- Title Pages
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Phenomenology and Psychology of <i>Erôs</i>
- 2 Between Appetite and Emotion, or Why Can’t Animals Have <i>Erôs</i>?
- 3 Mad <i>Erôs</i> and Eroticized Madness in Tragedy
- 4 Sexual Jealousy and <i>Erôs</i> in Euripides’ <i>Medea</i>
- 5 Love’s Battlefield: Rethinking Sappho Fragment 31
- 6 Monstrous Love? Erotic Reciprocity in Aelian’s <i>De natura animalium</i>
- Part II Defining <i>Erôs</i>: Philosophy and Science
- 7 Challenging Platonic <i>Erôs</i>: The Role of <i>Thumos</i> and <i>Philotimia</i> in Love
- 8 Galen, Plato, and the Physiology of <i>Erôs</i>
- 9 Sex and the City: Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno of Kition on <i>Erôs</i> and <i>Philia</i>
- 10 Stoic <i>Erôs—</i>Is There Such a Thing?
- Part III Divine Eros and Human <i>Erôs</i>
- 11 Eros in Hesiod
- 12 From the Gymnasium to the Wedding: Eros in Athenian Art and Cult
- 13 Love Theory and Political Practice in Plutarch: The <i>Amatorius</i> and the <i>Lives of Coriolanus and Alcibiades</i>
- Part IV Imagery and Language of <i>Erôs</i>
- 14 The Imagery of <i>Erôs</i> in Plato’s <i>Phaedrus</i>
- 15 The Language(s) of Love in Aristophanes
- 16 Worlds of <i>Erôs</i> in Ibycus Fragment 286 (<i>PMGF</i>)
- 17 Lamp and Erotic Epigram: How an Object Sheds Light on the Lover’s Emotions
- 18 Male Bodies, Male Gazes: Exploring <i>Erôs</i> in the Twelfth Book of the <i>Greek Anthology</i>
- References
- Index
The Imagery of Erôs in Plato’s Phaedrus
The Imagery of Erôs in Plato’s Phaedrus
- Chapter:
- (p.233) 14 The Imagery of Erôs in Plato’s Phaedrus
- Source:
- Erôs in Ancient Greece
- Author(s):
Douglas Cairns
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
This chapter explores the debts owed by the account of erôs in the speeches of Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus to earlier (chiefly poetic) models of the concept. Three main points are made: (i) the use of pre-existing models, metaphors, and metonymies of erôs highlights Plato's debt not only to erotic, but also to philosophical poetry (especially Parmenides and Empedocles); (ii) this furthers the speeches' project of creating a model of erôs that presents the erotic in terms of the metaphysical; (iii) the various poetic, religious, and philosophical models that the speeches invoke serve to present a conception of erôs that is at once highly revisionary and yet also in some respects paradoxically traditional.
Keywords: Plato, Socrates, Phaedrus, erôs, Platonic love, love in ancient literature, emotion, metaphor, symptomology
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- Title Pages
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Contributors
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Phenomenology and Psychology of <i>Erôs</i>
- 2 Between Appetite and Emotion, or Why Can’t Animals Have <i>Erôs</i>?
- 3 Mad <i>Erôs</i> and Eroticized Madness in Tragedy
- 4 Sexual Jealousy and <i>Erôs</i> in Euripides’ <i>Medea</i>
- 5 Love’s Battlefield: Rethinking Sappho Fragment 31
- 6 Monstrous Love? Erotic Reciprocity in Aelian’s <i>De natura animalium</i>
- Part II Defining <i>Erôs</i>: Philosophy and Science
- 7 Challenging Platonic <i>Erôs</i>: The Role of <i>Thumos</i> and <i>Philotimia</i> in Love
- 8 Galen, Plato, and the Physiology of <i>Erôs</i>
- 9 Sex and the City: Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno of Kition on <i>Erôs</i> and <i>Philia</i>
- 10 Stoic <i>Erôs—</i>Is There Such a Thing?
- Part III Divine Eros and Human <i>Erôs</i>
- 11 Eros in Hesiod
- 12 From the Gymnasium to the Wedding: Eros in Athenian Art and Cult
- 13 Love Theory and Political Practice in Plutarch: The <i>Amatorius</i> and the <i>Lives of Coriolanus and Alcibiades</i>
- Part IV Imagery and Language of <i>Erôs</i>
- 14 The Imagery of <i>Erôs</i> in Plato’s <i>Phaedrus</i>
- 15 The Language(s) of Love in Aristophanes
- 16 Worlds of <i>Erôs</i> in Ibycus Fragment 286 (<i>PMGF</i>)
- 17 Lamp and Erotic Epigram: How an Object Sheds Light on the Lover’s Emotions
- 18 Male Bodies, Male Gazes: Exploring <i>Erôs</i> in the Twelfth Book of the <i>Greek Anthology</i>
- References
- Index
