Overview

Full Product Details

9781793652249

Table of Contents

Reviews

In this rich and deeply thoughtful commentary on Cicero's great but fragmented political dialogue, VanOpstal has helped to fulfill a hope of scholars who participated in the renewal of respect for Cicero as a thinker over the last two generations. The hope was and is that accessible commentaries on individual works of Cicero would follow, commentaries built on the scholarship of the renaissance in Cicero studies. VanOpstal's treatment of Republic is not only well-informed by this scholarship but is also marked by careful reading of Cicero's text, exceptional attention to dramatic details and the literary aspects of the text, and philosophical reflections that reveal an author well-grounded in classical philosophy. The Dream of Scipio provides the hermeneutical key for VanOpstal's commentary. He convincingly argues that Cicero unifies the active and contemplative life into one, where others have found an unresolvable tension. This commentary should be close at hand for the student disposed to explore the complexities and depths of Cicero's Republic.--Walter Nicgorski, University of Notre Dame

VanOpstal gives De Republica--Cicero's central philosophic work--the careful reading it deserves. The result is a number of keenly perceptive insights into the dialogue, revealing Cicero to have been a devoted student of the philosophical tradition that began with Socrates, as well as a great philosopher in his own right.--Timothy W. Caspar, author of Recovering the Ancient View of Founding: A Commentary on Cicero's De Legibus In this rich and deeply thoughtful commentary on Cicero's great but fragmented political dialogue, VanOpstal has helped to fulfill a hope of scholars who participated in the renewal of respect for Cicero as a thinker over the last two generations. The hope was and is that accessible commentaries on individual works of Cicero would follow, commentaries built on the scholarship of the renaissance in Cicero studies. VanOpstal's treatment of Republic is not only well-informed by this scholarship but is also marked by careful reading of Cicero's text, exceptional attention to dramatic details and the literary aspects of the text, and philosophical reflections that reveal an author well-grounded in classical philosophy. The Dream of Scipio provides the hermeneutical key for VanOpstal's commentary. He convincingly argues that Cicero unifies the active and contemplative life into one, where others have found an unresolvable tension. This commentary should be close at hand for the student disposed to explore the complexities and depths of Cicero's Republic.--Walter Nicgorski, University of Notre Dame

Author Information

Moryam VanOpstal is professor of history and government at The Cambridge School of Dallas.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available