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Plato's Phaedrus (c. 370 BC) is a dialogue between Socrates and the young Phaedrus that moves from a discussion of love to a wide-ranging inquiry into rhetoric, the soul, and writing. Framed by Socrates' great 'palinode' on love as a divine madness and his image of the soul as a charioteer driving two horses, it culminates in a critique of the written word as inferior to living speech. It is among the most literary and influential of Plato's works. The translation is Benjamin Jowett's.

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