All Formats & Editions

A fascinating discussion on sex, gender, and human instincts, as relevant today as ever

Plato, Allan Bloom wrote, is "the most erotic of philosophers," and his Symposium is one of the greatest works on the nature of love ever written. This new edition brings together the English translation of the renowned Plato scholar and translator, Seth Benardete, with two illuminating... Read Full Overview

In his celebrated masterpiece, Symposium, Plato imagines a high-society dinner-party in Athens in 416 BC. The guests--including the comic poet Aristophanes and Plato's mentor Socrates--each deliver a short speech in praise of love. The sequence of dazzling speeches culminates... Read Full Overview

La narracin se inicia con Apolodoro, que en una conversacin con un amigo rememora una historia que el amigo supone reciente. Apolodoro le comenta que dichos dilogos en los que particip Scrates ocurrieron en otro momento histrico, cuando ellos eran nios.Se inicia el susodicho... Read Full Overview

This is an English translation of Plato account of an important dialogue on the nature of love between Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates and Alcibiades. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original... Read Full Overview

Plato's Symposium is the most literary of all his works and one which all students of classics are likely to want to read whether or not they are studying Plato's philosophy. But the reader does need help in appreciating both the artistry and the arguments, and in comprehending... Read Full Overview

The perfect books for the true book lover, Penguin's Great Ideas series features twelve more groundbreaking works by some of history's most prodigious thinkers. Each volume is beautifully packaged with a unique type-driven design that highlights the bookmaker's art. Offering... Read Full Overview

Bryn Mawr Commentaries provide clear, concise, accurate, and consistent support for students making the transition from introductory and intermediate texts to the direct experience of ancient Greek and Latin literature. They assume that the student will know the basics of grammar... Read Full Overview

Plato's Symposium, written in the early part of the 4th century BC, is set at a drinking party (symposium) attended by some of the leading intellectuals of the day, including Aristophanes, the comic dramatist, Socrates, Plato's mentor, and Alcibiades, the brilliant but (eventually)... Read Full Overview

El banquete

R. E. Allen's superb new translation of Plato's Symposium brings this classic text to life for modern readers. Allen supplements his translation with a commentary that not only enriches our understanding of Plato's philosophy and the world of Greek antiquity but also provides... Read Full Overview

Es uno de los pilares sobre los que se asienta toda la filosof?a de Occidente, gira en torno a Eros, el Amor. Y aqu?, como en el resto de su obra, el influyente pensador revela tambi?n una gran fuerza literaria --y, en particular, dram?tica-- a la hora de sumergirnos en el contexto... Read Full Overview

Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Christopher Gill.

Of all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most perfect in form, and may be truly thought to contain more than any commentator has ever dreamed of; or, as Goethe said of one of his own writings, more than the author himself knew. For in philosophy as in prophecy glimpses... Read Full Overview

The Symposium is a complex piece which is perhaps as widely read as any of Plato's works apart from the Republic. However, the existing standard commentaries in English do not offer much by way of help to any reader except the classicist who knows Greek; and... Read Full Overview