A Modern Romantic’s View on Love

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Love – a simple four letter word shrouded in mystery and many different meanings. Philosophers, poets, and writers have all tried to discern the significance or concept of love for many centuries. Plato, for example, was one such philosopher who in his work the Symposium (which means “Drinking Party”) wrote about “Eros” – the term for sexual love in Greek. The Symposium was written approximately around 384 and 379 B.C.E., and follows five elite Athenian men as they pronounce their admiration of Eros while lounging on couches listening to flute girls play in the distance. Each of the men has different backgrounds ranging from tragic poet, comedian, doctor, playboy, and even Socrates himself (Norton). All these characters bring diverse views on the subject of love, and each speaker seems to build on the last enhancing the story. Times have changed so much since Plato wrote The Symposium is it possible to compare Plato’s ornate description of love to love in the modern world? Love today is much like love in Plato’s time, and I believe people today are still searching for their “other half” – the missing piece, for it is a complete love which makes us better people.

One of the more interesting characters in The Symposium was Aristophanes, the comedian of group who after getting rid of his hiccups offers his account of love. Aristophanes explains how humans were once all round beings, that were offspring of three different parents – the sun (man), earth (woman) and moon (androgynous – has both male and female elements). The early humans angered Zeus, so he decided to cut them in half. Each half yearned for the other, and once found would knit together never to separate, which would cause them to die because they didn’t want to e...

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Li, Lesya. "Being Whole and Complete: Farewell to the Idea of Finding Other Half."

Web log post. HavingTime. Having Time, 26 Mar. 2014. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.

finding-other-half/>

"Paulo Coelho: Love Makes Us Better." MindBodyGreen. MindBodyGreen, LLC, 19

July 2011. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.
Coelho-Love-Makes-Us-Better.html>.

"The Symposium." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. Third ed. Vol. A. New York: Norton, 2012. 1076-115. Print.

Vaughan, Tania. "Ministry Blog." Web log post. The Reality of Searching for Your

Other Half. Christian Single Mix, 02 Dec. 2013. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.

reality-of-searching-for-your-other-half>.

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