Tag: essay
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The Gorgias, A Dialogue of War and Battle
The Gorgias, a dialogue of “war and battle,” has been called the natural introduction to the Republic. Why is this the case? The Gorgias shows us a unique drama – a pupil of a foreign rhetorician versus a pupil of an Athenian philosopher. It is a dialogue in battle, perhaps the dialogue in battle, as Callicles’s opening […]
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) Review
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) Director: Rouben Mamoulian ★★★★☆ Shockingly to me, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an excellent film filled with unique and characteristic camera angles (most notably at the outset in which the audience is placed into the main character’s head as he walks around and even looks at himself in the […]
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Initial Thoughts on Plato’s Laches
In Plato’s short dialogue called the Laches we encounter the question of courage. Lysimachus and Melesias are seeking guidance from some of Athen’s older and more experienced men on the best way to raise their sons so they will become good. Both Lysimachus and Melesias are ashamed because they did not fight in battle the way their forefathers […]
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The Broadway Melody (1929) Review
The Broadway Melody (1929) Director: Harry Beaumont ★★★☆☆ The Broadway Melody was the first “talkie” to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and it was also the first musical to be released by MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). There is a brief scene of technicolor in the film –an extraordinary moment that helped ignite the color revolution […]
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The Examination of Virtue in the Protagoras
The Protagoras is a dialogue that is entirely narrated by Socrates. Unlike The Republic, the Protagoras dialogue begins with Socrates’s conversation with an unknown “friend”. His friend asks where Socrates has come from -he asks if he has hunting for the ‘beautiful’ man and follower, Alcibiades. In fact, Socrates has just seen Alcibiades, but Socrates declares that he was with […]
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