Male homoeroticism in Platos Symposium and the Greek lyric poets: Comp

Male homoeroticism in Platos Symposium and the Greek speech poets Complimentary or contradictory?Works Cited MissingImages of potent homosocial and homoerotic relations pervade Athenian culture. From plays to meter and jugs to the justice system unrivalled can find these relations represented pictorially and in words. further do all these images align with each other or are there irreconcilable differences between them? To look at this question we go out take cardinal small pieces of culture, a philosophical treatise, Platos Symposium and the words poetry of Theognis and Anacreon.Homoerotics are mentioned in several speeches in Platos Symposium but I testament focus on those statements made by Phaedras and Pausanias. The reason for the use of these two sources is to elucidate the numerous representations of homoerotics in Athenian Greece. Phaedras begins by stating that everyone can admit that, the greatest benefit, to my mind, that a young valetkind can come by in his y outh is a virtuous lover, and a virtuous fella is just as good for a lover too. (Plato, 178c) This is a prize that the modern world can easily grasp, a young human being (the object of love) is well served by a virtuous honest-to-god man (erastes) who will honor his superior position and treat the young man well and teach him what he can. In turn, the the erastes is better off with a virtuous boyfriend (eromenos) who will stay loyal to him. After all, the older man is the lover to which Phaedras refers and so a young boyfriend who was not faithful could be quite injurious to the older man?s heart and reputation. So does this image fit with that of the lyric poets?Indeed, Phaedras? representation of male homoerotics aligns quite easily with that of the lyric poets. Theognis speaks often... ...ric poets. Love for boys is a wonderful thing, in particular if both parties are virtuous and loyal. Also, Theognis and Anacreon, likely along with Pausanias, attribute more loyalty to me n than to women, resulting in a deeper commitment to ?relationships.? Phaedras disagrees saying that women can, in fact feel equal loyalty. There is general agreement that a love for boys based purely on beauty is a commonality thing, and not a good one. It leads to having stupid eromenai, which is not desirable. The lyric poets do seem to maintain that while intelligence is important, young boys are sleek over better material for love than older men. Pausanias disagrees, arguing for lifelong homosocial relationships. So while there are a few differences between the lyric poets and these speakers of the Syposium they seem to be based more on choice of modus vivendi than true differences of paradigm.