Auriorusiana and on we go taking the theme forward. Redbeck
Plato’s Symposium resides among the mighty quintessential works of literature in the Western tradition. While his work
The Republic may be better known,
Symposium remains the most expressive, powerful, and soul-stirring of the dialogues. Its benefaction has been profound, influencing everything from religion and mysticism, to inducing visions of art, the good, and the beautiful. The Symposium is very much about love, Eros more specifically.
However, the dialogue, beyond being the final triumph of Plato’s literary prowess, it is by its very nature poetic. Plato stands shoulder to shoulder with the poets as opposed to the “philosophers.” In reality, the dialogue is a mythological drama focused on the fate of love and its place within the molecular structure of a new world born out of technology, the political structure, and evolving philosophical thought.
It is most appropriate that this dialogue about love encapsulates a series of love triangles, perhaps not in the sense of being in love with one another but prepared to speak up for and judge the value love in terms of humanity. Phaedrus, Pausanias, and Aristophanes comprise the trio of speakers who see love as a positive ingredient of pederasty. Meanwhile, Eryximachus, Agathon, and Socrates make speeches about how love is intrinsic to all things and consequently they form a second trio with a much broader vision of love in contrast to the first. We then witness the emergence of a further trio who express love but judge it's place and value in context: Alcibiades, Socrates, and Agathon all serve as judges in some capacity during the unfolding course of the dialogue. As the dialogue ends, night falls and Socrates speaks with Aristophanes and Agathon.
While the world pre-philosophy was a haven of poetry and myth, that ethereal realm, built on the garden of Hesiod, Homer, and Sappho, was threatened by the Ionian metaphysicians and sophists. They saw no value in those fanciful superstition laden tales of gods, heroes, and captive souls. Philosophy was actually born in coincidence with the birth of de-mythology; and the
Symposium embraces a titanic struggle between the corrupt force of de-mythology and the enlivening energies swirling around re-mythology. These battles of the forces crackling between de-mythology and re-mythology, or simply leaving mythology be, represent the true drama of Eros.
Eros is on trial throughout
Symposium. Eros, who is also happens to be a god, is therefore actually under assault by those who claim to be defending him but in reality are intent on his destruction. This trial of Eros also envelopes the trial of physis, of nature, in essence the more central battle between de-mythology and mythology becomes a crisis between physis and nomos, one of nature and convention.
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Plato's Symposium, depiction by Anselm Feuerbach