneurosis", Lafcadio Hearn's "Life and Literature", and Henri Bergson - his essay on laughter, of course... Chaplin also spent forty years reading (if not finishing) the three volumes of "The World as Will and Idea" by Schopenhauer, whose musings on suicide are echoed in Monsieur Verdoux'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Spencer Chaplin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Banquet

'I have been reading the Banquet of Plato. When you come here I will read it to you.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Walter Raleigh      Print: Book

  

Plato : Phaedo

'On the terrace in the evening he would read Plato aloud, especially the "Phaedo", the final pages of which never failed to move him to tears. To the end of her life Elinor never ceased to be surprised by the number of eminent men who chose to express their friendship and pleasure in her company by reading Plato and Aristotle aloud to her.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Lord Alfred Milner      Print: Unknown

  

Plato : On the immortality of the soul

'I was but about twenty-two years of age when I first began to read them, and I assure you, my friend, that they made a very deep and lasting impression in my mind. By reading them [Plato's On the Immortality of the soul and Plutarch's Morals and Confucio's texts] I was taught to bear the unavoidable evils attending humanity, and to supply all my wants by contracting or restraining my desires.'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: James Lackington      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Read Plato's Republic, in various parts... In the evening I read Nisard, and Littre on Comte'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud]      Print: Book

  

Plato : Euthyphro

'I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theaetetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand it.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Stuart Mill      Print: Book

  

Plato : Theaetetus

'I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theaetetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand it.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Stuart Mill      Print: Book

  

Plato : dialogues

'I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theaetetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand it.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Stuart Mill      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic,The

'Reading Plato - Republic'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud]      Print: Book

  

Xenophon/Plato : Socratic Discourses

'Saturday 18th September ?Socratic Discourses? Plato & Xenophon (Everyman) I have had the companion ?Five Dialogues on Poetic Inspiration? for a long time and was glad to spot this'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore      Print: Book

  

Plato : Dialogues

'With Shakespeare also I hold much gay and serious intercourse; and I have read, since coming here, three or four dialogues of Plato, with the critical diligence of a junior sophister. The "Politeia", indeed, as a gentle exercise of my mind, I am writing out in literal bald English; which I do chiefly with a view to compel myself to read Greek accurately, and not to gobble it, bones and all.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Mitchel      Print: Book

  

Plato : Symposium

[Percy Shelley's Reading List for 1817. As far as possible texts referred to in the journals are not given separate entries based on this list] 'Symposium of Plato Plays of Aeschlyus Plays of Sophocles Illiad of Homer Arrian's Historia Indicae Homer's Hymns [the above texts are bracketed to show they were all read in Greek] Histoire de la Revolution Francaise Apuleius Metamorphoses - Latin Coleridges Biographica Literaria Political Justice Rights of Man Elphinstone's Embassy to Caubul Severals [sic] vols of Gibbon'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : [several works]

'Read Waverly - Pliny's letters - Political Justice & Miltons Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. Shelley reads Waverly - Tales of my Landlord & several of the works of Plato'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Convivium

'Shelley writes - reads Plato's Convivium - Gibbon aloud - Read several of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Symposium

'S reads the Symposium and translates a part of it - he finishes Anacharsis & reads Hume's England aloud in the evening'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Symposium

'finish the first book of Horace's odes - S reads and translates Plato's Symposium - he reads Peregrinus Proteus and Hume's England aloud in the evening'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Symposium

'S. translates the Symposium - and reads a part of it to me - he reads the Laws of Candy'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Symposium

'S. finishes correcting the Symposium and I begin to transcribe it'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Manuscript: Unknown

  

Plato : Phaedrus

'S. reads ye Phaedrus of Plato'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Symposium

'Mr G. read 18 Canto of Tasso to me - read the Symposium to Mrs G'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Read "Women" of Mathuerin [for Maturin] - the Fudge Family - Beppo &c. S. begins the Republic of Plato'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Read Montaigne - S. reads Plato's republic'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Apology of Socrates

[Mary's reading list for Percy Shelley for 1818. Most volumes mentioned here are also mentioned in the journal so database entries are based on those references.] 'S Humes England Malthus's Essay on Population Histoire de l'art de Winkhelmann Latin Georgics Livy's History Greek The Hymns of HOmer The Greek Tragedians Memorabilia of Zenophon Comedies of Aristophanes The Symposium - Phaedrus - Apology f Socrates &c. of Plato Herodotus Theocritus Italian Vita di Tasso Divina Comedia di Dante'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Arrive at Florence - Read Massinger - S. begins Clarendon - reads Massinger - & Plato's Republic'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

[Mary Shelley's Reading List of Percy Shelley's reading, 1819. Most texts are mentioned in journal entries so are not given separate entries here] 'Greek The Greek Tragedians Homers Iliad and Odyssey Plato's Republic Several of Plutarch's lives The Memorabilia of Xenophon Madame de Stael sur la Revolution Francaise Calderon - Several of the tragedies and Auto's'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : [unknown]

'Read Livy & the F. of the Bees. Read Las Casas - S. reads Plato'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Phaedrus

