June, 2009

It's time to jump a few centuries into the future for King Lear. Because of the holidays, I think it will make more sense to start on Monday, July 6.

Meanwhile, we are always looking for ways to improve the blog and encourage participation. If you have any suggestions on what you want to see here - and be creative. We're not limiting it to Lit Hum or anything else - please e-mail Ethan Rouen.

Thanks, and enjoy the long weekend. 

So here we are, more than halfway through the syllabus. I loved each book, and what stood out most is (excluding Oedipus the King) the humor that has traveled thousands of years to still be funny today.

So much of literature deflates over time. Often, reading books even 30 years old, I'm reminded of Grandpa Simpson from The Simpsons, who often starts his incomprehensible ramblings with "Back in my day," and ends them with something bizarre, like "a suitcase was called a Swedish lunchbox."

While Symposium is about love, Alcibiades makes it clear that it's also about love of Socrates. There is mild criticism, but only to prove the philosopher's wisdom, kindness and humility.

Drunk, handsome Alcibiades storms into the gabfest, and we expect some serious partying. Instead, he speaks of his affection for Socrates and his frustration with love unrequited.

As this entire book is written by Plato, we can imagine that much of what is said reflects his own feelings toward his mentor.

"Love is wanting to possess the good forever," Diotima says through Socrates (206A). That pretty much sums it up, doesn't it?

The logic of how Diotima comes to that conclusion is where the beauty lies. Socrates thought of love as being loved, not being a lover, she says. "I think that's why Love struck you as beautiful in every way." (204C)

Banter Between the Wise

I enjoy the humorous, playful back and forth that goes on among the philosophers ... and between Sophocles and himself.

Diotima brings up the interesting definition of spiritual, that it is the bridge between the immortals and the mortals. It's a wonderful way of defining devotion, an intangible that exists as a way to connect us with what we don't know or see, but we are positive exists.

Agathon is the most beautiful and youngest of these sober philosophers, so he rushes to define love as what I consider lust.

"Love was born to hate old age and will come nowhere near it," he says. (195B)

He goes on to describe how Love, the god, turns people into poets and artists. These ideas, to me, reflect an ignorant youthful love, the kind seen in teen romantic comedies. Maybe it's a matter of taste (I prefer the slow sentimentality of On Golden Pond) but I believe that his definition of love is wrong.

"Love' is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to be complete," Aristophanes says. (193A)

An extremely complex emotion explained perfectly without a wasted word. It makes me think of Abraham Lincoln's beautiful argument against slavery, "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master."

I had a craving for yoga while reading Eryximachus' speech. "In short, medicine is simply the science of the effects of Love on repletion and depletion of the body, and the hallmark of the accomplished physician is his ability to distinguish the Love that is noble from the Love that is ugly and disgraceful," he says. (186D)

He goes on to say that love guides not only medicine, but also exercise and farming and poetry and music. "Music is therefore simply the science of the effects of Love on rhythm and harmony." (187C)

I didn't know what to make of Pausanias' speech. It was obviously a defense of homosexuality, with both sides arguing in a way similar to the current debate. But beyond that, all I read was that virtue and sincerity are good, while prostitution and the like are bad.

Any thoughts?

But Phaedrus' explanation, by showing what love is about instead of telling, strikes me as ingenious.

" ... if a man in love is found doing something shameful, or accepting shameful treatment because he is a coward and makes no defense, then nothing would give him more pain than being seen by the boy he loves." (178D-E)

With a few brief lines of dialogue and short anecdotes, Plato, in the Introductory Dialogue, creates Socrates as a lovable, funny eccentric. I am already drawn to the magnetism of this man who doesn't bathe or dress nicely. He's aware of his greatness, yet humble about it. He can make jokes about his friends, but not in a malicious way. What's not to like?

For a book consisting of a series of monologues about love, Symposium drops the reader into the middle of the action like any good work of fiction. All of a sudden, we are right there with Apollodorus and his friend, eager to hear about this incredible conversation with the Philosophy All Stars.

The introduction to Plato's Syposium foreshadows a rousing conversation that, while not nearly as morbid as what happened to Oedipus, does show another wild side of the Greek imagination.

What follows will be a debate about love by a bunch of drunk artists and proud pedophiles. That they include rape, as well as traditional relationships, in their love makes the subject even more bizarre. Hold on tight.