Plato Symposium Essay

Plato and Toni Morrison: Erotic Love Defined Eros, the Greek word for erotic love, is an idea that is well expressed through Plato’s Symposium as well as Love by Toni Morrison. The Symposium discusses the origins and opposing meanings of Eros, whereas Love elaborates more on the two different kinds of love that people exhibit. Plato’s Symposium and Love demonstrate that erotic love is a love that is passionate and difficult to contain and often results in people getting hurt, but is the strongest

Gender-Based Notions of Homoerotic Love: Sappho and Plato’s Symposium The poetry of Sappho, and the speeches in Plato’s Symposium both deal primarily with homoerotic love, although Sappho, one of the only female poets in Ancient Greece, speaks from the female perspective, while Plato’s work focuses on the nature of this love between men. There are several fundamental elements that are common to both perspectives, including similar ideals of youth and beauty, and

The Significance of Feet in Plato’s Symposium Plato’s Symposium presents an account of the party given at the house of Agathon, where Socrates and Alcibiades are in attendance. The men at the party take turns eulogizing the god Eros. In Agathon’s eulogy, he describes Eros as a soft and tender being. When Socrates speaks, however, he makes a correction of his host’s account, by saying the soft and tender thing is the beloved, and not the lover, as Agathon would have it. When Alcibiades enters

In Plato’s Symposium the main purpose of Alcibiades’ speech is to prove that Socrates is the ideal lover, thus improving himself and his reputation through his association with Socrates. Alcibiades does this by telling stories of his love and admiration for Socrates. Through his speech Alcibiades displays the characteristics of Socrates that are similar to the speeches about love and the ideal type of love. Alcibiades hopes to justify his actions of pursuing socrates by showing that socrates is the

language suggests his intention to create a sense of unachievable superiority Socrates possesses. “[Socrates’ speech] upset me so deeply that my very own soul started protesting that my life – my life! – was no better than the most miserable slaves” (Plato, 66). Such stratagem generates an air of sympathy from the audience towards Alcibiades as a pursuer unable to escape Socrates’ beauty. He exclaims, “I was deeply humiliated, but also I couldn’t help admiring his natural character, his moderation, his

sometimes closely linked in literature, both Plato’s Symposium and Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe address these two concepts individually and independently. Through speeches and dialogues, Symposium takes a more direct approach to these concepts, often tackling these issues through specific discourse and relating them to everyday life. Daphnis and Chloe on the other hand, attacks these issues through storytelling. Compared to the speeches and dialogues in Symposium, these stories lead to a more fluid interaction

Humanity has struggled with the proper use of Eros for thousands of years, and throughout the generations this corruption of Eros has been passed down from parents to their children by word, deed, and action. Man has the tendency to prefer what is most pleasant for himself, and he does not give a second thought as to the impact it has on his fellow man. This corruption of Eros can be documented back to the time of Socrates and has been a problem even before that time. We must come to terms with

Plato's Symposium Plato's metaphor of the divided line is essentially two worlds; the world of opinion (the physical world or the world of becoming/existence) and the world of knowledge (the world of knowledge or the world of being/essence). This concept is key to the context of The Symposium: Love. It is important to note that as the speeches evolve throughout this particular work they parallel this concept. Plato has, in this writer's opinion, reinforced his theory through the speaker's

in all kinds of ways; love is multi-sided. There exist various different ways to understand love. Plato’s Symposium uses the speeches of six characters to demonstrate the domains of love. The Symposium’s liveliness and entertainment, as well as its characterization, plays a large role in depicting the social life of powerful Athenians in ancient times and their perspective on love. The Symposium explains the reason of love and develops its attractiveness; furthermore, it instigated the idea of Platonic

Plato’s Symposium discusses the ever-present, complicated, and enigmatic idea of love. Throughout the book, each speech gives diverse and sometimes contradictory ideas on the nature of love, its benefits, its origin, and the different types of love. Each speech builds on ideas that will lead to the conclusion made in Diotima’s speech. Phaedrus is the first to give his speech. He says that Love promotes virtue in people, and gives them courage. Because people want to impress their lovers and avoid