Great Works of Literature, Spring 2017 (hybrid)

Symposium, Plato Literacy

In Symposium, Plato used excessive metaphysical and chronological interpretations to define the actual meaning of love in nature. After reading the Plato, I have realized love divides into two categories “Common Love” and Heavenly Love”. According to Pausanias, “common love felt by the vulgar, who are attached to women no less than to boys, to the body more than to the soul, … care about is completing the sexual act”. Its shows in Pausanias point of view commonly love is all charm and it focused toward the mind rather than a soul. In this generation, most of people have lost the meaning of what love is. But, there are rare lucky individuals who actually understand what it means to fall in love and keep that love going. On the other hand, heavenly love is an appropriate love and extremely hard to find because its mostly divine. Moreover, in the whole symposium, the dialogues of Pausanias, Phaedrus, Agathon, Eryximachus and Socrates were in a flow by interpreting real love in nature by referring to the Gods and using philosophical thoughts to discover the meaning of love. In my opinion, Love can be defined in many ways but the real love is such love which can survives the storm with you, not when it’s always bright and sunny.

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