'S finishes Phaedrus'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'S. finishes Mrs Macauly [sic] - Reads the Republic of Plato'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Muratori - Greek - With S. the first Epist. of Horace - Walk - He reads the Republic of Plato'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Plato : unknown

'...he read "360 pages of Plato (Bekker's text) in a fortnight" . . . and ten days later reported "I have finished Plato and am now labouring in Aristotle's Ethics" . . . what hideous Greek the man wrote!'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Buchan      Print: Book, scholarly edition

  

Plato : [unknown]

'[in Athens, Gissing] spent a lot of time in the hotel reading Aristophanes and Plato. He could read Greek but not speak it'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Gissing      Print: Book

  

Plato : 'Apologia' and 'Meno'

'The spasmodic study of Plato, whose "Apologia" and "Meno" I was reading for Pass Mods., certainly did nothing to discourage my hysterical pursuit of elusive definitions.'

Unknown
Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Vera Brittain      

  

Plato : Republic

Robert Southey to Grosvenor Charles Bedford, 26-27 October 1793: 'You must not be surprized at nonsense for I have been reading the history of Philosophy — the ideas of Plato — the logic of Aristotle & the heterogeneous dogmas of Pythogoras Antisthenes Zeno Epicurus & Pyrrho till I have metaphysicized away all my senses & so you are the better for it. '

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Southey      Print: Book

  

Plato : Phaedrus

'Note in the beginning of the "Phaedrus", in the speech attributed to Lysias, the ironical introduction of our Saviour's command, to call to the feast only the poor, the maimed, the halt and the blind.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : [unknown]

'Read a little Plato; wrote a bit; and composed a good study for a vignette.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : [unknown]

'Read a little Plato; wrote a long letter to Brown; wrote a chapter of book; walked; read some Italian, and got some valuable notes out of Waagen, and then a game at Chess.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : [unknown]

'Have done some Plato - some Pliny - looked for Genus Chara (in Freshwater basin of Paris) everywhere and couldn't find it - and a little bit of Rio.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'4th Book of Plato's "Republic" at beginning, p. 420.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Begin "Republic" for conclusive work'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Go on with "Republic", Book 1.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Working on 8th and 3rd Books only, examining Plato's fearful judgement on invalids.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Read to end of p. 269.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Read to end of p. 270.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Republic

'Read Geology ... and Plato to p. 281. In which note that one great point is got at, respecting justice, that all "hurting" people makes them worse. 281, 7 &c.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Laws

'Today began Plato's "Laws" again at breakfast and felt a little brighter.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : [unknown]

'Terribly difficult bit of Plato'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Laws

'See noble passage on the greatest [Greek word], Plato, Laws, 42.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Laws

'I pretty well, and at Plato by 1/2 past six ... Plato, 117, of vain words &c., with the central laws read today, lovely for new Sheffield colony'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Laws

'Looked back to Plato on weaving, Laws V, p. 151.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : Laws

'Today I began my Plato again, properly, at page 409, after an effort failing at p. 407.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Plato : The Republic

'A Meeting held at Whinfell 21/1/29 Alfred Rawlings in the chair

1. Minutes of last time read and approved


[...]

4. The Subject of Plato was then taken F. E. Pollard explained briefly the subject and manner of "The Republic" following which Alfred and Janet Rawlings read one of the earlier dialogues. H. B. Lawson then gave us a most fascinatingly interesting account of Plato's life and work.

After supper Chas E. Stansfield read from Book 7 of the "Republic" "The Cave" this reading being illustrated by a diagram kindly made and explained by F. E. Pollard. F. E. Pollard then outlined for us the main thoughts of Platos [sic] Philosophy Ideas the true reality[.] The evening concluded by T. C. Elliott reading the affecting account of Socrates death in the Phaedo. Thus came to an end a most interesting evening.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred Rawlings      Print: Book

  

Plato : The Republic

'A Meeting held at Whinfell 21/1/29 Alfred Rawlings in the chair

1. Minutes of last time read and approved


[...]

4. The Subject of Plato was then taken F. E. Pollard explained briefly the subject and manner of "The Republic" following which Alfred and Janet Rawlings read one of the earlier dialogues. H. B. Lawson then gave us a most fascinatingly interesting account of Plato's life and work.

After supper Chas E. Stansfield read from Book 7 of the "Republic" "The Cave" this reading being illustrated by a diagram kindly made and explained by F. E. Pollard. F. E. Pollard then outlined for us the main thoughts of Platos [sic] Philosophy Ideas the true reality[.] The evening concluded by T. C. Elliott reading the affecting account of Socrates death in the Phaedo. Thus came to an end a most interesting evening.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Rawlings      Print: Book

  

Plato : ‘Allegory of the Cave’ from Book 7 of The Republic

'A Meeting held at Whinfell 21/1/29 Alfred Rawlings in the chair

1. Minutes of last time read and approved


[...]

