Essay Example on The Symposium by Plato The author Plato skillfully brings out his Characteristic

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The Symposium by Plato The author Plato skillfully brings out his characteristic style of dialogue in Symposium which is a succession of speeches on Love that are given out at a banquet held by notable men in ancient Greece to celebrate the tragedian Agathon's victory in a competition Amongst their topics about love are what love is types of love that are worthwhile of praise the basis of love and social relationships through love All those in attendance take turns to praise Eros the god of love and desire using speeches What I found interesting within this book is each speakers interpretation on what love is Reading each speech helped me analyze what love means to me and realize how everyone even today has different viewpoints and opinions What's special about that is if we do as the men in The Symposium did we can get a better understanding of the truth of something by just talking and asking questions in regards to it I firmly believe that the truth has to be discovered by everyone individually but gathering other people's thoughts and opinions might help you see or understand something that you hadn't before The first speech which comes from Phaedrus who was the youngest one gathering focuses on the virtue of courage in love He began his speech by saying that Love is a god and is actually the oldest of them all Phaedrus speech describes the nature of male male and male female relationships in times of Ancient Greece During that time period male male relationship would exist between an older man and a younger boy 



The younger boy would bring pleasure to the older man in exchange for knowledge He expresses his feelings potently through his stories of Achilles and Alcestis deeds of selflessness for the lover and the beloved to symbolize bravery in love This speech focuses on selflessness and the beautiful acts that love can bring It also introduces the concept that love leads to pure actions which is the main idea of Diotima's account of love although they define it very differently His point is captivating because he gives out his opinion on what love should constitute and if there are no self denying acts it is less considered as love Eryximachus the doctor gives his speech and in his perspective medicinal practice is controlled by the god of Love since love in its wholesomeness regulates the body's reaction Love promotes orderliness and restraint He further ascertains that when someone is ill their recovery is influenced by love and its impacts on the body His point about love portrays how doctoral belief is embedded in his argument since a doctor gives encouragement and love to what he deems healthy in a patient and dispirits what is unhealthy He believes that anything unhealthy in a patient is as a result of the wrong type of love Aristophanes explains a story that in the origination man is a four legged creature with one head and two faces positioned opposite to each other These creatures are a female male character and the gods separate them in two as they are too powerful in their eyes Now the two halves desire to unite once again and that is the origin of human love This point is quite interesting as it depicts the irony in human nature Two beings who were initially one creature and later separated for being troublesome now want to be together again seeking wholeness and bringing forth the source of love between humankind Besides the conjoined creature of man is used metaphorically to prove that love should bind two individuals together and make their existence a single unit 



The next speech by Socrates gives a fascinating sense by the rhetorical style he applies While telling the lesson concerning love that he got from a woman named Diotima he poses the same questions to the woman in the story and Agathon Socrates asks if love should be ugly since it is not beautiful The woman Diotima answers Socrates by telling him that Love is both poor and tough but it plots to succeed and acquire the object of love Besides great men emerge victorious in battles write down laws and become the head of the country through love Through his speech Socrates goes ahead to give his opinions and beliefs about the nature of love by incorporating the story about lessons he got from Diotima Finally as Socrates finishes his speech another compelling issue happens when Alcibiades comes running towards the house with the aim of revealing the truth about Socrates and gives a speech about Socrates The former s act is contrary to the topic of love because he claims that Socrates has assaulted him and the latter uses his statements to seduce people However Socrates dismisses all that claiming he knows nothing

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