Plato’s Phaedrus: A Review
I always like to be surrounded by books and magazines. However, I am the type of person who, instead of finishing them, just drools over the fact that there is so much to read and learn from it, and therefore whenever I get bored, I switch to another one, slowing down the process. to complete any of them. But, my love for them never fades.
Why am I writing this? This is to declare that finally, I have read the entire book that I chose over 2 months ago: Phaedrus.
Why Phaedrus?
Originally, I selected this from the Book Fair, which is held every year at Pragati Maidan, Delhi. I have heard a lot about Plato. So, I decided to get to know him from my first hand experience. I read the back cover and the topic of conversation was love, or should I be more specific, homoerotic love.
In modern times, when LGBTQ remains a secret issue for fear of facing hate, discrimination, oppression, and objection even in a progressive state, I was drawn to the fact that there was a time when philosophers had not only talked about it, but also had a discussion about whether ‘love’ is good or bad. It piqued my interest.
The book invited me to a rhetorical time, and I was inside; know their opinion, thought and traditions about much of what has always been taboo.
Reading Phaedrus – A Review
Phaedrus is the eponymous speaker in the book. Writing about it is as difficult as reading his speeches. He is confusing and liberating at the same time. Although the opening pages explain what’s inside, the actual imagination begins to unfold only after immersing yourself in their actual conversation.
On his way for a walk outside the city walls, Phaedrus met Socrates and lured him into joining his company on the pretense of Socrates’ love of speech about speech. He told her that he had just come from listening to Lysias’s speech on the subject of love, where he argues that a child should offer his favors and services to a non-lover rather than a lover. He then sincerely asks to know his opinion.
Socrates, being Socrates, drew an outline of the person that Phaedrus is and his affection for him. As the process of legilimancy occurs between them, it entails the characteristic behavior of both personalities, giving an impression of how well they know each other. After stripping away from him, Phaedrus revealed the speech in his possession and decided to read it under a tree by the Ilissus River.
Speech I: The first speech was from Lysia, where she commented on the madness that love brought with it and forced a man to lose his sanity in the process. A beloved overlooks the lover’s irrational behavior and the damage he can inflict on his life if he does (which he does). However, when he is done, he comes to his senses and realizes the loss he has caused himself and then blames and curses him over and over again. Also, people are likely to discover love from him and it will soon become the talk of the town, while this is not the case when they are not lovers. To avoid chaos and clamor, it is in the beloved’s own interest to favor the non-lover over the lover.
Interlude: Phaedrus was in awe of Lysias’s speech and believed that he couldn’t improve as the speech is well composed and he had no room to add more. He relied on the wisdom of Socrates, who saw directly the loose formation and the gaps, declaring Lysias incompetent to add novelty to his speech and give the same meaning with a different flavor. Phaedrus challenged Socrates to compile a better speech, to which he sheepishly declines. Seeing his reticent demeanor, Phaedrus threatens him, first by force and then with his oath never to participate in a future speech.
Speech II: Socrates made a revealing revelation that the non-lover is in fact the lover of the boy in disguise who did not want to bear the consequences of love and is therefore trying to convince the boy of what he is like. for the benefit of him pleasing a non-lover than a lover. Thus, killing two birds with one stone. As he continued, he presented a rhetorically correct form of speech, renewing in the process every structure of Lysias’s speech and what he meant by it.
Interlude: Shortly after explaining the non-lover’s point of view, Socrates ends the speech abruptly. He then goes on to tell Phaedrus how he made a mistake in handing it over and defiled it against the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite. She got carried away without thinking it through, and if it wasn’t for him, she would never have made such a horrible speech. Socrates wanted to leave the place, but he did not because he felt the responsibility to purify the two previous speeches and this time only the truth was told.
Speech III: The speech begins in favor of ‘madness’, severely criticized in the first two speeches as a side effect of love; that ‘Some of our greatest blessings come from madness’ and if it were pure evil then this would not be the case.
He sets forth four types of madness that led people to convey divine truth or inspire one to music and poetry or purify them from evils and evils. The fourth type of madness is love.
The focus shifted from eros as the central theme in the two preceding speeches to myth in the last, where he discussed the Nature of the soul, both human and divine and how the soul gains and loses its wings with reference to the Greek god and Goddesses and mythical creatures.
my analysis
Understanding Phaedrus is a mind-boggling exercise. It seemed straightforward at first, as their conversation builds up and we get to know how well they are aware of each other’s ability and how good at reading minds they are, especially Socrates. It also portrays an image of how close they are, a glimpse of which we find in the way in which Socrates distinguishes a character from Phaedrus and, in return, encourages him to start a conversation, respect his declamation and, even more, he did not hesitate to threaten. him to open up on the subject. There is a sense of mutual respect and admiration for each other.
In the first speech, I was able to relate to the reasons Lysia had given against falling in love: irrational nature, blind love, overprotective behavior, losing one’s sanity, and then slandering the other when they broke up. Also, the attention that love brings in the eyes of society, the moral code and the stigma attached to it. And when in the next, Socrates made an extension of his speech, it began to make more sense. Up to this point, everything was clear in my head after going through it many times, when out of the blue he realized it was crazy. What madness? There must be a reason, and he had one.
As he went on to read his redemption speech, he refused to make sense. Mainly for two reasons:
1. Now that the shift has passed from eros to mythos, great precision was required to understand the whole matter of spirituality from ‘the movement of a soul’ to ‘divine being’ to ‘reincarnation’. Even if you read it again, the basic awareness of the subject it talks about demands to be known beforehand.
2. The talk about love, wisdom, madness, soul, declamation: it’s much more philosophical than I expected. Maybe another time!
This book has given me some serious ‘food for thought’ and a message: “Don’t judge a book by its thickness.”