4. The Subject of Plato was then taken F. E. Pollard explained briefly the subject and manner of "The Republic" following which Alfred and Janet Rawlings read one of the earlier dialogues. H. B. Lawson then gave us a most fascinatingly interesting account of Plato's life and work.

After supper Chas E. Stansfield read from Book 7 of the "Republic" "The Cave" this reading being illustrated by a diagram kindly made and explained by F. E. Pollard. F. E. Pollard then outlined for us the main thoughts of Platos [sic] Philosophy Ideas the true reality[.] The evening concluded by T. C. Elliott reading the affecting account of Socrates death in the Phaedo. Thus came to an end a most interesting evening.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Charles E. Stansfield      Print: Book

  

Plato : Phaedo [The account of Socrates' death]

'A Meeting held at Whinfell 21/1/29 Alfred Rawlings in the chair

1. Minutes of last time read and approved


[...]

4. The Subject of Plato was then taken F. E. Pollard explained briefly the subject and manner of "The Republic" following which Alfred and Janet Rawlings read one of the earlier dialogues. H. B. Lawson then gave us a most fascinatingly interesting account of Plato's life and work.

After supper Chas E. Stansfield read from Book 7 of the "Republic" "The Cave" this reading being illustrated by a diagram kindly made and explained by F. E. Pollard. F. E. Pollard then outlined for us the main thoughts of Platos [sic] Philosophy Ideas the true reality[.] The evening concluded by T. C. Elliott reading the affecting account of Socrates death in the Phaedo. Thus came to an end a most interesting evening.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas C. Elliot      Print: Book

  

Plato : Phaedo

'Meeting held at 68 Northcourt Avenue
20th III 1935
Howard R. Smith in the chair
1. Minutes of last Meeting were read & approved

[...]

4. The Program of anonymous readings was then proceeded with[;] members reading in the order in which they sat round the room. An interval of about 2 minutes at the end of each piece was allowed for cogitation at the end of which the reader anounced the authors name & the work from which he had read. Identification proved unexpectedly dificult[.] No one reading was identified by everyone & the highest scorer only guessed eight authors & 4 & ˝ works
Reader Author Work
E. B. Castle Plato Phaedo
M. S. W. Pollard R. Browning Pictures in Florence
E. Goadby Saml. Butler Notes
M. E. Robson Flecker Hassan
R. H. Robson Belloc Eyewitness
E. C. Stevens M. Arnold Self dependance
E. D. Brain B. Shaw Pre. to Back to Methuselah
M. Castle T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus
A. Rawlings R. Browning Pheidippides
J. Rawlings G. Eliot Middlemarch
E. B. Smith Lewis Carroll Phantasmagoria
F. E. Reynolds Tennyson Locksley Hall
S. A. Reynolds E. B. Browning Lady Geraldine’s Courtship
H. R. Smith Chas. Kingsley Westward Ho
F. E. Pollard Shelley Prometheus Unbound'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Edgar Castle      Print: Book

  

Plato : The Republic

'Meeting held at 72, Shinfield Road, 14th November 1942
Arnold Joselin in the Chair

2. In the absence of the Secretary, the Treasurer [Bruce Dilks] took it upon himself to read the minutes which were approved and signed.

[...]

5. The subject of the evening, “The Age of Pericles” was then introduced by Knox Taylor.

[...]

7. F. E. Pollard took up where Knox Taylor had left off, though as he remarked, he hadn’t been left much. Thereupon we had an able discourse on the thought and writing of the Age.

8. Arnold Joselin and Roger Moore read from Plato’s “Republic.” This was an amusing mono-duologue between Socrates and a pupil on the subject of Justice. Socrates, by completely tangling up his pupil, showed that the art of schoolmastering has changed little in 2000 years.

[signed as a true record by] Harry Stevens
Dec. 12. 1942'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Joselin      Print: Book

  

Plato : The Republic

'Meeting held at 72, Shinfield Road, 14th November 1942
Arnold Joselin in the Chair

2. In the absence of the Secretary, the Treasurer [Bruce Dilks] took it upon himself to read the minutes which were approved and signed.

[...]

5. The subject of the evening, “The Age of Pericles” was then introduced by Knox Taylor.

[...]

7. F. E. Pollard took up where Knox Taylor had left off, though as he remarked, he hadn’t been left much. Thereupon we had an able discourse on the thought and writing of the Age.

8. Arnold Joselin and Roger Moore read from Plato’s “Republic.” This was an amusing mono-duologue between Socrates and a pupil on the subject of Justice. Socrates, by completely tangling up his pupil, showed that the art of schoolmastering has changed little in 2000 years.

[signed as a true record by] Harry Stevens
Dec. 12. 1942'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Roger Moore      Print: Book

  

Plato : [unknown]

Except Shakespeare, who grew from childhood as part of myself, nearly every classic has come with this same shock of almost intolerable enthusiasm: Virgil, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Dante, Chaucer and Milton and Goethe, Leopardi and Racine, Plato and Pascal and St Augustine, they have appeared, widely scattered through the years, every one like a 'rock in a thirsty land', that makes the world look different in its shadow.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Freya Stark      Print: Unknown

  

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