Ok, so I know I have Classicists on my flist... somewhere. I think. Well, I must have people who are more Classicistic than I am, having never studied the Classics In. My. Life
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Right. So, say you have a literary scene in which two characters are talking to each other, and are discussing a political debate, These two characters, I think, are representative of two different approaches/archetypes (the New Woman of the 1890s and the old morally superior angel of the hearth of the earlier Victorian period).
You either want an expert on Greek tagedy or a Drama sort of person for that one. While I can give you spiel on Tragedy I can't do it on the Drama side of it, only on the historical and literal senses :(
Uh...The closest thing I can think of to the scenario you're suggesting is a Platonic Dialogue - but I've only read Symposium where they just talk about love and sexing young boys all the time.
Sorry I can't help! I hope one of the smarter classics-types on your flist can.
Don't worry yourself, dear. I'll just stick Platonic in there (tis what I have in there to fill the gap!) Thanks for your help - what's your gift choice? :)
Well, I'm not on your flist, I've come throught Shiv5489's Lj, but I hope I'll help you a bit. But a little warning: all my vocabulary is basically French and can be less acurate due to a bad translation from my part.
If your characters are personification of abstracted idea, you can called them allegorical, but it would be wrong if they are well built as individuals.
As for the exchange itself, at least in the french academia, we usually call it "socratic dialogue", but not always as "dialogue" as been a very common literary type between the 17th and the 19th centuries, so we often just call it "dialogue". Of course, you can also call it didactic dialogue, as in didactic theatre like Brecht's one.
While eating my dinner, I've thought again about it and if I were your professor, I would be far more impressed to read a footnote where there is a reference to a study about the use of the dialogue as a genre in the XIXth century. If I recall correctly, one of my brit colleague told me that dialogue was very popular too in UK at this moment. Such a study would be very easy to find and a lot more effective than nice vocabulary.
Aw, thanks so much for all your help. Shiv's LJ: the home o wandering Samaritans with Classics knowledge.
That's a good point about the dialogue study - I've got to hand in a first draft of the thesis tomorrow but I'll definitely have a go at finding one when I re-write.
I'm pretty sure the only word for it is 'platonic dialogue'. Well, it's the only word I have heard and I'm reading Platon right now in Greek, so it'll be a surprise if there is another word for it and I hadn't heard it under one of our 700 discussions -_-
I have never heard about it as a Socratic dialogue, though it doesn't surprise me that someone call it that. That being said, it would be incorrect as it is Platon who wrote the dialogues. The dialogues Socrates is involved in in Platon's dialogues are most likely made up. Platon created this way of writing. Socrates is just a character in them. Uhm. Yeah.
Heh, thanks Eska. I've got platonic dialogue in there at the moment, and I'll discuss it with my supervisor when I next get chance. I figured better that than a blank space with a question mark, but I'll definitely be following up on some of these leads.
In french, "socratic" is used more often than "platonic", perhaps because "platonic" is used in many other ways in common language, while "socratic" isn't. If "platonic" is used to qualify philosophical notions, "socratic" is used to qualify the method, thus the dialogue. It seems that, according to Aristotle, the genre of Socratic dialogue was created before Plato, who wasn't the only one to used Socrates as a character. But then, I do not read Greek and haven't re-read Aristotle in translation for almost ten years.
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You either want an expert on Greek tagedy or a Drama sort of person for that one. While I can give you spiel on Tragedy I can't do it on the Drama side of it, only on the historical and literal senses :(
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Sorry I can't help! I hope one of the smarter classics-types on your flist can.
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Don't worry yourself, dear. I'll just stick Platonic in there (tis what I have in there to fill the gap!) Thanks for your help - what's your gift choice? :)
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If your characters are personification of abstracted idea, you can called them allegorical, but it would be wrong if they are well built as individuals.
As for the exchange itself, at least in the french academia, we usually call it "socratic dialogue", but not always as "dialogue" as been a very common literary type between the 17th and the 19th centuries, so we often just call it "dialogue". Of course, you can also call it didactic dialogue, as in didactic theatre like Brecht's one.
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That's a good point about the dialogue study - I've got to hand in a first draft of the thesis tomorrow but I'll definitely have a go at finding one when I re-write.
Thanks again for the help :)
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I have never heard about it as a Socratic dialogue, though it doesn't surprise me that someone call it that. That being said, it would be incorrect as it is Platon who wrote the dialogues. The dialogues Socrates is involved in in Platon's dialogues are most likely made up. Platon created this way of writing. Socrates is just a character in them. Uhm. Yeah.
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Thanks for the help :)
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Our study is affiliated with the Singapore Internet Research Centre (SiRC) and examples of previous studies can be found here: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/sci/sirc/workingpapers.html.
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This is an academic research and all data are confidential. You may send any queries to: gohh0003@ntu.edu.sg or mind0001@ntu.edu.sg. Good luck and spread the word to fellow bloggers!
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