Preview

Diotima and Aristophanes

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
431 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Diotima and Aristophanes
“Love is the desire to have the good forever.” Diotima continues with saying that “every type of desire for good things or happiness is what constitutes ‘powerful and treacherous love’”. Diotima describes love as something that can be obtained through enthusiasm when it is only directed at one thing at a time. However, she also describes love as a longing for immortality, in that the closest mortals can come to being permanently alive and immortal is through reproduction. She believes that everyone goes through this cycle, in which the desire of good things leads us on a journey to discover love and to continue our love by reproducing.
Diotima believes that we can only reproduce in what is beautiful and that it is impossible to give birth in what is ugly as ugly is a condition of disharmony. It has to be in what is beautiful because there is something divine about the birthing process and since it occurs in a state of harmony there is no room for ugly, only beauty. So in actuality, “the object of love is not beauty…but reproduction and birth in beauty”.
Another thing that reminds us of our mortality is our mind. From character traits to emotions, none of these ever stays the same, we gain some and we lose some. As we age, our knowledge also never staying the same. It is impossible to remember everything, that’s why we study and continue to learn. We never stop learning, we never stop gaining knowledge and replacing the knowledge that has been lost.
Aristophanes on the other hand believes differently about the nature of love. He believes that there were three genders: male, female and a combination of the two. When the combined gender tried to attack the gods, Zeus cut them in half in order to weaken them and to make them look like everyone else. After the separation, they longed for their other half and tried to reattach themselves, but when they couldn’t they just stayed near each other

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Does Phaedrus Make?

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages

    6. According to Diotima, what is the goal of the lover of the beautiful? Why?…

    • 972 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Plato’s Symposium each philosopher shared a different version of love when they gave their speech. First of all, Phaedrus expressed that love was the oldest of all gods and the one that does the most to promote virtue in people. Second, the strangest speech of the night came from Aristophanes; he expressed love in the form of a mythical story. Here is a quote from part of Aristophanes speech on his version of love, “We are twice the people we are now, and the gods were jealous, Zeus decided to cut us in half to reduce our power, and ever since we had been running all over the earth trying to rejoin with our other half. When we do, we cling to that other half with all our might, and we call this love.” (Aristophanes…

    • 182 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Andrew David 6/21/2014 Aliso Viejo Middle School Part 1 Chapter 1 1. The 12 Olympians gained control when Zeus dethroned Cronus and seized power. 2. I most identify with Hephaestus is because of my love of building and crafting. 3.…

    • 1369 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Companionship and love, although both present in Sappho and the Epic of Gilgamesh, had differing views encased in opposite ends of the spectrum demonstrations of love. The materialism and emotions revealed within the texts, illuminates the view of rationality and irrationality of love. If we consider how the gods attributed to this view, the problems of accuracy in the portrayal of love can be resolved. The Epic of Gilgamesh illuminates how cold and rigid of an incorrect view Ishtar has on love in contrast to Sappho's more accurate view. This can be seen through how love was received and demonstrated within the text itself.…

    • 1652 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Lysistrata of Aristophanes

    • 1234 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Lysistrata of Aristophanes Aristophanes was a satirist who produced Lysistrata around 413 BC when the news of Athen 's warships had been destroyed near Sicily. For twenty-one years, while Athens was engaged in war, he relentlessly and wittliy attacked the war, the ideals of the war, the war party and the war spirit. This risked his acceptance and his Athenian citizenship. Lysistrata is probably the oldest comedy which has retained a place in modern theatre. It primarily deals with two themes, war and the power of sexuality.. Lysistrata (an invented name meaning, She Who Puts an End to War) has summoned the women of Athens to meet her at the foot of Acropolis. She puts before them the easy invitation that they must never lie again with their husbands until the war is ended. At first, they shudder and withdraw and refuse until, with the help of the women from Sparta and Thebes, they are impelled to agree. The women seize the Acropolis from which Athens is funding the war. After days of sexually depriving their men in order to bring peace to there communities. They defeat back in an attack from the old men who had remained in Athens while the younger men are on their crusade. When their husbands return from battle, the women reject sex and stand guard at Acropolis. The sex strike, portrayed in risqué episodes, finally pressure the men of Athens and Sparta to consent to a peace treaty. Ancient Greece in 431 BC was not a nation. It was a collection of rival city-states that were allies with each other or with leading military powers. Athens was a great naval power, while Sparta relied mainly on its army for superiority. In 431 BC, these alliances went to war against each other in a conflict called the Peleponnesian War. The war, which went on for 27 years, is named for the Peloponnesus, the peninsula on which Sparta is located. As the war began, Sparta and Athens each took advantage of their military strengths. Sparta ravaged Attica, the territory around…

    • 1234 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    WWWWWWWWdfdhile each character is trying to adhere to the constitution of a eulogy (except for Socrates, who abandons this method when it is his turn to give a speech) we find that with every narrative, we are presented with a new speech-giving technique; Phaedrus begins his speech with a discussion of Love’s origins and ends it with a retelling of Love’s presence in the lives of historical figures, while Pausanias puts use to categorization—he splits love into two groups: Common Love and Celestial Love—to give his listeners a sort of clear-cut definition of love’s duality. In Eryximachus’ speech, we see for the first time a speaker who relates the nature of Love to some aspects of his own profession, which occurs again in Agathon’s…

    • 1627 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Oedipus and David Denby

