While Sheffield’s Introduction contains much useful information - there is a particularly clear and succinct couple of pages on erotic relationships and education (viii-x) - I think that unwise choices have been made about these issues in too many cases. It involves many difficult judgments about which topics to include and which to omit, how much detail to provide concerning different controversies, and how much background knowledge one ought to assume the reader has. Writing an introduction to a Platonic dialogue is tricky. Howatson with footnotes, a Glossary of Names and a Glossary of Greek words, and a Subject Index. The volume includes a 21-page Introduction by Frisbee Sheffield (who is also the author of a recent monograph on the dialogue ), a very brief Chronology of historical events in the fifth and fourth centuries, a list of “further reading”, a translation by M. Given the quality of its competition, however, this is no small task. Surely, then, this edition does nothing to expand range or variety, and so ought to be judged by whether it expands the quality of access to the Symposium for its primary intended audience of undergraduate and graduate readers. There have been at least seven English translations in the last twenty years, by such notable scholars and translators as Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff (Hackett), Robin Waterfield (Oxford), and Christopher Gill (Penguin).
Although such a famous dialogue seems a natural one to include, when we recognize that the objective of this series is “to expand the range, variety, and quality of texts in the history of philosophy that are available in English” we might wonder about the choice. This edition and translation of Plato’s Symposium is an addition to the wonderful Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy series.
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