ASSIGNMENT Finish The Symposium Commonplace book check #3

SYMPOSIUM PT 1

BACKGROUND “The whole context created a sealed and privileged space, in which the attention of the guests was focused on each other and on their shared enjoyment of wine, talk, music, and sensuality” (xii).

HOMOSEXUALITY ANCIENT GREECE Misnomer—not the modern concept Lover: Active role, more pleasure. Usually an older man. Beloved: Passive role, younger man gets friendship & guidance Based on a patriarchal, male dominated society’s ideas of value, virtue, & status

FORM OF THE TEXT Frame text—double indirect speech & search for truth Plato using concepts of conventional voices and footing Dialog form with some twists

THE CHARACTERS & SETTING Written later, but set in 416 B.C.E., before loss to Sparta in Peloponnesian War in 404. Agathon: Tragic playwright; he’s just won a big tragic competition. Eryximachus: a doctor Phaedrus: Young student of rhetoric & poetry Pausanius: a legal expert Aristophanes: Comic playwright Alcibiades: a leading politician with a rocky career

ENCOMIUM/EULOGY 1.Origin/genealogy/noble birth 2.Good qualities besides virtues 3.Virtues possessed 4.Habits & way of life 5.Achievements

PHAEDRUS’ SPEECH PAGE 9-12 Love is ancient Love is so good b/c shames us into good behavior Argues for the benefits of a homoerotic army Only lovers are willing to die for another; e xample of Aclestis (11)

PAUSANIAS’ SPEECH The 2 Aphrodites & loving rightly or wrongly Common love: partly female, focused on looks not intellect. Leads to bad behavior Heavenly love is only “maleness” and directed at intellectual/spiritual development The Double standard & why

ERYXIMACHUS SPEECH Pretty pompous Agrees with Pausanias that love is of two types Cosmic force: Love undergirds medicine, agriculture, astronomy & goal is harmony In sum “it is the Love whose nature is expressed in good actions, marked by self-control and justice, at the human and divine level that has the greatest power and is the source of all our happiness” (21). Hiccups

REFLECTIVE WRITING SPEECHES Big idea 1 confusing point Any common themes so far?

ARISTOPHANES SPEECH Don’t laugh, I’m serious! Myth of conjoined people (24ff). Reverence gods so they don't cut us in half again. Dufflepuds. Love is desire for wholeness: Does this sound at all familiar?

HOW WE SEE LOVE? Phaedrus a rhetorician Pausanius: legal expert, in a long term relationship w/Agathon Eryximachus: a doctor Aristophanes: a comic playwright