Plato´s Symposium: Issues in Interpretation and Reception

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.

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