Importance of Plato's Banquet

It is one of the most relevant works within the literature of Ancient Greece and also an absolute benchmark of universal literary production. It bears the signature and seal of the influential and iconic Greek philosopher Plato. Written in the fourth century B.C. C., between the years 385 and 370, its theme is current today, which explains its importance and of course that permanence through the centuries.

A series of illustrious characters discussing love

It consists of a dialogue which is carried out within the framework of a celebration attended by some of the most important personalities of that time: the poet Agathon, Phaedrus, the playwright Aristophanes, the doctor Eryximachus, Socrates, Aristodemus, General Alcibiades and Pausanias.

The place and the motivation of the meeting revolves around Agathon since the award that received the first tragedy of the homeowner and host was celebrated.

The central topic of debate is love, being Eros, the god representing that feeling, the character on which the focus is placed.

Sex, fertility, and love between men, were other topics that were analyzed with the sharp gaze of these wise men.

While they ate, drank, danced and sang, those attending the banquet addressed the theme of love, a debate that was later synthesized by Plato from his singular ideology and starting from the conceptions and conclusions that Socrates, his great teacher, manifested in the meeting.

The concept of platonic love was born and became popular with this work, however, it is important to mention that The conception that is attributed to it today, that of an unattainable love, has nothing to do with the original…

Love is beauty and perfection and a matter that only the soul accesses

Plato considered that love is the impulse that encourages us to know and observe beauty, first physical and then it advances towards a higher plane such as the spiritual, and which will culminate in the pure knowledge of beauty.

For him, Platonic love consisted in loving the eternal, abstract and perfect forms and ideas, and it was not linked, as it is today, with physical passion.

Contemplating spiritual beauty, it is said at the banquet, is something accessible in another, superior stratum, to which one has access in life.

When the attention From the discussion about sex, it is concluded that the sexual act may not be motivated by love, basically, because it is a purely natural act, either between men, between women, or men and women, as a way of manifesting the carnal desire for the other, or failing that, the love of the lover for his loved.

To achieve love is to touch happiness

The exhibitors at the banquet criticize the pursuit of pleasure per se and emphasize the need to seek love. deep, because this is a universal and almost perfect value, closely associated with God, and the means to achieve the happiness.

Pleasure is widely criticized for the simple fact of being mediate and it is urged to seek the depth of love.

It is worth noting that the work is also known by the title of The Symposium.