Plato's Symposium And The Oppression Of Sappho

Aristophanes and Sappho share parallels when speaking about the importance of erotic love. They both describe love as powerful, and speak about the influence it has on our happiness. Furthermore, Aristophanes and Sappho highlight how natural love is and that it should be sought after because of the happiness associated with being in a relationship. One could argue that Aristophanes and Sappho’s shared similar ideologies when it comes to sexuality. Sappho promotes homosexuality through her love of women, while through his speech Aristophanes identifies it as being a form of natural love.

The Song of Songs and Sappho’s lyrics/fragments are both texts from the ancient world. Each works touches subjects like love, passion or even desire. There are couple of similarities between Sappho’s fragments and The Song of Songs yet there are also couple of disparities. Both expresses either love or desire towards someone. Although in Fragments 130 and 31, Sappho doesn’t directly tell the person who she’s admiring but instead keeps her feelings to herself. Meanwhile the Shulamite and her lover are both aware of each other feelings.

Out of all the speeches in the Symposium, Agathon’s speech appears to lack depth when compared to the others. However, Agathon’s speech plays an important role in the Symposium in relation to Socrates’ speech. The ideas in Agathon’s and Socrates’ speeches don’t align perfectly with each other because each speech is a logical progression of ideas that peaks with Socrates’ speech. Understand that this logical progression of ideas grows from speech to speech, where each speech builds off the last, which makes Agathon’s speech the platform that Socrates’ speech builds upon. To begin, I will analyze both the speeches of Socrates and Agathon separately, with a focus on love as being anchored in the soul rather than the physical relationships

The Euthyphro is a dialogue between the Greek philosopher Socrates and Euthyphro, set in the court of King Archon. Euthyphro is a local townsperson known to Socrates. Euthyphro is a zealot, appearing before the court to prosecute his father on charges of murder. Euthyphro’s father killed Euthyphro’s slave after the slave killed the father’s slave. Socrates happens to be at court the same day as Meletus lays charges on him of atheism and demonism. Here he runs into Euthyphro and they stop to talk about their cases. Socrates is particularly interested in Euthyphro’s case as Euthyphro contends that he must hold his father accountable for his impiety. Socrates starts questioning Euthyphro on the definition of piety, which he will never be able to answer.

Each speech fulfills its own duty to explicitly demonstrate the various angles of love. These speeches on love, in some way, are not completely independent and link up with one another – whether it is disagreement or improvement of former ideas. Plato’s Symposium seems to be telling us that love has many features and many sides. The symposium delights readers with its entertainment, and we get a very good sense of human-being attraction in Ancient

In Book 1 of Allan Bloom’s “The Republic of Plato”, Cephalus, Polemarchus, and Thrasymachus present their ideas on what justice is. Plato’s Socrates responds to each of these characters’ proposed definitions of justice by pointing out the contradictions and logical inconsistencies within their arguments. The dialogue between Cephalus and Plato’s Socrates reveals how one’s age affects his perspective on the virtue of justice and his system of values.

Even though Socrates claims to be innocent of the charges brought against him, he is ultimately sentenced to death. After he hears the jury's decision, Socrates is sent to jail to await his execution. Crito arrives before Socrates is scheduled for execution and offers him a chance to escape. Crito believes the jury's decision was unjust. In Crito's eyes, Socrates is innocent and therefore has the right to escape. However, even though Crito believes Socrates has the right to escape, Socrates disagrees with him. He reminds Crito “no human being should do injustice in return, whatever he suffers from others”(Crito, 49c). Socrates argues even if the jury's decision was unjust, it is never permissible for him to do injustice in return and therefore he will not try to escape. In essence, even though Socrates is offered the opportunity to

Desire is a consuming force that causes the body to act without consulting the mind. Anne Carson’s translation of Sappho’s fragments in, If Not Winter, creates experiences in which, eros produces a gap between the subject and the desired object. With the use of vivid imagery and overt symbolism within fragment 105A, Sappho allows her readers to experience the uncontrollable forces of desire and attraction which govern a person who is in love; even if such feelings are irrational. This ultimately creates a tangible distance between the subject and the object she desires. In this paper, I will argue that longing after an unattainable person becomes so consuming that it eventually produces madness within the desiring individual. It is important

