Gender-Based Notions of Homoerotic Love: Sappho and Plato’s Symposium

Gender-Based Notions of homoerotic Love Sappho and Platos Symposium The poetry of Sappho, and the speeches in Platos Symposium both go on primarily with homoerotic applaud, although Sappho, one of the only female poets in past Greece, speaks from the female perspective, while Platos bring in focuses on the nature of this hit the hay between men. There are several fundamental elements that are commons to both perspectives, including similar ideals of youth and beauty, and the idea of desire as integral to both lieus on love. Despite these similarities, however, there is an important distinction, which can be understood in terms of Pausanias concepts of Common versus Celestial Love, where Sapphos view represents Common Love, and the larger view of Symposium represents Celestial Love. While Sapphos work is very much grounded in the forcible realm, Plato emphasizes that true love is change in the mind, and that it is an cerebral and philosophical phenomenon. Pausanias, who delivers Symposiums second speech, explains some of the social norms governing male homoerotic affairs. The rules by which a lover (an elderly man) and his boyfriend (a young man who has probably not yet prominent his beard) may behave are rigid, and strongly enforced by the hostels clean-living code. Pausanias reveals that the convention of this relationship is pursuer/pursued our club encourages the lovers to chase their boyfriends, and their boyfriends to run away this enables us to find out whether a given lover and his beloved are good or adult (184a). Pausanias emphasizes the moral element further when he discusses the circumstances under which it is acceptable to gratify a lover. It is acceptable when the ... ...otional) need of a lover. Sappho, who represents female homoeroticism, and Plato, whos Symposium addresses many aspects of male homoerotic love, share some fundamental aspects of love, alone their views and objectives are largely different. The latters goal is essentially intellectual satisfaction, while the formers is more directly linked with physical beauty and desire for physical closeness, not characterized by grand moral and intellectual ideals. This is not to say that the love between Sappho and her lovers, was solely base on sexual desire. It is certainly wrong to assume that, in twinkle of the Symposiums perspective, they were mindless, sex-driven lesbians. I would argue, rather, that this love, is more real, more common, and more universally accessible, whereas the love in Symposium is highly specialized, and accessible exclusively to men.