Background
Plato’s dialogue moves from comic performance to philosophical inquiry, making love at once a bodily desire, a social practice, and a pursuit of the beautiful.
Reading notes
- Compare each speaker’s definition of love.
- Notice how the frame and interruptions shape the conversation.
- Follow Diotima’s account as a progression rather than a single definition.
Version note
English text: Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg eBook 1600. The supplied anthology extraction was incomplete and has been replaced with this public-domain English edition.