... , something deeper than the author's main point, or something that can be found in a summary. In reading Horace's Satires and Epistles and Plato The Symposium, a very ironic discovery can be made. Socrates and Horace have apparently been granted authority by their immediate audience on their respective topics, however ... Horace ensures that the reader will notice and reflect on them. He does not put himself on a heavenly level, like Diotima in Plato's Symposium, but guarantees his readers that although he has knowledge of how to live a satisfying life and can administer advice on it; he...

• Word Count: 1606
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... group. The ideas these men put forward in describing the nature of something as powerful yet intangible as love are wonderful. The people in Plato's Symposium are truly great and wise men. They each have their particular viewpoints, based on their characters and professions. The physician and healer, Eryximachus, ... I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover, than a beloved youth. (Symposium, 20)" The moral value of this sentence is questionable. It basically condones, even promotes, homosexuality and the abuse of children...

• Word Count: 1657
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

1 Eros, or love, is the topic for discussion in Plato's Symposium. In a series of speeches, men debate the superlative meaning of eros the entire night. Socrates concludes the night by giving what is thought to ... , with a woman (Diotima), in which Diotima, not Socrates, gives meaning to the word and concept of eros. This is ironic because from the beginning of the Symposium it is made explicitly clear that women are not wise enough to know and discuss eros. This is the first speech that the opinion of a woman is taken into ... it "fills us with togetherness and drains all of our divisiven...

• Word Count: 925
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School