I understand and respect the historicist position from which you speak,
Professor Willett. Your response concerning Diotima's historicity brings up
another question which has been implicit in the preceding discussion. Is
philosophy, certainly in its Socratic form, not a form of poetry? More
pertinent perhaps for this list, is not poetry a form of philosophy, a
reflection on the psyche, and hence on passion? From this perspective, it
is immaterial whether ot not Diotima was a historical figure.
I have a couple of other questions, pertinent, I think, to a discussion of
Renaissance poetry, which we all agree, looked to the ancients and repeted
their thinking with a difference. Why, from your position, would Plato want
to avoid the appearance of constructing a philosophical argument that has
its roots in homosexual attraction? Do you believe Renaissance poets, such
as Spenser or Barnfield, would have wished to avoid such appearance when
they related to the ancients?
I am familiar with the conventional interpretation of the *Symposium* you
offer, and with Schlegel's. But the text, like Spenser's, seduces
(inevitably) down different paths. Lacan, who I believe analyzes it with no
less philological accuracy than Schlegel, comes to different conclusions
regarding the relationship of "erasths" and "eromenos" (and incientally,
the rhetorical category of the erotema, or question) in his *Seminar V*.
Are you familiar with his philological interpretation? If so, on what
grounds do you dismiss it?
When I spoke of seduction in relation to the *Symposium*, I was thinking of
the passage about teaching as the planting of the seed of beauty in the
soul of an other. That is part of seduction as I understand it. It is what
poetry (including in teh form ofn Socratic dialogue) does to me. It is what
I try to do when I teach this poetry to my students. I thought Professor
Miller's comment about flourishing secrecy reflected similar thinking, and
appreciated that. Professor Miller's comment, and my ensuing thoughts on
the *Symposium* led me to think of the phonic connections, in my mother
tongue, between the verbs "to teach" and "to inseminate."
A no-ledge that lies in the soul, inviting passionate and poetic reflection.
best,
Dr. Shirley Sharon-Zisser
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