Plato's Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception

by James H. Lesher (Editor), Debra Nails (Editor), Frisbee Sheffield (Editor), Ruby Blondell (Contribution by), Luc Brisson (Contribution by)

Overview

In his Symposium, Plato crafted a set of speeches in praise of love that has influenced writers and artists from antiquity to the present. Early Christian writers read the dialogue's 'ascent passage' as a vision of the soul's journey to heaven. Ficino's commentary on the Symposium inspired poets and artists throughout Renaissance Europe and introduced 'a Platonic love' into common speech. Themes or images from the dialogue have appeared in paintings or sketches by Rubens, David, Feuerbach, and La Farge, as well as in musical compositions by Satie and Bernstein. The dialogue's view of love as 'desire for eternal possession of the good' is still of enormous philosophical interest in its own right. Nevertheless, questions remain concerning the meaning of specific features, the significance of the dialogue as a whole, and the character of its influence. This volume brings together an international team of scholars to address such questions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674023758
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/31/2007
Series:	Hellenic Studies Series , #22
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	462
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

James H. Lesher is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland.

Debra Nalls is Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University.

Frisbee Sheffield is Research Fellow in Classics at Cambridge University.

Diskin Clay is R.J.R. Nabisco Professor of Classical Studies at Duke University.

C. D. C. Reeve is Delta Kappa Epsilon Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Christopher J. Rowe is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham, UK.

Table of Contents

List of Diagrams and Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: The Symposium and Plato's Philosophy

1. The Symposium as a Socratic Dialogue

2. The Role of the Earlier Speeches in the Symposium: Plato's Endoxic Method?

3. A Platonic Reading of Plato's Symposium

Part II: Interpreting Plato's Symposium

4. Medicine, Magic, and Religion in Plato's Symposium

5. Permanent Beauty and Becoming Happy in Plato's Symposium

6. A Study in Violets: Alcibiades in the Symposium

7. Where is Socrates on the "Ladder of Love"?

8. Tragedy Off-Stage

9. The Virtues of Platonic Love

Part III: The Symposium, Sex, and Gender

10. Agathon, Pausanias, and Diotima in Plato's Symposium

11. Female Imagery in Plato

12. Plato in the Courtroom: The Surprising Influence of the Symposium

Part IV: Plato's Symposium and the Traditions of Ancient Fiction

14. Some Notable Afterimages of Plato's Symposium

15. The Hangover of Plato's Symposium in the Italian Renaissance from Bruni (1435) to Castiglione (1528)

16. Platonic Selves in Shelley and Stevens

The Contributors

Works Cited

Index of Passages

General Index

Editorial Reviews

This handsome and remarkably inexpensive anthology is a bargain. It includes not only 16 interesting and original essays, all by well-known scholars, but also numerous diagrams and illustrations.

Choice - N. D. Smith

For lovers of Plato, of philosophy, of literature, or art (and of the history of philosophy, art, or literature, too), Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception is a treat. One of the best things about the book is its range. In sixteen essays we go from Heraclitus to Hedwig and the Angry Inch, with intermediate stops at Aristotle, Plotinus, Renaissance courtly painting and poetry, the United States Supreme Court, and Wallace Stevens; there are essays here for everyone who reads the Symposium...This is interdisciplinary study at its best, with generous attention paid to all the ways Plato can be read, studied, interpreted, and argued about. All the contributors are scholars who know the material, know their fields, and defend their views tenaciously, yet they are all clearly learning from one another and talking to, rather than past, one another. Above all, these essays all show the signs that the authors enjoyed themselves: the joys and delights of hard thinking about good things are surely on view here.

Bryn Mawr Classical Review - Patricia Curd

For lovers of Plato, of philosophy, of literature, or art (and of the history of philosophy, art, or literature, too), Plato's Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception is a treat. One of the best things about the book is its range. In sixteen essays we go from Heraclitus to Hedwig and the Angry Inch, with intermediate stops at Aristotle, Plotinus, Renaissance courtly painting and poetry, the United States Supreme Court, and Wallace Stevens; there are essays here for everyone who reads the Symposium...This is interdisciplinary study at its best, with generous attention paid to all the ways Plato can be read, studied, interpreted, and argued about. All the contributors are scholars who know the material, know their fields, and defend their views tenaciously, yet they are all clearly learning from one another and talking to, rather than past, one another. Above all, these essays all show the signs that the authors enjoyed themselves: the joys and delights of hard thinking about good things are surely on view here.--Patricia Curd "Bryn Mawr Classical Review" (6/7/2008 12:00:00 AM)

This handsome and remarkably inexpensive anthology is a bargain. It includes not only 16 interesting and original essays, all by well-known scholars, but also numerous diagrams and illustrations.--N. D. Smith "Choice" (8/1/2007 12:00:00 AM)

From the Publisher

For lovers of Plato, of philosophy, of literature, or art (and of the history of philosophy, art, or literature, too), Plato’s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception is a treat. One of the best things about the book is its range. In sixteen essays we go from Heraclitus to Hedwig and the Angry Inch, with intermediate stops at Aristotle, Plotinus, Renaissance courtly painting and poetry, the United States Supreme Court, and Wallace Stevens; there are essays here for everyone who reads the Symposium...This is interdisciplinary study at its best, with generous attention paid to all the ways Plato can be read, studied, interpreted, and argued about. All the contributors are scholars who know the material, know their fields, and defend their views tenaciously, yet they are all clearly learning from one another and talking to, rather than past, one another. Above all, these essays all show the signs that the authors enjoyed themselves: the joys and delights of hard thinking about good things are surely on view here.
— Patricia Curd

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

This handsome and remarkably inexpensive anthology is a bargain. It includes not only 16 interesting and original essays, all by well-known scholars, but also numerous diagrams and illustrations.
— N. D. Smith

Choice