Editing Dialogue (section)

===Antiquity===
Dialogue as a genre in the [[Middle East]] and [[Asia]] dates back to ancient works, such as [[Sumerian disputations]] preserved in copies from the late third millennium BC,<ref>G. J., and H. L. J. Vanstiphout. 1991. Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East: Forms and Types of Literary Debates in Semitic and Related Literatures. Leuven: Department Oriëntalistiek.</ref> [[Rigvedic dialogue hymns]], and the ''[[Mahabharata]]''.

In the West, [[Plato]] ({{Circa|427}} BC – {{Circa|348}} BC) has commonly been credited with the systematic use of dialogue as an independent literary form.{{sfn|Gosse|1911}} Ancient sources indicate, however, that the Platonic dialogue had its foundations in the ''mime'', which the [[Sicily|Sicilian]] poets [[Sophron]] and [[Epicharmus]] had cultivated half a century earlier.{{sfn|Kutzko|2012|p=377}} These works, admired and imitated by Plato, have not survived and we have only the vaguest idea of how they may have been performed.{{sfn|Kutzko|2012|p=381}} The ''Mimes'' of [[Herodas]], which were found in a papyrus in 1891, give some idea of their character.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/heroidoumimiambo00hero|page=ix|title=The Mimes of Herodas|publisher=Clarendon Press|first=John Arbuthnot|last=Nairn|year=1904}}</ref>

Plato further simplified the form and reduced it to pure [[Logical argument|argumentative]] conversation, while leaving intact the amusing element of character-drawing.<ref name="gosse">{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Dialogue |volume=8|pages=156–157|first=Edmund |last=Gosse |author-link=Edmund Gosse }}</ref> By about 400 BC he had perfected the [[Socratic dialogue]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature|url=https://archive.org/details/myriadworldsbudd00kons|url-access=registration|pages=[https://archive.org/details/myriadworldsbudd00kons/page/322 322]–323|year=1995|isbn=9780877790426|publisher=Merriam-Webster, Inc}}</ref> All his extant writings, except the ''[[Apology (Plato)|Apology]]'' and [[Epistles (Plato)|Epistles]], use this form.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QE_CAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA405|page=405|title=Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece|first=George|last=Sarton|year=2011|publisher=Courier Corporation |isbn=9780486274959}}</ref>

Following Plato, the dialogue became a major literary genre in antiquity, and several important works both in Latin and in Greek were written. Soon after Plato, [[Xenophon]] wrote his own ''[[Symposium (Xenophon dialogue)|Symposium]]''; also, Aristotle is said to have written several philosophical dialogues in Plato's style (of which only fragments survive).<ref>{{Cite book|title=Cosmic and Meta-Cosmic Theology in Aristotle's Lost Dialogues |url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=9004091556|isbn=978-9004091559 |first=A. P. |last=Bos |year=1989 |page=xviii | publisher=BRILL }}</ref> In the 2nd century CE, [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologist]] [[Justin Martyr]] wrote the ''[[Dialogue with Trypho]]'', which was a discourse between Justin representing Christianity and Trypho representing Judaism. Another Christian apologetic dialogue from the time was the ''[[Octavius (dialogue)|Octavius]]'', between the Christian Octavius and pagan Caecilius.