1. On friendship, see Michel de Montaigne, “De l’amitié,” in Essais, ed. Maurice Rat, 2 vols. (Paris: Garnier, 1962), 1, pp. 197–212. Montaigne’s low opinion of the Platonic dialogue form can be found in “Des livres,” 2, pp. 447–462, at p. 455.
2. Other editors, translators, and commentators who attempt this task in English, besides Allen, include R. G. Bury, The Symposium of Plato, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Eng.: W. Heffer and Sons, Ltd., 1973)
3. Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Symposium (1968; repr. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 1999)
4. Kenneth Dover, Plato: Symposium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980)
5. William S. Cobb, The Symposium and the Phaedrus: Plato’s Erotic Dialogues (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), pp. 61–84.