The Literature Network - Symposium, The

Symposium, The

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From: The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature
Date: 20030101
Author:MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER

Symposium, The, or ‘The Banquet’ , the title of a dialogue in which Plato describes a drinking party where Socrates , Aristophanes , and others propound their views of love and distinguish three forms of the emotion: the sensual, the altruistic, and the wisdom-oriented. Written soon after 371 bc, the dialogue appears to have had for its aim the rehabilitation of Socrates against the charge of corrupting the young, but its influence, once it had been translated into Latin by Ficino (1482), had a far wider scope. It popularized the identification of love with a quest for the ...

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