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The Symposium (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

~ (Author), Christopher Gill (Editor, Translator, Introduction) "APOLLODORUS: In fact, I'm well prepared to answer your question.1..." (more)
Key Phrases: interpersonal love, philosophical search

4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A brilliant translation that gives new life to a classic. The introduction alone is worth the price of the text. Waterfield brings grace and style to the Symposium, brushing away the dust that pollutes the inferior, dead translations of the past."--William McTaggart, Westminster College
"The translation is quite good, remaining faithful to the original while flowing smoothly for the modern reader."--Ancient Philosophy
"Waterfield's translation is scholarly, yet in touch with the ZEITGEIST. More accessible than its predecessors, students will benefit from the refreshingly new tone of the introduction and translation. The notes and the index of names also add a fresh level of usefulness and a measure of charm."--Elf S. Raymond, Sarah Lawrence College
"Great. Superb notes. Informative but not pedantic."--Professor John R. Lenz, Drew University
"[The] introductory material is lucid and well-chosen."--Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"I like full Intro., marginal ref. numbers, excellent notes, size, and comfortable binding."--Madonna R. Adams, Pace University
"Waterfield's editions in the World's Classics series are superlative. Lucidly translated, his notes of explanation are, additionally, useful both to novice and to scholar."--Verna V. Gehring, Hood College
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Description

In this text Plato uses a dinner party as a scene for a series of speeches by the guests. From these there emerges a complete and complex philosophy of love. The pivot of the argument is Socrates' speech in which sensuality is transcended and we move from the sensible world to the ideal world. Just as the preceding speeches are vital to the theme and scheme of progression, so to is the character sketch of Socrates by Alcibiades which rounds off the dialogue.

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Product Details

Paperback: 144 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics (October 1, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0140446168
ISBN-13: 978-0140446166
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 4 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #926,784 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Plato

Robin Waterfield

Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
APOLLODORUS: In fact, I'm well prepared to answer your question.1 Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
interpersonal love, philosophical search

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 97 books:

Philosophy of Socrates: A Collection of Critical Essays (Modern Studies in Philosophy) by Gregory Vlastos in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Conversations of Socrates (Penguin Classics) by Xenophon in Front Matter, and Back Matter
Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy, and Philosophy: The Self in Dialogue by Christopher Gill in Front Matter, and Back Matter
in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Early Socratic Dialogues: Ion; Laches; Lysis; Charmides; Hippias Major; Hippias Minor; Euthydemus (Penguin Classics) by Plato in Front Matter, and Back Matter

See all 97 books this book cites

45 books cite this book:

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Volume XXXI: Winter 2006 (v. 31) by David Sedley on 4 pages
Dialogue and Deviance: Male-Male Desire in the Dialogue Genre (Plato to the Middle Ages, Plato to the Enlightenment, Plato to the Postmodern) by Robert S. Sturges in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
Sex and Social Justice by Martha C. Nussbaum in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Sex and Social Justice by Martha C. Nussbaum in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
The Greeks and Us: Essays in Honor of Arthur W. H. Adkins by Robert B. Louden on page 206, and page 207

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Customer Reviews

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4.9 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Symposium in Greek, March 21, 2000

By	J. C. Woods "silvannus" (Malden, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: Plato: Symposium (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics) (Greek Edition) (Paperback)

There are three good commentaries I know of on the Symposium. There is Rosen's, whose virtue is scholarly depth. Allen's, which unlike Rosen's, is good as an introduction and for those who simply want to enjoy the Symposium without getting entangled in scholarship. Finally there is this one, whose primary virtue is as a commentary of the Greek. This book, unlike Allen's, contains no English translation. If you want to read Symposium in Greek and need help or if you want to look up various terms in Greek, this is the book for you. If, on the other hand, you don't read Greek, or are uninterested in Greek there is a high likelihood you will be disappointed by this book.

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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Socrates on the Nature of Love, Over Drinks, November 26, 1999

By	Quintus Rex "Quintus Rex" (Princeton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This is perhaps the most enjoyable of Plato's dialogues, and one of the most enduring.

Plato imagines his mentor Socrates, the comic playwright Aristophanes, and other Athenian luminaries of the Golden Age met for a dinner party and a night of discussion on the nature of love. The various guests present their positions in manners ranging from thoughtful to hilarious, but all of this is but an appetizer for the main course: Socrates' concept of Eros as the fuel for the soul's ascent to the Divine, as revealed in Socrates' reminiscence of his own mentor, Diotima, the woman of Mantinea. At the end, a drunken Alcibiades breaks in upon the festivities to reveal Socrates as an avatar of the very divine Eros which he praises.

