Gender-Based Notions of Homoerotic Love: Sappho and Plato’s Symposium
The poetry of Sappho, and the speeches in Plato’s Symposium both deal primarily with homoerotic love, although Sappho, one of the only female poets in Ancient Greece, speaks from the female perspective, while Plato’s work focuses on the nature of this love between men. There are several fundamental elements that are common to both perspectives, including similar ideals of youth and beauty, and the idea of desire as integral to both views on love. Despite these similarities, however, there is an important distinction, which can be understood in terms of Pausanias’ concepts of Common versus Celestial Love, where Sappho’s view represents Common Love, and the larger view of Symposium represents Celestial Love. While Sappho’s work is very much grounded in the physical realm, Plato emphasizes that true love is centralized in the mind, and that it is an intellectual and philosophical phenomenon.
Pausanias, who delivers Symposium’s second speech, explains some of the societal norms governing male homoerotic affairs. The rules by which a lover (an older man) and his boyfriend (a young man who has probably not yet grown his beard) may behave are rigid, and strongly enforced by the society’s moral code. Pausanias reveals that the convention of this relationship is pursuer/pursued: “our society encourages the lovers to chase their boyfriends, and their boyfriends to run away: this enables us to find out whether a given lover and his beloved are good or bad” (184a). Pausanias emphasizes the moral element further when he discusses the circumstances under which it is acceptable to gratify a lover. It is acceptable when “the ...
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...otional) need of a lover.
Sappho, who represents female homoeroticism, and Plato, who’s Symposium addresses many aspects of male homoerotic love, share some fundamental aspects of love, but their views and objectives are largely different. The latter’s goal is essentially intellectual satisfaction, while the former’s is more directly linked with physical beauty and desire for physical closeness, not characterized by grand moral and intellectual ideals. This is not to say that the love between Sappho and her lovers, was solely based on sexual desire. It is certainly wrong to assume that, in light of the Symposium’s perspective, they were mindless, sex-driven lesbians. I would argue, rather, that this love, is more real, more common, and more universally accessible, whereas the love in Symposium is highly specialized, and accessible exclusively to men.
For some odd reason, it seemed that men were allowed to be philanderers while their wives stayed at home. This is evidenced in the Odyssey quite well- Odysseus the?hero? is free to sample all the pretty ladies he cares for, whereas Penelope, his wife, is expected to fend off all the suitors at home. Predictably, Penelope melts into his arms when she realizes it is her long-lost husband without pausing to consider what he has done in his absence. This reaction portrays the unequal morals of Greek society regarding gender.
Images of male homosocial and homoerotic relations pervade Athenian culture. From plays to poetry and jugs to the justice system one can find these relations represented pictorially and in words. But do all these images align with each other or are there irreconcilable differences between them? To look at this question we will take two small pieces of culture, a philosophical treatise, Plato's Symposium and the lyric poetry of Theognis and Anacreon.
Thus, the partygoers in Symposium have gathered during a festival celebrating the fertility and productivity of heterosexual relationship to attempt to justify their homosexual relationships by eulogizing Eros. Since heterosexual relationships were justified by the production of children, a justification of homosexual relationships woul...
The main factor contributing to the changes in Gilgamesh the love that develops with Enkidu. Enkidu is made to make Gilgamesh more human. In the first paragraph of the book the gods are angry with Gilgamesh and send down an equal of himself, they send down Enkidu. After becoming friends, Gilgamesh changes because he has an equal to be with.
Eupriedes, Medea and Sappho’s writing focus on women to expose the relationships between a variety of themes and the general ideal that women are property. The main characters in both pieces of literature demonstrate similar situations where love and sex result in a serious troll. These themes affected their relationship with themselves and others, as well as, incapability to make decisions which even today in society still affects humans. Headstrong actions made on their conquest for everlasting love connects to sacrifices they made to achieve their goal which ultimately ended in pain. Love and sex interferes with development of human emotions and character throughout the course
I have always thought that there was only one type of love, which was that feeling of overwhelming liking to someone else. I am aware that Lust does exist and that it is separate from Love, being that the desire for someone's body rather their mind. In Plato's Symposium, Plato speaks of many different types of love, loves that can be taken as lust as well. He writes about seven different points of view on love coming from the speakers that attend the symposium in honor of Agathon. Although all these men bring up excellent points on their definitions on love, it is a woman that makes the best definition be known. I will concentrate on the difference between the theory of Common and Heavenly love brought up by Pausanias and the important role that Diotima plays in the symposium.
