Aristophanes Symposium Essay

Love is everywhere. From era to era love has remained a constant and influential force. For decades philosophers all over the world have pondered what love is, force or being, and how it affects people. Among these were Plato and his associates. Throughout Platos Symposium each of his companions gave a speech either glorifying or defining love, each building or destroying what the previous speaker portrayed. Each of the speeches from these philosophers have formed many of our ideals of love to this day. One of the most impactful and common forms, that being the idea of soulmates and fate, was given to us through the speech of Aristophanes.
Each speech before Aristophanes focused on love, ( Eros), as being a physical thing with physical attributes; good, bad, vulgar, noble, harmonious, etc.. Aristophanes, however, took a very different approach to what he believed love was. Rather …show more content…
Some simple and some very complex, but one version of love that has continued to be told for countless centuries is that of Aristophanes. Within his speech in Platos symposium, Aristophanes presents us with the idea of soulmates. We as humans are constantly longing and searching for our other half, it's in our nature. Aristophanes believes that once we find our true love we will truly be happy because we are finally achieving our purpose. He paints for us a perfect picture of romance and although a very popular one at that, Aristophanes version of love was proven to be very flawed. Diatoma speaks of the ideal of soulmates to not be soulmates unless each soulmate is good. She states that love is wanting to posses the good forever so if our “other half” is not good then we will not want to be with them. Despite these critiques Aristophanes version of love is my personal favorite because all though it's a fictitious myth it still gives ones hope and belief that some better for you is out there waiting for you just as much as you are waiting for