Robin Waterfield's Oxford translation is one of the best. He captures each speaker's individual idiom, a major translational feat in itself. That he is able to do so and also render the text into lucid modern English is a further coup. The Oxford edition also includes an extensive introduction, very helpful notes, and a complete bibliography.

The Symposium is great philosophy, great literature, an intimate peek at the social life of one of western civilization's formative eras, a work of spiritual inspiration and transformation, and, not least, a wonderful read. Most highly recommended!

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24 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Wit and Wisdom of Love, November 10, 2000

By	Melvin Pena (Evanston, IL United States) - See all my reviews

Plato's "Symposium" will always be read because there will always be people who question the nature of Love. Agathon's dinner party is the scene of a conversation between a small group of men, who go around the table offering their views on Love. What does Love mean to us to-day? Reading over the responses of the dinner-guests and their host, we find the same range of answers in Ancient Greece that we are likely to find now.

Phaedrus and Pausanias are utilitarians and materialists. Phaedrus looks at love between people and a proto-Burkean love for government and state. Pausanias complicates the argument, saying that there are two different kinds of love, one which is common and one which is heavenly - yet still oriented towards the real and the tangible. Eryximachus is a proto-Swedenborg, trying to reconcile or harmonize the two kinds of love.

The jewels of Plato's "Symposium" are Aristophanes and Socrates. Aristophanes gives us the profoundly moving depiction of Love as a fundamental human need, a desire for completion. For a writer of comedy, whose aim as an art form is forgiveness and acceptance, Aristophanes's explanation is no surprise, though its depth is amazing. While women are generally discounted throughout the "Symposium," not only does Socrates, as we might expect, completely astound his audience (both inside the book and out) with his progressively logical and ascendant view of Love, but he also does it through the voice of a woman, Diotima. When we realize that Socrates is a character in this fiction, and that his words originate in a woman, the egalitarianism and wisdom of Plato the author truly shines forth, like the absolute beauty he claims as the ultimate goal of Love.

Was Plato a feminist? I don't know. I do know that the "Symposium" is a tremendous book. I picked it up and did not stop reading it until I was finished. The style of the Penguin translation is smooth, with a lighthearted tone that can make you forget that you are reading philosophy. Plato's comedic masterpiece in the "Symposium" is the character of Alcibiades, who provides the work a fitting end. Get the "Symposium" and read it now. You cannot help but Love it...in a Platonic sort of way.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars passionately rational loving
The Symposium of Plato is a profoundly thought-provoking, entertaining and inspiring piece of philosophical writing. Read more

Published on October 20, 2005 by peter d pipinis

5.0 out of 5 stars Love, Grecian Style
.
Plato's "Symposium" is the story of Agathon's dinner party where conversation takes place with a small group of men, who recline, eat and drink around a table offering their... Read more

Published on February 13, 2004 by R. Schwartz

5.0 out of 5 stars One of those works that will be read forever, hopefully...
Perhaps the most "literary" of all Plato's works, "Symposium" is the story of a dinner party gathering of great (and a few not so great) minds, whom engage in a discussion in... Read more

Published on September 10, 2002 by Rachel Williams

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Plato's materpieces
Enthralling, entertaining, educational, and thought-provoking, "The Symposium" is one of Plato's classics. Read more

Published on May 6, 2002 by Azra Mandzuka

5.0 out of 5 stars Rave On, Plato!
Who's to say that people haven't been having awesome all-night parties for thousands and thousands of years? Read more

Published on September 13, 2000 by pittsburgh_scene

4.0 out of 5 stars Cut Your Teeth On This One
A special mood is induced by reading Plato, the product of an elite society whose ideal was leisurely contemplation. Read more

Published on July 24, 2000 by Captain Cook

5.0 out of 5 stars It gets better with age
The Symposium is a treatise of love, but it is hardly a romantic or idealistic work. Instead, it is metaphisical and transcendent in nature. Read more

Published on June 14, 2000 by C. Colt

5.0 out of 5 stars An abosolute masterpiece among western philosophy
The symposium is Plato's famous dialogue on love. He brings together some of the greatest minds of Athens and together they debate the nature of Eros, the parentage of Love, and... Read more

Published on May 1, 2000 by wills37

5.0 out of 5 stars symbolism at its finest
The Symposium offers the reader a book chock full of symbolism. Because of its short length, it is a book that must be read in one sitting. Read more

Published on July 24, 1998

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