Symposium by Plato is one of his most known works and involves something we all (probably) have experience with.: A drinking party. Plato wrote it in the form of a dramatic dialogue. This story is essentially Apollodorus telling his friend about when he went to the symposium and the subject of love was discussed.

 

There are six people present for the symposium, with each explaining their idea of love and each has a drastically different view of love.

 

The first to speak is Phaedrus who is the youngest of the lot and it shows in his description love. He is very noticeably fascinated by love, even though he may not have as much experience as he thinks he does. His main point of his story is that love is between the lover (older male) and the beloved (younger male). He feels it is the lover’s job to guide the beloved along his path of maturity. As an example, he uses a famous story that he does not know very well so that his idea of love seems like the best when in actuality, it does not sound as great as he thinks.

 

The second speaker is Pausinias who is a student at the time of the symposium. He proposes two different types of love: Common love and heavenly love. He remarked that common love, which is the love between a man and a woman, is physical and inferior to heavenly love because the “physicality” of this love is not real. He feels that relationships of this love will not last which is why it is inferior. The second love is heavenly love which closely resembles Phaedrus’ view on love. This love is, again, between the lover and the beloved and the lover is the teacher yet again. He views this as the “right” kind of love and that this is the most masculine form of love.

 

The third speaker is Eryximachus who is a doctor of medicine. He gives a scientific explanation of love. He explains that love is a broad phenomenon. “…Love does not occur only in the human soul; it is not simply the attraction we feel toward human beauty: it is a significantly broader phenomenon. It certainly occurs within the animal kingdom, and even in the world of plants. In fact, it occurs everywhere in the universe. Love is a deity of the greatest importance: he directs everything that occurs, not only in the human domain, but also in that of the gods.” (p. 20)

 

The fourth is Aristophane who is a comedy playwright and in my opinion, offers the most interesting form of love. He states that humans started out as one being of both male and female elements. He then goes on to say that these beings were split into two different beings: male and female. However, since they were looking for the other half, if they found it, their anatomies were not meant for mating and they would die of starvation until Zeus had the idea to switch the genitals to the front! This created internal reproduction of the man inside the woman. “Love is born into every human being; it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.” (p. 27)

 

The fifth is Agathon. Agathon was a very handsome playwright and believes that love is young and beautiful as well as sensitive. He believes that love is a god. “I maintain, then, that while all the gods are happy, love- if I may say so without giving offence- is the happiest of them all, for he is the most beautiful and the best.” (p. 32) He believes that love conquers all.

 

The sixth speaker is Diotima and it is believed by some that she is fiction. Her view on love (whether she is fake or not) is very deep. I can’t find one quote that truly shows her view on her kind of love without copying the chapter but the important thing is that she views love as obtaining what we desire and then keeping that which we desire. (p. 48-60) These are the six speakers and their different interpretations of love. The last part of this book explains the lovers quarrel between Socrates and Alcibiades. We find out that Alcibiades longed for the love of Socrates but could not get Socrates to reciprocate the love thus making Alcibiades bitter towards Socrates even referring to him as a jealous lover.

 

This is where the story ends leaving the reader to ponder about what the ideal form of love is. Is there a real, true form of love? To most the form is subjective. What one person feels love is, may not necessarily be the same to another person. Does this make a person wrong? Not at all. It is up to each individual to define the term love for themselves. This classic work by Plato offers a template for love and some interesting points to ponder.