5/13/2023 0 Comments The banquet plato![]() ![]() It is argued that recourse to the play that furnishes the Dionysian image of Alcibiades illuminates the statement: in its content, Symposium is predominantly comedic, while its form, circumscribing the speeches, mimics that of a tragedy-specifically, Euripides’ Bacchae. ![]() Again, many critics have suspected this remark of providing some clue as to Plato’s intention and the character of the dialogue. The second, more comprehensible after recognising the import of the first, is the last remark of Socrates’ reported by Apollodorus, that the best poet should be an accomplished exponent of both tragedy and comedy. Of the two remarks examined, the first occurs in the course of Diotima’s description of the conception of Eros, and alerts us to the absence of Dionysus. Alcibiades resembles not just any image of Dionysus, but specifically that of the angered god in Euripides’ Bacchae. Beginning from the commonly observed Dionysian characteristics of the intruding Alcibiades, it argues that this resemblance between the general and the god is key to understanding both dramatic and philosophical aspects of the dialogue. This article seeks to explain two of the stranger remarks in Plato’s Symposium. ![]()
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