Early works to 1800
Showing 241–270 of 370 results
Select Tales From the Gesta Romanorum
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Sophist and Statesman: Two Dialogues
These two dialogues by the greatest of the ancient Greek philosophers explore a vital concern of a democratic society: how to define the special abilities and qualities that make a genuine statesman. They further examine the distinction between an authentic statesman and the sophist, an individual who pretends to be a statesman but lacks the essential knowledge, personal qualities, and philosophical outlook. Written after Parmenides ? in which the philosopher condemned his own theory of separate, immaterial forms ? Sophist and Statesman are of special interest in terms of their reflection of Plato's conceptions of method and metaphysics. In addition, Statesman provides a transitional view of the author's political philosophy in the period between the Republic and the Laws. Together, the dialogues illuminate Plato's growing preoccupation with practical knowledge, offering a more informal and pragmatic approach than his earlier works. This edition features the acclaimed translations by Benjamin Jowett.
Symposium
Symposium is a philosophical text by Plato. It concerns itself at one level with the genesis, purpose and nature of love, and is the origin of the concept of Platonic love. Love is examined in a sequence of speeches by men attending a symposium, or drinking party. Each man must deliver an encomium, a speech in praise of Love (Eros). The party takes place at the house of the tragedian Agathon in Athens. Socrates in his speech asserts that the highest purpose of love is to become a philosopher or, literally, a lover of wisdom. The dialogue has been used as a source by social historians seeking to throw light on life in ancient Athens, in particular upon sexual behavior, and the symposium as an institution.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
The documents referred to under this title are not one single continuous work, but were written independently in various English monasteries. Taken as a whole these manuscripts form the oldest and most complete annals in any European vernacular tongue: only the Russian and the Irish chronicles can compare with them for antiquity. The difficulty in publishing them in compact form has always been to show the differences in the way they deal with events without repeating a large amount of matter common to all or most of the manuscripts. The nearest practicable solution was that devised by Earle and Plummer in their edition of the original texts entitled Two of the Saxon Chronicles, published by the Oxford University Press, who have kindly given permission for the arrangement of the texts in their edition (consisting mainly of the Parker and Laud MSS. Of Winchester and Peterborough, two versions of the Abingdon Chronicle and extracts from the Chronicles of Worcester and Canterbury) to be used as the basis for this new translation, which is the only version in modern English available to the student and general reader, covering the whole period A.D 450 - 1150. The fifty pages of editorial introduction contain, with the notes, much matter which is the fruit of original research and an important contribution to knowledge in this field not hitherto published, even in journals.