Epilogue

Abstract

AbstractThe Epilogue identifies some emergent trends and lines of development in post-Platonic dialogues and points to recurrent literary strategies which affiliate these texts with broader trends of Hellenistic literature and its aesthetics. It discusses a diversity of dialogic formats, their use for philosophical and non-philosophic purposes, multiplicity of settings used, and recurrent employment of anonymous interlocutors. This section also draws attention to two traits of the post-Platonic dialogue which are characteristic of Hellenistic literature in general, namely the inclination of dialogue to interact and blend with other genres, and the employment of a broad range of mimetic practices in the form of the adaptation and transformation of Platonic scenes, themes, and motifs (here the concepts of variatio or oppositio in imitando prove useful, as they allow for appreciation of the dynamics of closeness to and distance from Platonic subtexts).