Plutarco e la lettura nel simposio

Abstract

In the symposium, by then merged into the banquet, Plutarch practises, in accordance with the rules of his “ethical anthropology”, the collective reading of poetry and prose writers not only for mere entertainment but as a stimulus for a debate of high cultural dignity, always directed to improve man. Refusing many authors of popular convivial praxis, e. g. Aristophanes, he prefers Plato among the prose writers and Homer and Menander among the poets.