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Platonic love
Platonic love, in its modern popular sense, is a non-sexual
affectionate relationship.[1]
A simple example of Platonic relationships is a deep, non-sexual
friendship, not subject to gender pairings and not excluding close
relatives.
At the same time, this interpretation is a misunderstanding of the
nature of the
Platonic ideal of
love which from its origin was that of
a
chaste but deep love. In its original
Platonic form, this love was meant to bring the two people closer to
wisdom and the Platonic
Form of Beauty. It is described in
depth in Plato's
Phaedrus and
Symposium. In the Phaedrus,
it is said to be a form of divine madness that is a gift from the gods,
and that its proper expression is rewarded by the gods in the afterlife;
in the Symposium, the method by which love takes one to the form
of beauty and wisdom is detailed.
Amor Platonicus
The term amor platonicus was coined as early as the
15th century by the
Florentine scholar
Marsilio Ficino as a synonym for
amor socraticus. Platonic love in
this original sense of the term is examined in Plato's dialogue the
Symposium, which has as its topic
the subject of love or
Eros generally. Of particular
importance there are the ideas attributed to the prophetess
Diotima, which present love as a means
of ascent to contemplation of the Divine. For Diotima, and for Plato
generally, the most correct use of love of other human beings is to
direct ones mind to love of Divinity. In short, with genuine Platonic
love, the beautiful or lovely other person inspires the mind and the
soul and directs ones attention to spiritual things. One proceeds from
recognition on another's beauty, to appreciation of Beauty as it exists
apart from any individual, to consideration of Divinity, the source of
Beauty, to love of Divinity. The spiritual ideas of Platonic love -- as
well as the fundamental spiritual emphasis of all of Plato's writings --
has been de-emphasised over the last two centuries.
Some modern (and ancient) writers overemphasize Socrates'
affectionate feelings towards male pupils in Plato's dialogues.
Actually, Plato emphasized chastity in the case of homoerotic
attraction, but suggested that recognition of beauty in a person of the
same sex may still serve the aim of inspiration. Indeed, in some ways
homoerotic attraction may have served Plato's illustrative purposes
better than heterosexual love, since in the latter case issues of
procreation complicate the picture.
The English term dates back as far as Sir
William Davenant's Platonic Lovers
(1636).
It is derived from the concept in Plato's
Symposium of the love of the idea
of good which lies at the root of all virtue and truth. For a brief
period, Platonic love was a fashionable subject at the English royal
court, especially in the circle around Queen
Henrietta Maria, the wife of King
Charles I. Platonic love was the theme
of some of the courtly
masques performed in the
Caroline era—though the fashion soon
waned under pressures of social and political change.
Paradox
Ironically, the very
eponym of this love,
Plato, as well as the forementioned
Socrates, lived in a period where
homosexuality was central to the "Greek history and warfare, politics,
art, literature and learning, in short to the Greek miracle"[2][3].
The concept of Platonic love arose in Plato's early writings such as
Symposium and
Phaedrus, within the context of the
debate pitting mundane sexually expressed homosexuality against the
philosophic – or chaste – homoeroticism[4].
Specifically, in
Symposium,
Alcibiades attempts to seduce
Socrates, but Socrates rebuffs this
pursuit and responds that if he does have this power to make Alcibiades
a better man inside of him, why would he exchange his true beauty (i.e.
the intellectual realm) for the image of beauty (i.e. the physical
beauty) that Alcibiades would provide. However, Plato's opinions in the
late period of his life are reflected in the last dialogue,
Laws, where he condemns homosexuality
as "unnatural"[3][4].
According to Linda Rapp, Ficino, by Platonic love, meant "...a
relationship that included both the physical and the spiritual. Thus,
Ficino's view is that love is the desire for beauty, which is the image
of the divine."[5]
Because of the common modern definition, Platonic love can be seen as
paradoxical in light of these philosophers' life experiences and
teachings. Plato and his peers did not teach that a man's relationship
with a youth should lack an
erotic dimension, but rather that the
longing for the beauty of the boy is a foundation of the friendship and
love between those two. However, having acknowledged that the man's
erotic desire for the youth magnetizes and energizes the relationship,
they countered that it is wiser for this eros to not be sexually
expressed, but instead be redirected into the intellectual and emotional
spheres.
To resolve this confusion, French scholars found it helpful to
distinguish between amour platonique (the concept of non-sexual
love) and amour platonicien (love according to Plato). When the
term "Platonic love" is used today, it generally does not describe this
aspect of Plato's views of love. The understanding that Platonic love
could be interpreted as masculine eros is alleged by some
socio-historical critics to be linked with the
social construction of a homosexual
identity[citation
needed].
References
^ "Platonic
love". Dictionary.com. Retrieved on
2007-11-09.
^ W.A.
Percy, III, "Reconsiderations about Greek Homosexualities," in
Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical
Tradition of the West, ed. B. C. Verstraete and V. Provencal,
Harrington Park Press, 2005, pp.47-48
^
a b
Homosexuality (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
^
a b
Plato on Friendship and Eros (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
^
"Linda Rapp in glbtq"
External links
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