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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: connection which are not visible at first sight. At the same time the
Phaedrus, although one of the most beautiful of the Platonic Dialogues, is
also more irregular than any other. For insight into the world, for
sustained irony, for depth of thought, there is no Dialogue superior, or
perhaps equal to it. Nevertheless the form of the work has tended to
obscure some of Plato's higher aims.
The first speech is composed 'in that balanced style in which the wise love
to talk' (Symp.). The characteristics of rhetoric are insipidity,
mannerism, and monotonous parallelism of clauses. There is more rhythm
than reason; the creative power of imagination is wanting.
''Tis Greece, but living Greece no more.'
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