Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments and a Note on Citations
- Introduction
- PART ONE Political Eros: An Account from the Symposium
- ONE Statesmanship and Sexuality in Aristophanes' Speech
- TWO Law and Nature in Aristophanes' Speech
- PART TWO The Discourse of Political Eros
- PART THREE The Polis as a School for Eros
- List of Works Cited
- Index
ONE - Statesmanship and Sexuality in Aristophanes' Speech
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments and a Note on Citations
- Introduction
- PART ONE Political Eros: An Account from the Symposium
- ONE Statesmanship and Sexuality in Aristophanes' Speech
- TWO Law and Nature in Aristophanes' Speech
- PART TWO The Discourse of Political Eros
- PART THREE The Polis as a School for Eros
- List of Works Cited
- Index
Summary
For many of Plato's modern readers, Aristophanes' encomium of eros is the most memorable speech in the Symposium. Yet a key passage in the speech is not well understood. Approximately three-fifths of the way through the speech, Aristophanes asserts that boys who are unashamed to lie with men are the most manly boys by nature. A great proof of this, he says, is the fact that they alone end up in politics, where they become “real men.” Since the same connection between sex and politics is the object of derision in Aristophanes' comedies, some commentators have seen irony in this assertion. More have implicitly favored a straightforward reading, relying on the strength of the speech taken at face value. If irony were present, the type of irony at issue, dramatic or verbal, would also be open to competing interpretations. Does the irony belong to Plato or to his character Aristophanes? Furthermore, the implications of either type of irony for the rest of the speech and for the dialogue as a whole would have to be adequately dealt with. Does Plato make Aristophanes speak more wisely than he is aware of, in playful revenge for the comedian's own distorted portrait of Socrates? Or does Plato make use of the professional jester to clear the way for Socratic morality, on the assumption that Aristophanes' views about male homosexual eros were sufficiently well known to leave little doubt that his explicit praise of pederasty was tongue-in-cheek?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Eros and PolisDesire and Community in Greek Political Theory, pp. 27 - 68Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002