Explore the nature of love in this charming new translation of selections from Plato’s great dramatic work, the
Symposium
What is love? In poetry, songs, fiction, movies, psychology, and philosophy, love has been described, admired, lamented, and dissected in endless ways. Is love based on physical attraction? Does it bring out our better selves? How does it relate to sex? Is love divine? Plato’s
is one of the oldest, most influential, and most profound explorations of such questions—it is even the source of the idea of “Platonic love.”
How to Talk about Love
introduces and presents the key passages and central ideas of Plato’s philosophical dialogue in a lively and highly readable new translation, which also features the original Greek on facing pages.
The
is set at a fictional drinking party during which prominent Athenians engage in a friendly competition by delivering improvised speeches in praise of Eros, the Greek god of love and sex. The aristocrat Phaedrus, the legal expert Pausanias, the physician Eryximachus, the comic playwright Aristophanes, and the tragic poet Agathon—each by turn celebrates different aspects of love before Socrates proposes not to praise love but to tell the truth about it. In the final speech, the politician and libertine Alcibiades argues that Socrates himself is the epitome of love.
Deftly capturing the essence and spirit of Plato’s masterpiece,
makes the
more accessible and enjoyable than ever before.