SOURCE: Taylor, A. E. “The Republic.” In Plato: The Man and His Work, pp. 263-98. London, Eng.: Methuen, 1948.

In the following essay, first published in 1926 and revised in 1937, Taylor provides a detailed analysis of the ideas, language, and philosophy of Plato's Republic.

The Republic is at once too long a work, and too well known by numerous excellent summaries and commentaries, to require or permit analysis on the scale we have found necessary in dealing with the Phaedo or Protagoras. We must be content to presume the student's acquaintance with its contents, and to offer some general considerations of the relation of its main theses to one another and to those of dialogues already examined.

To begin with, it is desirable to have a definite conception of the assumed date of the conversation and the character of the historical background presupposed. It should be clear that Athens is...