Another influential factor expressed in Sappho’s writing was her sexuality. Disregarding the fact that she was married to a man for a brief period of time, Sappho found a great interest in women (Poetry Foundation). As an illustration, the poem “In My Eyes He Matches the Gods” is enthusiastic towards Sappho’s sexuality. This poem is about a women Sappho sees sitting across the room and with a man. Sappho is envious of said man and states it does not matter who the man is with this women, any guy would be like the gods getting to be with her, hence the name of the poem. This poem appeals well to the senses of the reader as for it goes into a plethora of detail surrounding how this woman makes Sappho feel. For example she states “then all at

In Daniel Mendelsohn’s article “Girl, Interrupted: Who was Sappho?” he discusses what is known about poet Sappho, and also what is debated about her history. One of her poems he includes in his analysis is the newly constructed fragment 58, now known as the “Old Age Poem.” In the poem, Sappho seems to upsettingly discuss the idea and natural occurrence of growing old. As for my interpretation of the poem, perhaps Sappho is reflecting values of a time period in which youth and beauty were significant to their culture. From this poem we can learn Sappho’s views on ageing, as well as the tension with this subject within the culture of those of her time period. For instance, the speaker acknowledges the terrifying prospect of ageing, but also that

Socrates started his life as an average Athen citizen. His parents worked, making an honest living. But as Socrates grew up, he began to realize that his mind questioned things and wondered how come no one else questioned the same things or at least think about the answers to the questions that were not answered. So, as his mind kept wandering, he began to acknowledge the questions that were not answered and sought for those answers. He ended up believing and teaching things to other people, whether it went against the way the Athen government or not, he still continued his work. Making enemies and becoming the topic of conversation, the Athenians began to view Socrates as a threat to their beliefs and way of life and sought to end it. In order to end this, Socrates was accused of blasphemy (Mod1SlideC7). Socrates’s accusers took him to court and after Socrates did not play their game by asking to be sent into exile, and in the end, he was sentenced to death. After reading the textbook and Plato’s writing influenced by Socrates, I realized that in the period of his life Socrates was indeed truly a threat to the Athens society, because he looked for answers that no one else bothered to find which challenged their culture.

Shakespeare’s renowned play Twelfth Night centers around love, both in platonic and romantic instances. Characters display elements of self, brotherly, amorous, and friendly love towards one another; however, of the relationships portrayed, the strongest ones are those between men. In contrast, relationships between men and women lack depth and sincerity due to the lapse of communication between the opposing genders. Men are able to express their feelings to one another more freely, which gives their bonds strength that heterosexual relationships fail to display.

Every freshman at The Ohio State University should be required to read The Odyssey over other classical pieces of literature like the Theogony, Works and Days, and the Symposium. The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage. This essay will show examples from works of literature why The Odyssey should be a required reading for Ohio State students.

The union of both sexes is a notable metaphor in both “Symposium” and “Lysistrata”; however, the nature of the love between the sexes draws a distinction between both works. In Symposium, Aristophanes described how both sexes were so powerful when united; and when they were separated, human beings still strived to be united once more by any means. On the other hand, in Lysistrata the characters were already married and united; however, women found their true strength when they started a psychological war on their men. Even though both works drew the readers’ attention to the need for love, Symposium emphasizes the union of sexes in a way that the characters in Lysistrata will never reach; where love is not only about sex and physical attraction, but it’s also about a healthy relationship occupied with affection and caring.

“People are always ready to see the lesbian as wearing a felt hat, her hair short, and a necktie; her mannishness is seen as an abnormality indicating a hormonal imbalance” (De Beauvoir, 479). With this quote French feminist writer, Simone the Beauvoir, starts her chapter on “The Lesbian” in her book The Second Sex (1949). It is peculiar that the stereotype of the masculine lesbian can still be found in contemporary popular culture and literature, yet slightly altered to a more contemporary version. This chapter will explain what lesbian literature is, give some historical background on how lesbian literature developed from 600BC to present day, and show various lesbian identities and stereotypes that recur in lesbian fiction. As stated in