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In David Denby’s great books he speaks about one of his classes on Oedipus. David Denby writes of his own life experiences and how it connected to him. He talks about this women named Rebecca who had a strong feeling about Sophocles and the tragedy that happened to Oedipus which I have similar thoughts on. Rebecca is an intense reader and can’t wrap her head around things when it comes to confusing situations. David Denby makes a good argument on whether or not Oedipus had a wrong ending in the story of Sophocles.…

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Oedipus and Antigone

    • 636 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The story of Antigone is a tragic story that means that the universal themes are going to make the audience thinks twice about their decisions or life itself. This story has a lot of universal themes like facing darkness, role of women and the most important theme in my opinion would be injustice. This universal can be applied to today’s world.…

    • 636 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Socrates is known as the lover of wisdom and the lover of beauty. His speech is a response to Agathon who comically states that love is beautiful and young, the opposite of Socrates. Socrates inquires is love considered to be a love of something or of nothing? He compares that to how a father is a father to his children and a brother is a brother to his siblings. Socrates expresses that love’s desire suggests that one does not own what he or she loves. Socrates further explains this by giving the example of a healthy man having the desire to remain healthy. One’s desire for things is for the future. The desire rests in the preservation and not the lack thereof. This statement of love being a love of something shows that there is a connection…

    • 429 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    One can either write the story of their own life, or let other people and circumstances write it for him. Too often do citizens of the world follow the assumptions of society, as personal independence can seem frightening or uncomfortable. Both Socrates and Diogenes were of the mind that the purpose of human life is to constantly better one’s self by way of personal and spiritual growth. We are unable to grow toward greater understanding of our true nature unless we take the time to examine and reflect upon it.…

    • 1805 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Diotima

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Throughout the course of the speech, Socrates describes love based upon an interaction with a woman named Diotima. After explaining to Socrates that good and bad and beautiful and ugly are more of a grey concept as opposed to a clear cut concept, she tells Socrates that love is a “great spirit” whose purpose is to fill the unknown space between humans and gods. Diotima then tells Socrates of the origin of Love, following Aphrodite’s birth, and how it relates to Love’s parents, the Penia, the embodiment of poverty, and Poros, the cunning and beautiful son of Metis. Additionally, she explains love as a cycle of continuous birth and death. She explains to Socrates that love is neither wise, nor ignorant which further illustrates her claim of love’s equivocalness.…

    • 545 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Antigone and Oedipus

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Antigone, from the play Antigone, is like her father Oedipus, from the play Oedipus Rex, through the two classical values, justice and courage. Antigone showed justice by doing what she believed was right. Her brothers body, he was killed in war, was cast from the city with no rights and without a proper burial, and no one was allowed to bury it. Antigone, seeing this as an injustice decided to make it right by burying her brother anyway at the expense of herself. This shows justice because to do what is just is to do what is fair, and it was only fair for Antigone’s brother to have a proper burial. At the beginning of Oedipus Rex, Oedipus seeks justice by trying to avenge Laius’ death. He says after his speech announcing that he is trying to find the killer, “may Justice, our ally, and all the gods attend on us with kindness always”(Sophocles, line 320) This statement shows that Oedipus believed in justice which links Oedipus and Antigone together because they both believed in justice, making them resemble each other. The second way Antigone is like her father, Oedipus is through the classical value of courage. Antigone showed courage, like mentioned before, risking her life to properly bury her brother. This is a good example of courage because Antigone was brave enough to put her life on the line to do something that didn’t benefit her in any way. Oedipus showed courage by finally accepting his fate. Oedipus, after he found out that he killed his father, cast himself out of the city. This was a courageous act because he faced this difficulty without fear, and lack of fear which is one aspect that can make a person courageous. In conclusion, Antigone and Oedipus are like each other because they both use the two classical values, justice and…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    As Kevin Arnold quotes, “Memory is a way of holding on to things you love, the things you are, and the things you never want to lose.” Memories are the things we uphold. Whether it’s bad or good, those memories are engraved in us and can’t be stolen from us. But what if as time goes by, those memories are losing? Worst, you’re even losing your language skills, ability to recognize familiar things and you feel sense of depression. This means, as a person grows old he/she experiences deterioration in one’s self.…

    • 2393 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    sonnet 116 by shakespeare

    • 984 Words
    • 3 Pages

    First quatrain describes love and according to the speaker love is “the marriage of true minds” and never changes when it finds a chance to change, never shifts to another thing and cannot be separated when it is tried to be separated…

    • 984 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What is Love

    • 624 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Phaedrus who is considered to probably be least inexperienced than the others because he is the youngest of the speakers expressed a few valid points in his speech when it came to what he felt defined what Love is. Love is a Great God. When a person loves he/she would do anything in their means to show it for example being a positive role model and showing them what to do and what not to do. You would never allow your loved one to witness any shameful acts. You would go to any measure to protect them if they are in harm’s way even if it means sacrificing your own life. It’s human nature to demonstrate these types of characteristics naturally for someone you love. This type of behavior is unconditional. Although Phaedrus stated within his speech that true love could only be between an older man and his younger counterpart. I have discovered a few contradictions. Phaedrus states no one would die for you but your lover even if she is a woman. Alcestis proved that she was willing to die in place of her husband which is considered true love. In society today people love unconditionally despite if your male/male, female/female, even though the politically correct way is male/female.…

    • 624 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays