Record Number: 1634

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

[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

Date:

Between 1 May 1837 and 31 Dec 1839

Country:

India

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Calcutta

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Male

Date of Birth:

25 Oct 1800

Socio-Economic Group:

Professional / academic / merchant / farmer

Occupation:

Historian and critic

Religion:

Church of England

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

India

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

n/a

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Plato

Title:

Gorgias

Genre:

Classics

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

The edition published in Frankfort, 1602, with a parallel Latin translation by Marsilius Ficinus

Provenance

owned

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Source Information:

Record ID:

1634

Source:

Print

Author:

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Editor:

George Otto Trevelyan

Title:

The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay

Place of Publication:

Oxford

Date of Publication:

1978

Vol:

2

Page:

438

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Thomas Babington Macaulay, George Otto Trevelyan (ed.), The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, (Oxford, 1978), 2, p. 438, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=1634, accessed: 25 April 2024

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Additional Comments:

This entry records Macaulay's later experience of reading the Gorgias, while a government official in Calcutta.