Aristophanes Views On Love :: essays research papers

Aristophanes Views on LoveIn the Symposium, a most interesting view on love and soul pair are provided by one of the characters, Aristophanes. In the speech of Aristophanes, he says that there is basically a type of love that connects people. Aristophanes begins his description of love by vocalizing the tale of how love began. He presents the tale of three sexes male, female, and a combination of both. These three distinct sexes represented ones soul. These souls split in half, creating a mirror image of each one of them. Aristophanes describes love as the search for the other half of your soul in this quote When a mans natural form was split in two, each half went round looking for its other half. They put their arms around one another, and embraced each other, in their desire to grow together again. Aristophanes theme is the power of Eros and how not to abuse it. Aristophanes thinks that a humans love is clearly a privation a lack of ones other half- and having no meant to sat isfy themselves they begin to die. Zeus, having failed to foresee this difficulty repairs the damage by inventing sexual reproduction (191 b-c). either embracements of men with men or of women with women would of course be sterile though the participants would at least have some satiety of their union and a relief, (191 c) and thus would be able to carry on the work of the world. Sex, therefore, is at this stage a drive, and the object is defined only as human. Sexual preferences are to out only as the human gains experience, enabling them to discover what their original form had been. Aristophanes has mildly insulted the previous speakers in two ways. By claiming that one of the original forms was androgynous, he has suggested that heterosexuality is at least as natural as male homosexuality as is being a lesbian. In contrast, Empedokles in fact did build to a theory of sorts based on fitness to the environment, the description at 191c strongly suggests that only heterosexual relationships yielding only a temporary rejoicing and relief, allowing the participants to go about their business. He does go on to suggest that those who are sections of androgynes are adulterers adulteresses (191 d-e), but this can only show the rather bizarre thought that sexual intercourse with a member of the same sex does not constitute adultery.