Spiritual Pregnancy in Plato's <i>Symposium</i>

Pender, Elizabeth

doi:10.1017/s0009838800042609

Cited by 34 publications

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“…WHITE 27 Pace Nussbaum [23], 180-1, there can be no objection to the use of the word 'same' here, but 'analogous' may be preferred where 'analogous' means 'similar' in the sense that we all presuppose when speaking, quite correctly, of beautiful mathematical proofs as readily as of beautiful sunsets. WHITE 27 Pace Nussbaum [23], 180-1, there can be no objection to the use of the word 'same' here, but 'analogous' may be preferred where 'analogous' means 'similar' in the sense that we all presuppose when speaking, quite correctly, of beautiful mathematical proofs as readily as of beautiful sunsets.…”

Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The latter would be an implausible claim, given that tyrants are as likely to live on in the record of their deeds as the true lover in the record of his discourses. Hackforth [14], 45; Bluck [1], 29, n. 1; Waterfield [35], xxxix; Pender [27], 85; and more recently Chang [6], 433, 435, 436. 31 Pace many commentators: e.g.…”

Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…35 See e. g. Apology 29d-e, 30a-b, 30d-31b, 36c, 38a. To take a few examples: Cornford [8], 127, Bluck [1], 28 n. 1; and, more recently, Pender [27], 85 and Waterfield [35], xxxiii. To take a few examples: Cornford [8], 127, Bluck [1], 28 n. 1; and, more recently, Pender [27], 85 and Waterfield [35], xxxiii.…”

Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

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BEAUTY OF SOUL AND SPEECH IN PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM

White¹

2008

The Class. Q.

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It is sometimes said, and more often assumed, that Alcibiades' speech in the Symposium adds nothing of substance to Diotima's account of love as related by Socrates. 1 In this article I argue to the contrary that Diotima's account of love cannot properly be understood without an understanding of Alcibiades' speech. In particular I argue, against the view of most scholars, that the important lesson to be learned from Diotima's teaching, when this is interpreted in the light of what Alcibiades says, is that the splendour of the 'true lover' 2 lies, not in his communion with Beauty, but in his beauty of soul and speech.I begin by examining Diotima's account of love, and because my comments are often controversial I keep close to the text, at the risk of seeming to go over ground already gone over before. 3 I Diotima begins by describing love's nature ( , 204b7). 4 Love is not beautiful or good, she says, nor is it ugly or bad; it is something in between. Nor again is it to be numbered among the gods, since it lacks ( , 202d2-3) what they always possess: it lacks what is beautiful and good. 5 But while love is not a god, and 69 1 Taylor [33], 233, makes the assertion that Alcibiades' speech contributes nothing of importance to our comprehension of the Socratic or Platonic philosophy. In similar vein, Guthrie [13], 395, says that Diotima's 'lofty conclusion is the climax of the whole work, and a lesser writer might have made it the end'; Guthrie further asserts that the appearance of Alcibiades 'brings us back to earth', a sentiment re-echoed by Waterfield [35], xxxvii. When Grube [12], 96-105, discusses the Symposium, he summarises and comments on the speeches, but ends abruptly with that of Socrates; cf. Cornford [8], passim and Raven [29], 107-18. An influential exception to all of this is Nussbaum [23], who comes close to treating the speech of Alcibiades as the most important of the dialogue. However, her interpretation rests on a portrait of Socrates as a man of stone, unfeeling and obsessed with the non-individual -a man who, like the Forms, is 'hard, indivisible, unchanging'. The portrait that I find in the Symposium and elsewhere is of a man passionately concerned for the true good of other individuals -'women, men and youngsters alike'.2 For the sake of convenience I use the expression 'true lover' to refer to the lover who has apprehended 'the true' ( , 212a5) and is fully initiated in the rites of love. 3 See especially White [36] & [37], passim. I take the view of the majority of scholars that Diotima speaks for Plato. For the contrary view, see Neumann [22], 34-7 and, more recently, Osborne [25], 56-7. 4 The description of love's nature runs from 201e6 to 204c6. (Throughout this article my references are to Burnet's OCT.) 5 The fact that beautiful and good are mentioned together here and elsewhere is often taken to mean that according to Plato these characteristics are the same and their terms interchangeable (e.g. Markus [21], 137, Taylor [33], 231), but the fact that good and beautiful go together...

