7. Where is Socrates on the “Ladder of Love”? Ruby Blondell On the Road “Where is [Socrates]?” Agathon asks Aristodemus, when the latter shows up at his house a couple of pages into Plato’s Symposium (174c12). Later Alcibiades tacitly likens Socrates to Odysseus (220c), the archetypal wanderer, thus obliquely raising the question of where he is in his larger “travels.” [1]… Read more
8. Tragedy Off-Stage Debra Nails Plato weaves strands of the tragic and the comic, high seriousness and low bawdiness, into his Symposium; that much is uncontroversial. If someone should miss the sweep of the plot from the celebration of Agathon’s prize for tragedy to the waves of drunken revelers, the kômos, there is a telling reminder at the end. With snores in the background, Socrates is… Read more
9. The Virtues of Platonic Love Gabriela Roxana Carone Socrates’ speech on Love in the Symposium (201–212), reporting his conversation with the Mantinean priest Diotima, stands as prima facie counterintuitive. First, it is not clear that it has anything to say about interpersonal love at all; and even if it does, it might seem to offer a view that conforms pretty well to our popular… Read more
10. Agathon, Pausanias and Diotima in Plato’s Symposium: Paiderastia and Philosophia Luc Brisson My goal in this contribution [1] is to shift the center of interest of Plato’s magnificent dialogue the Symposium on two points. First, by showing that the dialogue develops a critique of a specific form of education within the framework of paiderastia , [2]… Read more
Eleven: Female Imagery in Plato Angela Hobbs The Image of the Pregnant Philosopher At Symposium 206c–e Diotima tells us that all humans (anthrôpoi) are pregnant (kuousin) in both body and soul, and require contact with the beautiful in order to be able to relieve their pangs and give birth to their physical or spiritual children. She also makes it very clear that the virtues… Read more
12. Plato in the Courtroom: The Surprising Influence of the Symposium on Legal Theory Jeffrey Carnes It is not often that classicists find themselves in the middle of public policy debates, at least not in this day and age; yet this is precisely what has happened in recent years in the ongoing public battle over gay rights, in which proponents of both sides have invoked… Read more
13. Plato’s Symposium and the Traditions of Ancient Fiction Richard Hunter Among the most striking products of the literature of the Roman empire are large-scale fictional narratives in prose, or occasionally a mixture of prose and verse. Such “novels”—the validity of the term is much debated but its usefulness seems undeniable—appear in both Greek and Latin, and cover a remarkable range of tone, style and milieu. Read more
14. Some Notable Afterimages of Plato’s Symposium [1] J. H. Lesher From the fourth century BCE down to the present day Plato’s Symposium has provided a stimulus to reflection on the nature of love. [2] Among the earliest known responses to the dialogue are portions of Xenophon’s Symposium, Petronius’ Satyrica, Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love, Tacitus’ Dialogue… Read more
15. The Hangover of Plato’s Symposium in the Italian Renaissance from Bruni (1435) to Castiglione (1528) Diskin Clay [1] It is not that Socrates did not drink with his companions at symposia; he did. The strange thing about the man is that no one ever saw him drunk. In Plato’s Symposium he leaves the company who had remained at the second… Read more
16. Platonic Selves in Shelley and Stevens David K. O’Connor Ralph Waldo Emerson, who certainly knew a thing or two about essays, said in “History” that the best of them describe to their readers our “unattained but attainable self” (1983:239). Our reading shows us how the self we have so far attained is estranged from the self we can be. The self we are is… Read more
