The Symposium
Plato, Christopher Gill (Translator), Christopher Gill (Introduction), Christopher GillBooks.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
During a lively dinner party, a series of speakers offer their views on eros or desire. They see love as a response to beauty, a cosmic force, a motive for social action and a means of ethical education. Through jokes and flirtation they reveal their attitudes to love and personal relationships. Aristophanes, the comic poet, tells a haunting myth about our long-lost unity as couples; since then, each of us has been looking for our 'other half'. Socrates radically rethinks the nature of love, and delivers a massive challenge to ancient -- and modern -- romanticism. Finally, the glamorous Alcibiades appears, drunk and supported by a courtesan, to tell us why he tried to seduce Socrates -- and why he failed.Full of drama, humour and sharply drawn characters, the Symposium offers profound insights into gender roles, sex in society and the value of sublimating our basic instincts. Perhaps no other single work from antiquity retains such direct and immediate relevance for everyone today.
Synopsis
In Symposium, a group of Athenian aristocrats attend a party held by Agathon to celebrate his victory in the drama festival of the Dionysia. They talk about love until the drunken Alcibiades bursts in, and decides to talk about Socrates instead. Symposium gives a picture of the sparkling society that was Athens at the height of her empire. This classic discussion on love is presented in its ideal medium: a multi-voice recording.