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LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS - SYMPOSIUM - Coggle Diagram
LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS - SYMPOSIUM
PAUSANIUS’ SPEECH
CELESTIAL
Aphrodite Urania, born of Uranus
Spiritual/physical love only directed to boys
COMMON
Aphrodite Pandemos, daughter of Zeus and Dione
Physical love, attracted to women and boys
ELIS/BOEOTIA
Absolutely fine for beloveds to gratify their lovers, no one has to persuade them
ATHENS
Complicated
Double standard
Lovers are encouraged to test their persistence
Beloved are discouraged to test their resistance
Acceptable to gratify lover in return for moral improvement
Differing positions on love and pederastic societal structure in different geographic locations
IONIA/PERSIAN EMPIRE
Gratifying a lover is condemned as tyrants want to discourage strong bonds of citizens
PHAEDRUS’ SPEECH
Love is a primordial god, a very basic force
Virtuous, lovers feel shame for doing anything disgraceful
Phaedrus claims that Eros has not received proper praise up to this point, may be due to Eros being perceived ass an ambivalent force that could lead to good or bad outcomes
Lovers and beloveds fighting side by side would be invincible, Sacred Band of Thebes formed in 378BC
Lovers will sacrifice their lives for their beloveds, including women, like Alcestis, unlike Orpheus
Achilles, the beloved, died for Patroclus, the lover, so honoured more than Alcestis as he wasn’t posed by a God
SOCRATES’ SPEECH
Follows a logical argument
Love is attracted to beauty
To be attracted to something you desire it
To desire is to want something you lack
So love lacks beauty
All beautiful things are good
Love is not beautiful so is not good
Account of Diotima
Unknown if a fake or real person
From Mantinea, could be a pun as it sounds like prophet
Name means, Honour of Zeus
She was an expert in love
Potential pseudonym of Aspasia
Reference to Aspasia, mistress of Perikles, was Socrates’ teacher in love
She was famous for her wit and Perikles’ love for her
Reference of women in love
Allows consideration of children and pregnancy
Contraries
Good - bad
Knowledge - true belief - ignorance
Contradictions
Good/Not good
Binary opposition
Diotima says love cannot be a god as
Gods do not desire goodness and beauty
Gods have envious, good qualities and are knowledgeable
However it does not mean he is a mortal, more a spirit who delivers messages between mortals and gods
Fourth origin of Eros
Gods were celebrating the birth of Aphrodite where Plenty was
Plenty was drunk on nectar and collapsed and fell asleep
Poverty was there to beg at the gate
Poverty came up with the idea of having his child and so Love was conceived
He has no money and is vagrant with tough dry skin, reference to Socrates, and no shoes on his feet
He has no bed and needs a constant companion
As Love’s parents are contraries he is the middle ground
He lives and dies in a cycle,showing how he us the middle ground
Gives a sense of instability and fluctuation
He wants something yet cannot ever acquire it, his desire is never satisfied
Once he gets something he loses it as his desire is lost
Gods do not desire wisdom as they already have it
However you must have ignorance in order to not lack wisdom
Gods are not ignorant as they acknowledge they have it
Love is a philosopher as he loves and desires wisdom, as a philosopher desires wisdom as they lack it
The reason Socrates fell into the era it did originates from the depiction of Eros as a beloved, the object of love, however he is the desire of the object and so is more like the lover than the beloved
Beauty is almost a subset to goodness
Claims men are physically pregnant in the sense that they are attracted too women who possess beauty
Men give birth in a sexual sense
Recalls the myths of Alcestis. Achilles and Codrus
Codrus sacrificed himself in order to preserve his kingdom
Achilles sacrificed his fate for the love of Patroclus
Alcestis sacrificed herself for her husband in place of him
Possibility that they sacrificed themselves for both love and fame
Physically pregnant men want to reproduce children
Mentally pregnant men, want to find beauty in people not just physically
Pregnant with virtue, wisdom, creation, self-discipline and justice
Homer, Hesiod, Lycurgus and Solon were part of pederastic relationships and their ideas came to fruition, bringing them fame
Gives birth by meeting another physically attractive and mentally attractive and conversing about these concepts
Ideas/works will bring more immortality than a familial lineage
Physical attraction comes first, which may lead to beautiful reasoning
More reasoning is recommended, developing an appreciation of all bodies
Falling in love with someone as they’re beautiful means you should be able to fall in love with everyone in the world
Open possibility of beloved being older than the lover
LADDER OF LOVE
Love of ones physical beauty
Love of all beautiful bodies
Love of mental beauty
Love of activities and institutions
Love of knowledge
Love of knowledge of beauty
Eternal
Absolute/objective
Beautiful things will partake in it
TYPES OF LOVE
THREE TYPES OF LOVE
Eros, sexual love
There are two distinguishing types of eros
Firstly closely linked with beauty
Secondly, used to describe desires that become obsessional and the central focus of a persons life
Philia, familial love
Philanthropia, human love
Pederasty, older males get sexual favours from a youth and in return provide social, political and moral training for the young man on the verge of reaching adulthood
Erotic relationships had an educational aspect due to pederasty, and the symposium was a key location where pleasures of the body and pleasures of the mind could be explored, explaining Plato’s interest in them as he hid a key focus on how to live a good life
Plato’s interest in them as he had a key focus on how to live a good life, Plato embodies his ideas in characters and lives, helping people to see what people argue for and how they truly turn out in character
STEREOTYPES OF EFFEMINACY
Effeminate, like a woman, usually directed at men
Ancient stereotypes, an effeminate man is like a woman
Sexually promiscuous with women and sexually promiscuous with men
Several slurs in Ancient Greece such as ‘androgynos’, man-woman
Masculine man
Self controlled
His sexual partners are women and boys
Masculine boy
Does not desire too much pleasure from sex with men
Does not allow himself to be penetrated like a woman
Does not ‘gratify’ more than one carefully chosen erastes
Is modest and self-controlled
ARISTOPHANES’ SPEECH
Early humans, shared one body but two parts
Male and male each side
Female and female each side
Female and male each side
Zeus split mankind as a punishment for disobedience and ever since, humans long to reconnect with their spiritual partner, effectively a soulmate
As it is hard to do so, we should settle simply for the closest we can get to this person
People who were connected with a male wants to be with men and people connected with a women wanted to be connected once more with women