The Trial of Socrates by I.F. Stone My rating: 4 of 5 stars If the independent left-wing journalist I. F. Stone had lived to write this 1988 bestseller in 2019 instead, he might have expressed its thesis this way: Socrates was an alt-right troll redpilling young men with corrosive irony and anti-democratic sentiment; therefore, democratic … Continue reading I. F. Stone, The Trial of Socrates
Tag: ancient greek literature
Daphnis and Chloe by Longus My rating: 4 of 5 stars This early pastoral romance (dating from the second or third century A.D.) is both entertaining in itself and a good corrective to the received wisdom that the novel is a quintessential invention of Cervantes or capitalism or Protestantism or the eighteenth century. Though brief … Continue reading Longus, Daphnis and Chloe
The Bacchae and Other Plays by Euripides My rating: 5 of 5 stars I wanted to read The Bacchae because I had a sense that it had something to do with Dostoevsky's Demons, which I recently finished. It did, in the sense that both works tell the story of a city visited by Dionysian frenzy. In … Continue reading Euripides, The Bacchae and Other Plays
