Work · Ancient Greek
Symposium
Speeches on Eros – the ascent from a beautiful body to the Form of Beauty.
Introduction
A dialogue set at a drinking party (symposion) at the house of the tragic poet Agathon, who has just won a prize; it is narrated at second hand years later. The guests agree to give speeches in praise of Eros. The comic poet Aristophanes tells of round, double human beings split in two by Zeus, who now seek their other half. Socrates reports what the wise woman Diotima of Mantinea once taught him: love is a desire for the good and leads step by step from one beautiful body to the beauty of souls, laws and knowledge, and finally to Beauty itself. Then the drunken Alcibiades bursts in and praises Socrates.
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Connections
Taken up in
- Commentary on Plato’s Symposium on Love1469 · Marsilio Ficino
- The Fragility of Goodness1986 · Martha Nussbaum
Criticized in
- In Spite of Plato1990 · Adriana Cavarero
More works by Plato
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