In class, we discussed how the two ancient poets, Rumi and Hafez, separated by about a hundred years, were both a part of the small Suni sect within Islam. As such, they both held to a lifestyle of asceticism, whereby withholding from the many pleasures of life in order to reap the rewards in the next life. This believe was prevalent within Rumi’s prose in, The Question, where Rumi details of a scenario where he is caught between water and fire, and while water seems to be the easier path and fire the burning one, he writes the more rewarding is the fire in the end. This coincides with the Suni belief that the more painful option leads to the path of glory. While Rumi seems to coincide with the ascetic beliefs of his Islamic practice, Hafez seems to do the opposite. In, Thanks be to God, Hafez seems to be thanking god for opening the wine-shops and talks of the pleasure of women and the like. While Hafez might be a self ascribed ascetic, it doesn’t seem as though he is so devout in his practice. And therein lies the biggest difference between the two, while both ascribe themselves to life without pleasure, Rumi seems to be the only one to actually live and write about it.
Author: a.dweck
Consider how the form of the dialogue functions in Plato’s Symposium, apparently an inquiry into the nature of love. How and why does Plato utilize this form? What forms does the dialogue take throughout the work? Is the work a series of successful dialogues or does dialogue break down or totally fail at some points? If so, how and why? You may consider the dramatic, rhetorical, and logical aspects of dialogue in the work, among others.
The Symposium, by Plato, is on its face, a dialogue about the true meaning of love. Although, after reading the piece, the most I could ascertain was that it was not a simple dialogue but at some points a dialogue within a dialogue within a dialogue. The work begins with a dialogue between Apollodorus and a friend, who asks Apollodorus to recant the dialogues of love given by Socrates, Agathon, Aristophanes, Eriximachus and Alcibaids. How he expects him to do so for each person is a feat unto itself, but Apollodorus does attempt it, sharing each persons speech regarding love as they go around the table at a party, although he repeatedly said throughout the piece “it’s what he thought he heard.” The most challenging part for Apollodorus though, was when he got up to Socrates, who proceeded to make his elaborate point through questions to Agathon, and a dialogue between himself and a mythical Diatoma. How he did that is beyond me, and how Plato managed to tell it to us even more so. Although we learnt more than just the meaning of love from this dialogue, we were also afforded a glimpse into how Socrates went about teaching, he didn’t say it outright in fancy prose or rhetoric like the many members at the table, but did so in what has now been dubbed the socratic method of teaching. He strung Agathon along, asking him a series of simplistic questions allowing him to derive the conclusions on his own. And though that elaborate process he not only proved everyone else wrong but himself right. For truly, “Love is in between and being ignorant.”
As Carne-Ross notes in his essay “The Poem of Odysseus,” in The Odyssey Homer is concerned with the various complex relations between men and women. What does Homer have to say about the relations between the sexes?
The “Odyssey”, written by Homer, is considered one of the greatest literature works of all time. It was supposedly written in an era that has been dubbed by historians as the “Golden Age of Ancient Greece.” During this time period, Greece wasn’t so much a unified nation, but a conglomerate of independent city-states, each known in greek as a Polis. One of the largest and greatest city-states in Greece was Athens, a city which politically and philosophically espoused beliefs that were hundreds of years before its time. It was the first society to ever implement a democracy as its rule of law, although only white land owners could vote, it separated itself from the severe autocratic rule of other city-states and empires of centuries past. Though, while forward in its thinking in regard of its rule of law, it still regarded women as the rest of the world had, as property, suitable only for marriage and bearing children.
While reading Homer’s “Odyssey,” it’s critical to be mindful of the thoughts the society had regarding women in Ancient Greece. For the most part, the story stayed true to the society’s many stereotypes of women. Beginning the story, detailing the suitors many attempts for the hand of Odysseus’ wife, Penelope. The suitors crowded the walls of her home in attempt for her hand, though gave no notice to the fact that she didn’t particularly want a husband, only managing to keep them at bay by saying she was knitting a burial shroud. Unlike today’s Western Society, a female was seen as being incomplete without a husband and Homer played right into the misconception.
Although Homer did deviate from the standard position with an impassioned plea to the Gods from Calypso, a women trapped on Ogygia for eternity. Here, Homer gave a voice, albeit a small one, for women everywhere. Stating, “They are unhappy if goddesses make mortal men their partners and take them to bed for sex.” Calypso, in an entirely uncharacteristic move for a women, berated the God’s hypocrisy for becoming unhappy when a Goddess takes a mortal man but taking as many mortal women as they’d like. While she did however send Odysseus on his way and listen to Zeus, Calypso’s outburst can be seen as Homer highlighting the many injustices women must endure and he might even be the first feminist. I’m sure he’d be happy to know a lot has changed since the Golden Age of Ancient Greece.