Composed of the ideas and thoughts of the other speeches, Diotima’s speech is the epitome of eros. The excerpt (206A-206E) taken from Diotima’s speech highlights the main ideas of the speech. “Posses the good forever” and “Giving birth in beauty” are two of the major topics mentioned and expanded upon in this passage (52 & 53). Here Diotima discusses the concept of being pregnant in both body and soul. This notion of pregnancy is said to be only pos

The language of the passage is imperative in deciphering the meaning of the speech. Diotima in her speech makes a distinction between “birth in beauty” and love being beautiful. She warns Socrates that the beauty he is imaging is not the beauty to which she gives reference. Instead love is “Reproduction and birth in beauty” (53). There is a distinction made between love’s creation being beautiful and love itself being beautiful. The difference is that love’s creation, whether it is in body or soul, is a godly event in which two bodies or soul’s come together to produce another human being or wisdom, virtue, and ideas. However, love in itself is neither beautiful nor ugly as noted earlier in the speech.

Throughout the Symposium, eros is constantly used in conjunction with homosexuality. Diotima’s speech is one of the first instances where heterosexual love is used to describe and explain eros. This brings out a radical new perspective (that of a woman’s) of eros; love exists and is godly in both homosexual and heterosexual relationships. In the ending of Symposium the significance of Diotima’s perspective is respected and honored because it is the most encompassing and the most thoughtful.

Some topics in this essay:
Diotima Socrates, Throughout Symposium, Plato’s Symposium, Diotima Professor, , diotima’s speech, love beautiful, speech love, body soul, passage diotima, wisdom virtue, Diotima Symposium, speech love beautiful, giving birth, “in beauty”, virtue ideas, pregnancy beauty, wisdom virtue ideas,