Book excerpt: This book is a detailed study of how Plato constructs his seminal philosophical dialogue, the Phaedo, as a unique tragedy, a poetic masterpiece whose structure is organic and symmetrical. Plato's mental Odyssey leads to the internal drama of the Phaedo plot. The analysis examines how Plato's literary art overcomes the philosophical problem of the separation of Ideas from sensible things. And it traces literary and philosophical offspring of the mental Odyssey, including Joyce and Proust.