The Analysis Of First Symposium About Love
Plato's Symposium, written around 385-370 BC, is the first known philosophical written text about love, and characteristics of love. It can be described as a tragicomedy, or as both a tragedy and a comedy. The story is primarily told from the account of Aristodemus, who recalls running into Socrates while on the way to Agathon's banquet. Socrates invites Aristodemus along, where he meets other characters to eat and drink. They begin to engage in conversation about Love, which all attendees took great interest in. All speeches given are in praise of Eros the god of love, or more accurately, of passion and physical desire. Throughout the night of their drunken conversation, there are many different perspectives given on what love, desire, and sexuality represent or are characterized as. Seemingly, all speeches greatly value and praise homosexual relationships and activities, primarily with males, and believe it is a practice of heavenly love. In my analysis of Plato's Symposium, I will explain and focus on the notions of love, sexuality, and desire throughout the speeches in relation to Socrates, Agathon, and Alcibiades' intimate relationships. I will begin by explaining the beginning of the conversations at Agathon's symposium, which I will eventually compare to the speeches of Agathon, Socrates, and Alcibiades.
The embodiment of the speeches given and conversations held revolve around the concept of what Love is, intimate relationships, and Love's purpose. Phaedrus is the person who begins the conversation about love, and believes the very foundation of love is built on bravery and honor. Phaedrus adds that any lover engaging in a dishonorable or cowardly act, the consequences are more painful to the beloved than to the lover themselves. Pausanias follows Phaedrus by adding that Love is divided between common love and heavenly love. Pausanias compares common love to being a love of the body, whereas heavenly one is a love of the spirit. A common love is evil, vulgar, and often heterosexual. Whereas, a heavenly love has no part that is female, and it is all male, it is attributed to exclusively homosexual relationships. Pausanias concludes that in relationships, law and justice are the motivating factors for a beloved to choose a lover, as if hiding love between two men is unjust and is becoming of much disgrace. Shadowing Pausanias was Eryximachus, stating that he had to fill in the deficiencies of Pausanias' argument, because the ending essentially fell flat in comparison to his original argument. Eryximachus argued that love is beyond the physical relationship between the lover and beloved. He is a doctor of medicine, who believes that love is harmonious with nature, and that it should always be practiced with moderation and temperance. Trailing along the latter speech was Aristophanes, providing the most unique observations of love, differing from the men's speeches trailing behind him. He tells the origin story of Zeus, when humans used to be divided into three sexes; man, woman, and man-woman, as the sun, moon and earth were. The sexes don't revere the gods as they are meant to, so Zeus splits each of the sexes into two. Thus, humans now are meant to find their other half in order to be whole. Aristophanes' argument is that without piety and devotion to their gods, humans may be split again. According to him, the purpose of love is to worship.
The tone of the night changes when Agathon, the host of the banquet, gives the fifth speech. Agathon points out that instead of praising Love himself, they were merely praising the gifts he has bestowed upon mankind. Agathon concludes that Love, and what he offers, is all of what the men who spoke before him have said. Socrates speaks after Agathon, he finds his speech beautiful and is amazed by his words, as he says. Suddenly, Socrates questions himself and realizes he was wrong to be so astonished by Agathon's speech. Rather, he hears the regurgitation of Gorgias, Agathon's former teacher, and deconstructs what he has said. Socrates and Agathon begin to have their own discourse about Love, whether He is of something or of nothing. Socrates decomposes Agathon's speech, they ultimately agree that Love does not possess these qualities as stated before. Rather, that love exists as a spirit and encompasses all that is of something. Socrates begins to recount a conversation he once had with Diotima about Love. His speech is the most time-consuming and extensive of the night. Socrates discusses the concept of the 'Ladder of Love'. This ladder is an assent to the beautiful, founded in erotic desire that transforms at multiple points. Diotima offers the outline of initiation, beginning by talking about the beautiful body; the erotic desire or infatuation with one's body, which then leads into appreciation of the beautiful soul. The body plainly isn't enough to Diotima, at a certain point there is an awareness of what is within such beautiful body. Love is beyond the realm of physical, according to Diotima. Once love moves beyond the physical, there is an assent to a love of the law and institutions. This love concerns what is beyond the self and the physical are, like the happenings of a polis or a community, including justice and law into love. This ladder ends in the quest for knowledge and disciplines, or virtues of the spirit which feed the soul and the institutions leading before. Upon reaching the end of the ladder, the lover will see the beauty in its true form. The room falls quiet after Socrates' analysis of Love, but the silence was broken by Alcibiades drunken entrance. He begins to compare Socrates to Eros himself, as Alcibiades is the beloved of Socrates.
Within the text, there is an evident theme of relationships between the mentor and student, lover and beloved, or the young man and the old man. Where there is an older man who offers education, there is a younger man who can offer sexual gratification. Socrates pursues Alcibiades as a student, and because he is an affluent political figure who admittedly attractive. Within these speeches, there is a well agreed praise of these relationships, and deem it as a form of heavenly love. This heavenly love, as stated within Plato's Symposium, is the most beautiful and sought after, and involves a relationship and/or intimacy that includes a connection with the spirit of love. Socrates is depicted as the embodiment of love not only by Alcibiades, but by Diotima as well. They both describe him as one of being in between mortal and immortal, likely to have an essence that is very spiritual, maybe because of the fact that he is a philosopher. Alcibiades' infatuation with Socrates is heavily influenced by the power of his mind and his intellect, which is why Alcibiades compares him to Eros. The way Alcibiades speaks about Socrates represents that there is an evident relationship occurring between the two, and that each of them have climbed the 'Ladder of Love' with one another. Socrates as the lover, and Alcibiades as the beloved, they both share qualities of love that link them to each other. I believe another example of this intimate mentor and mentee relationship is represented, or could be represented, by Agathon and his former professor, Gorgias. Often with homosexual intimacy, came an exchange of sexual gratification to benefit both parties. There seemingly could have been an intimate relationship between the two, as Alcibiades and Socrates have as well. Agathon was essentially reiterating the Gorgian rhetoric he was once taught about Love, like Socrates said he had once heard. I believe the text insinuates that there was an intimate relationship between Agathon and Gorgias as well. Agathon's speech also mimicked the comedic rhetoric that Gorgias once used, which was unusual for his usual tragedian nature.
Though the speeches within Plato's Symposium could be easily read as having mere tones of acceptance and validation towards homosexual tendencies, I believe there were hidden elements of the speeches given that insinuated intimacy between speakers or ones referred to. I don't think that the speeches given are founded out of their instinctual beliefs, but rather their personal experience and what it has shaped them to believe. Their partners, surroundings, or experiences have shaped them into different intellectuals, whereas Socrates is inherently a philosopher. Their beliefs and rhetoric stem out of tragedy and comedy, which is why this piece would be described as a tragicomedy. These men can all be described as intellectuals, and living in an environment where knowledge and sexual gratification can be exchanged so freely and inherently, the symposium itself can be referred to as an academic orgy in its own way. Discussing the philosophy of Love and praising in an open setting is erotic in itself for these men. I think that was Plato's primary focus when describing the Ladder of Love, as well, because the last leg of the Ladder was finding love in the knowledge and intellect of the spirit and its surroundings, and the philosophical discourse at the symposium represented the Ladders of Love itself.
