CLASSICS OCR LOVE AND RELATIONS A LEVEL

Agathon (Symposium)

- god of love contains all beautiful things within itself

- love is the happiest of all the gods as he is the most beautiful and the best

-lovers behave divine

- any form of love is bravery + can only be accessed by those who are "soft natured"

Phaedrus (Symposium)

- younger man so naïve - eronimos

- men + women = unvirtuous

- dude on dude = **** yeah!

- talks about courage from love - all soldiers should be boyfreinds

Pausanias (Symposium)

- erastes to agathon (older fella)

- lawyer and legal expert

- pandemian (common love)

- uranian (celestial)

- men on men is better as virtues are passed down to younger men

- lesser people experince lesser love eg straight people

Alcibiades (Symposium)

-Boyfreind of socrates and is a military general

- pulls up very drunk

- delivers a big speech on how he has never managed to seduce socrates an socrates has no interest in shagging / any form of physical pleasure

Aristophanes (Symposium)

- comic playwright

- lovers act to feel whole + love is needed for this

- before men and women were attached at the hip but humans got arrogant and so zeus seperated them to humble them hence why we need other people to feel whole

- men and women and homos paired together

Eryxamachus (Symposium)

- Doctor

- Love affects everything in the universe so must be protected

- can be both healthy / unhealthy depending on the type

- love is synonymous with physical health eg less love = less physical health

Socrates / Diotima (Symposium)

- diotima = wise woman

- socrates is repeating what she told him a long time ago

- love is the desire for wisdom and beauty + the ultimate form of love is the recognition of the form of good (best form)

- we should focus on love as beauty rather than just sex (desire)

- explains why socrates doesnt sex up his fella Alcibiades

Plato (The Republic)

- suggests having a festival every year where most virtous men get to shag women

- so he treats sex like something that has to be done but should still be very limited

- kids should be raised in communes not in families as that could create division on society

- straight sex = nessisary

- gay sex = better for virtue

Greek thought - men and women

- defined gender roles

-Kyrios = head of the oikos (always male)

- men need to be involved politically and militarily

- women should run a succsessful household + bear children

Plato - men and women

- women should have festivals where most virtous men get to **** and have kids then kids raised in communes

- "men should seek after truth"

- phaedrus in symposium

Sappho - Men and Women

- women being oppressed by men eg a flower trodden on

- humanises other women more than other writers

- women are indipendent but also changable

Marriage - Greek Thoughts

- Dowry - a gift given to the father of the daughter when she is married

- women should stay married before marriage

- social status

- marriage was very important for the state as it guaranteed a new generation of citizens

Marriage - Plato

- marriage encourages the family unit which is bad for society (The Republic)

Marriage - Sappho

- joyous occasion eg doormans feet, raise the roof hyacinth

- but sad as it signifies the end of her relationships with the women

- religious festival

Sex - Greek Thoughts

- act of doing sex is a masculine task - hence male pedastry

- women had to have 1 sexual partner

- men could have as many non citizen partners as they wanted

Sex - Plato

- sex is a means to an end but should be limited as it is Pandemian desire (Pausanias) negekcts the form of good

- festival he suggests in the Republic limiting sex to once a year

Sex - Sappho

- "love which loosens the limbs"

- sex = enjoyable + a good thing

- uses natural metaphors to describe sex so by extention its a natural thing

Love - Greek Thoughts

- Eros = desire

- Philia = friendly companionship

- also for politcal gain (dowries - marriage between citizens etc)

Love - Plato

- Pandemian vs celestial love

- phaedrus = all male army

- gay = more virtue

- diotima says love is a "search for goodness"

Love - Sappho

Duality of love - Pain + Joy "Honestly I just want to die" Loeb 1

Desire - Greek Thought

- male on male = better

- love is better than desire as it is more honourable

Desire - Plato

- Bad - festival in the Republic

- Phaedrus physical symptoms of desire

- celestial vs pandemian

- tripartite soul = desire is giving into the appetetive drive of the soul

Desire - Sappho

- physical effects of desire = "love that loosens the limbs"

- more positive / accepting outlook - but also bad as subjects of her desire usually married off

Homo Relations - greek thought

- pedastry - old man (erastes) and young man (eramanos)

- acceptable

Homo Relations - Plato

- Phaedrus - men competeing for honour (army schtick)

- sacred band of thebes Phaedrus (lover army)

- very good / virtuous

Homo Relations

Sees them as temporary before her partner inevitably gets married

Sappho quotes - Pain of love

- Loeb 1 - "release me from this great distress" -> Sappho speaking to Aphrodite

- Loeb 131 - "honestly I want to die"

- Loeb 94

Sappho quotes - Marriage

- Loeb 110 - "doorkeeper has size 27 feet"

- Loeb 112 (Jealousy) - "lucky bridegroom"

Sappho quotes - Physical effects of love

-Loeb 31 - "and a tremor seizes me all over"

Sappho Quotes - Oppression of women

-Loeb 105c - "just like a hyacinth on a mountain, troddden

Seneca on Desire

- calls lust a "dishonourable stain" which corrupts people

- lust must be controlled by reason as it is a mere physical urge of the body and is irrational

- lust ruins ones soul

uses his play "Phaedra" to explore the perils of lust, he calls it "madness which causes ruin"

- phaedra becomes drained of strength and her "limbs are ravaged" and the "gentle beauty fallen from her final form"

- desire can ruin a person mentally and physically

Seneca on Marriage

- seneca saw marriage as a preffered indifferent, espeically as he saw it in accordance with nature

- having a wife makes you dearer to yourself

- seneca loves his wife paulina and seneca claimed that she supported him in his pursuit of virtue

- so marriage can be a shared pursuit of virtue

- didnt beleive in loving wife too much however as that goes against reason

- seneca didnt like the idea of sex for pleasure even in marriage as he only saw it