Aristophanes thinks that a human’s love is clearly “a lack” – a lack of one’s other half- and having no meant to satisfy themselves they begin to die. Zeus, having failed to foresee this difficulty repairs the damage by inventing sexual reproduction (191 b-c). Any “embracements” of men with men or of women with women would of course be sterile – though the participants would at least “have some satiety of their union and a relief,” (191 c) and therefore would be able to carry on the work of the world. Sex, therefore, is at this stage a drive, and the object is defined only as human. Sexual preferences are to emerge only as the human gains experience, enabling them to discover what their “original form” had been.
Love, in classical Greek literature, is commonly considered a prominent theme. Love, in present days, always appears in the categories of books, movies, music, etc. Interpreted differently by different people, Love turns into a multi-faceted being. In Plato’s work Symposium, Phaedrus, Pausania, Eryximachus, Aristophane and Agathon, each of them presents a speech to either praise or definite Love. Phaedrus first points out that Love is the primordial god; Pausanias brings the theme of “virtue” into the discussion and categorizes Love into “good” one or “bad” one; Eryximachus introduces the thought of “moderation’ and thinks that Love governs such fields as medicine and music; Aristophanes draws attention to the origin and purposes of Love; Agathon enunciates that the correct way to present an eulogy is first to praise its nature and gifts.
Sigmund Freud, also known as the father of psychoanalysis, was born May 6th of 1856 in Freiberg, Moravia. A few years later he moved to Vienna, Austria and years after to England. Sigmund Freud was known for connecting psychological issues with sexual issues. Freud demonstrated a broad perspective on things involving dreams, religion, and cultural artifacts. He focused on different states of the mind, such as unconsciousness. Freud relied on a local sexual repression issue to create theories about human behavior all together. Although many people would agree that Sigmund Freud’s theories are controversial, he is said to be one of the most influential scientists with great work concerning psychology. His theories and ideas of psychoanalysis still have a strong impact on psychology and early childhood education today.
Autism is a general term for a group of complex disorders of brain development. The Autism spectrum is vast and varies in degree of severity from person to person. The challenges that come with Autism Disorder include difficulty in social interactions, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors. Autism has been a diagnosable disorder since 1951. Treatment options have changed since the first diagnosis. Available treatment today has advanced over the sixty-three year span and has become the best possible form of treatment available for Autism.
Freud was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1856, during the Victorian era. His father, Jackob, was a Jewish wool merchant, and his father's second wife, Amalia, was Freud's mother. He was the firstborn in a family of three boys and five girls. When Freud was four-years-old, his family moved to Vienna where he remained until the Nazi occupation of Austria in 1933 (Gay, 1989).
As the practice of homosexual love became more widespread, poetry became more erotic, celebrating beautiful boys. A similar erotic theme was then seen in the homoerotic “friendships” developed between mal...
What is autism? "Autism is a potentially severe neurological condition affecting social functioning, communication skills, reasoning, and behavior. It is considered a "spectrum disorder," meaning that the symptoms and characteristics of autism can present themselves in a variety of combinations, ranging from extremely mild to quite severe" (Fergus 2002 para.1). Autism was first reported in 1943 by a Dr. Leo Kanner of John Hopkins University. Dr Leo Kanner based his theory on 11 children who showed signs of withdrawal from human contact, this started at age 1 between the years of 1938 to 1943. In the 1940’s, the research of autism was so rare and this was a new case, Dr. Leo Kanner based the disability to be schizophrenia which in the eyes of the parents they thought they were at fault. In the 60’s, that is when the knowledge of autism and the treatments came clear. (Edelson Para. 8) Having the basic history of autism will let people understand where and how Dr. Leo Kanner had come across the disability. Some people have never heard about autism and the treatments that go into helping someone with autism. The three main points that will be discussed are treatment, prognosis, and the quality of life. Having a child with autism can make life difficult but with therapy and treatment children with autism can grow to be what society calls normal.
Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was unarguably one of the most influential thinkers during the twentieth century. Freud was an Australian neurologist that was born May 6, 1856 in a place called Freiburg (in the Austrian empire). Freud’s birth name was Sigismund Schlomo Freud. He was brought up by his Jewish parents, Jakob Freud (his father) and Amalia Nathansohn (his mother). Freud was the oldest of eight children. During his childhood, their family struggled financially. They rented a room from a locksmith’s home, which is where his mother birthed Freud. When Freud was four years of age, his family moved to a place called Vienna, which is now the capital of Austria. He would live in Vienna all his life, up until the year
with some very different views of love as brought to us by Agathon, Phaedrus and