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Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: IVmentioning

confidence: 99%

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BEAUTY OF SOUL AND SPEECH IN PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM

White¹

2008

The Class. Q.

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“…Several different words denoting birth appear in this section of Diotima's speech (206c ff.). While some critics have commented on this birth language (Pender 1992; Irigaray 1989, 40), and on how surprising it is to find it in the pederastic context of a classical symposium (Halperin 1990, 117–20), few (Nye 1990, 140–42) have tried to explore fully what it might mean that the subject of all these verbs meaning “give birth” is, without exception, anthropoi , human beings.…”

Section: Birth In the Beautifulmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When “the engendering” ( to kuoun ) draws near to what is beautiful, it becomes gracious and happy and it “engenders and gives birth”: tiktei te kai genna (206d5). This is not an example of exclusively male pregnancy (Pender 1992); rather, Diotima teaches Socrates that for mortals the purpose of love is—regardless of their gender—to give birth with their bodies and souls.…”

Section: Birth In the Beautifulmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diotima and Demeter as Mystagogues in Plato'sSymposium

Evans¹

2006

Hypatia

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Like the goddess Demeter, Diotima from Mantineia, the prophetess who teaches Socrates about eros and the "rites of love" in Pluto's Symposium, was a mystagogue who initiated individuals into her mysteries, mediating to humans esoteric knowledge of the divine. The dialogue, including Diotima's speech, contains religious and mystical language, some of which specifically evokes the female-centered yearly celebrations of Demeter at Eleusis. In this essay, I contextualize the worship of Demeter within the larger system of classical Athenian practices, and propose that Plato borrowed Eleusinian language because it criticized conventional notions of the divine, thereby allowing him to reimagine the possibilities for the philosophical process among humans. All this flows from the arguments of Plato-laughter and movement; people getting up and going out; the hour changing; tempers being lost; jokes cracked; the dawn rising. Truth, it seems, is various; Truth is to be pursued with all our faculties. Are we to rule out the amusements, the tendernesses, the frivolities of friendship because we love truth? Will truth be quicker found because we stop our ears to music and drink no wine, and sleep instead of talking through the long winter's night? -Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf's Plato did not stop his ears or refrain from wine, and Socrates in Plato's Symposium did indeed talk through the long winter's night. The scene Hypatia vol. 21, no. 2 (Spring 2006) 0 by Nancy Evans 2 Hypatia is a damp, cold January night in perhaps 416 BCE, and the poet Agathon has just won his tirst tragic victory. He holds a party at his house, attended by group of young and handsome aristocratic Athenian men. Some of them are lovers and some are would-be lovers. Socrates, neither the youngest nor the most handsome, is also present. Instead of drinking the night away into oblivion, the group of friends agrees to drink moderately while honoring Eros, the god of desire, with a series of speeches praising love. In the course of this evening, Socrates gives a speech in praise of Eros that suggests a redefinition of love. In fact, Socrates' praise of Eros becomes a philosophical discussion of Being' that redefines the relationship not simply between human erotic partners, male-female as well as male-male, but even the relationship between human and divine. Interestingly, Socrates claims from the outset that the speech he gives is not his own, but rather one he heard from a woman. It is the prophet Diotima from Mantineia, Socrates says, who taught him about love, about Eros, and about eros and the divine.Diotima is in fact more than an ordinary prophet; like the goddess Demeter, Diotima is a sort of mystagogue, one who initiates individuals into her Mysteries and who mediates to humans information about the divine. This essay will explore Diotima's speech as recalled by Socrates in Plato's Symposium, looking to the language and images that specifically evoke the yearly celebration of Demeter and Kore (the Maiden, also known as Persephone) at Eleusis. Drawi...

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Futurist Women Artists and the (Pro)Creative Metaphor

Griffiths¹

2023

Italian and Italian American Studies

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Spiritual Pregnancy in Plato's Symposium

Cited by 34 publications

References 5 publications

BEAUTY OF SOUL AND SPEECH IN PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM

BEAUTY OF SOUL AND SPEECH IN PLATO'S SYMPOSIUM

Diotima and Demeter as Mystagogues in Plato'sSymposium

Futurist Women Artists and the (Pro)Creative Metaphor

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