Aristophanes Speech Essay

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Aristophanes’ speech is an example of love and the measures people go through to find their soulmate. He is celebrated for his originality in conceptualizing a form of love where two bodies are separated and then search to find their other half. The effects of Aristophanes’ speech are still seen today and are a great example of the true love much of popular culture tries to emulate. He raises a good question of true love and the various ways it shapes our lives. He also helps us to characterize the journey that all of us go on, consciously or not, to find someone we will spend the rest of our lives with. The idea of finding “the one” still reigns true in our culture and personal lives and is in large part thanks to Aristophanes’ vision of …show more content…

His reasoning seems not as allusive as one may think. His speech helps us to explain the feeling we have toward the person that’s “a “matching half” of a human whole.” (191D, 5) This idea is incredibly pervasive and cements Aristophanes’ idea that we are one unit separated into two separate people and our mission is to find our other half. It is very convincing and persuasive that Aristophanes uses the metaphor of separation and unity to find the one meant for us. “Each of us is always seeking the half that matches him” (191D, 7) Aristophanes points out something that is currently instilled in our lives and something pop culture replicates through many movies and social constructs. We are thought to think of our lives as leading up to the moment we meet our soulmate. Pop Music directly corresponds to this idea of unity among two separate people. Ed Sheeran’s “Kiss Me” is a great example of how universal the ideas that Aristophanes talked about are. “I was made to keep your body warm/ My heart’s against your chest,” (Sheeran) echoes the argument that two people were made exactly for each other and are intertwined. Much of music today is a replica of Aristophanes’ vision of soulmates, many ballads and love songs directly talk about the unity and then separation of “the

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