Sappho and Plato on homoerotic love and desire

EROS Question One Sappho’s poetry together with the speeches contained in Plato’s Symposium encompass homoerotic love. In particular, the work by Plato lays emphasis on the nature of love between men whereas Sappho lays emphasis on love between women. Plato’s discussion of eros in Symposium demonstrates the qualities of hierarchy and domination. This can be perceived in the speeches of Diotima and Alcibiades. To begin with, the quality of hierarchy can be perceived in Diotima’s speech who outlines the manner in which the lover who would ascend from being in love with a certain individual and a beautiful body and advance to loving Beauty itself. In particular, this hierarchy is what is deemed to be the ladder of love. This is because the topmost kind of love cannot be attained devoid of having stridden on the first step of the ladder to begin with, which is usually the physical lure to a beautiful body or individual. Diotima further delineates that the lover is meant to relinquish all the preceding matters or individuals as he is ascending. Basically, preceding individuals are simply the primary step of the ladder and when the lover has ascended to upper steps of the ladder, he gets rid of these initial steps. As Diotima states “He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only” (Symposium 210). On the other hand, using poems of Sappho, it is possible to exemplify the manner in which her model of eros is dissimilar from the traditional patriarchal model. Her poetry lays emphasis on physical and sexual beauty by employing beautiful language and allegory, which gives the suggestion that it plays a vital role in female homoerotic love. Moreover, Sappho marks female partiality and eroticism with concepts of diversity and variety. For instance, in the private space of feminine desire, Sappho outlines, “But now she stands out among the Lydian women just as, at sunset, the rosy fingered moon” (The Republic ll.6-9). Bearing in mind these descriptions, it is apparent that the physical aspect is without doubt significant in female homoerotic love. In addition, they support the view that Sappho’s love is chastised in the physical world, for the reason that they are all exemplified in terms of the natural world. This can also be perceived in her poem to goddess Aphrodite. She goes ahead to define and name her a goddess and to obtain a certain effect of beauty in nature and fullness. In this facet, the feminine trait of imagery is associated to the feature of emotion for the reason that it is by means of the use of imagery that emotion is appealed and beseeched. Sappho’s poems divulge that she is focused on individuals, desire, emotion and beauty, aspects that are dissimilar to the conventional patriarchal model. Most of all, Plato who lays emphasis on numerous elements of male homoerotic love in the speeches within Symposium and Sappho who embodies female homoeroticism, have essential common characteristics of love. However, for the most part, their perspectives and points are significantly dissimilar. The main goal of Plato is for all intents and purposes intellectual satisfaction, whereas that of Sappho is more openly associated with physical beauty and yearning for physical intimacy, not categorized by outstanding descent and intellectual principles. This is not to say that the love between Sappho and her lovers, was solely based on sexual desire. It can be argued that that particular love, is more material, more predominant, and more generally available while on the other hand the love shared in Symposium is exceedingly specified, and available solely to men. Question Two By analyzing the elements of Ancient Greek culture, it is possible to delineate the difference between Plato’s and Sappho’s concepts of Eros. With respect to Sappho’s poems, it can be perceived as a form of indirect denigration of the patriarchal model. A key aspect used by Sappho is the element of gaze where in the erotica gaze supports gender ladders and preserves the objective states of women. However, in delineating the impact of the gaze on the gazer, Sappho goes in contradiction of the erotic poetry that is perceived in the traditional patriarchal model by comprehensively explaining the “opposition between viewer and viewed that is created by the gaze” (Greene 7). Basically, in simple terms, Sappho employs the element of gaze not to portray or symbolize the one desired, but rather to disband hierarchy. In accordance to Greene (45), in her poems, Sappho makes use of apostrophe to generate a model of eroticism that is dissimilar from the traditional one, in the sense that it is non-hierarchical and also intersubjective. A pattern of empathy and affinity emanates from Sappho’s poems, which is significantly different from a hierarchical model of eroticism that is predominant in male patterns of erotica speech. The fragments of Sappho provide an erotic practice and address that is external from the patriarchal modes of thought. Sappho creates erotic experience that is different from male suppositions regarding dominance and submission. For instance in the beginning of Fragment 1, Sappho in the poems shows Sappho’s “homoerotic desire with its individual symbolic systems and conventions” (Greene 42). On the other hand, Plato’s view of Eros is that beauty that is ideal, which is mirrored in the certain images of beauty we obtained, becomes exchangeable across things and people. It implies that love ought to not encompass a certain individual but rather the aspect that they are in possession of, which is ideal beauty. In Plato’s Symposium, Eros is delineated as “essentially the desire for what man lacks.” This is different from Sappho’s perspective of eros, which is largely female-oriented. The speeches in Plato’s Symposium, conceivably the most persistent and persuasive philosophical consideration on love, delineates not just how erotic love is experienced but also explains the desires of the mind. It divulges associations between the erotics of sexuality and the metaphysical analysis and shows the manner in which we are all also lovers of understanding and knowledge. This is further explained by Diotima in her speech in Symposium as she states, “And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is” (Symposium 210). This is explained by Diotima that in the first place a boy may be impelled to procreate as a result of sexual and physical appeal to a person’s body. This is considered the first step in the ladder of love. Subsequently, the youth then comes to be aware of the actuality of the beauty of a person’s body is of the similar materiality of another. He then possesses knowledge of the beauty and as he develops to love the understanding of one particular practice, he will eventually love knowledge in its fullest form. This is getting a hold of the perspective of Beauty in its untainted and most perpetual form. Plato’s Symposium takes a patriarchal point of view, which is by extension the philosophy of male supremacy. In such a societal context, men had a tendency to perceive their partners as subordinate. More often than not, the objects of male homoerotic desires in this context, were young boys who were still in their teenage years and yet to have grown an actual beard. As is outlined by Plato, “Those who are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature; and anyone may recognize the pure enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments.  For they love not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow” (Symposium 15). The readings from Symposium and The Republic make it possible to perceive the differing roles of men and women in Ancient Greece and the meaning of love. On one hand, gender role for men in Ancient Greece is that of dominance. As outlined in the speeches in Plato’s Synmposium, the men show a great deal of dominance and subservience towards women. In particular, the men had all the power over the women, which is largely the traditional patriarchal model. In the same regard, the women were inferior and were deemed to be the ones chased by the men, while the role of the men was to be the chaser. Therefore, the role of men was to ensure that the family was stable whereas the women were to bear children and take care of the household.