Symposium - AIC

I. INTRODUCTION
Tragedy and Comedy at Agathon’s Party:
Two Tetralogies in Plato’s Symposium
Nicholas Riegel
The purpose of this paper is to answer two questions. The first is: Why does the Symposium end as it
does? What is the connection between the ending and the rest of the dialogue? At the end of the
dialogue, when all of Agathon’s guests have either left or drifted off to sleep, we are told that the last
thing Aristodemus remembers seeing is Socrates explaining to Agathon and Aristophanes – a tragic
and a comic poet, respectively – that it belongs to the same person to know how to write both
comedies and tragedies. One might be excused for thinking that the Symposium wasn’t really about
tragedy and comedy, but about love. But it is precisely this apparent lack of connection that raises the
question of what the subject of tragedy and comedy has to do with the rest of the dialogue. The
second major question is: What is the meaning of the argument that it belongs to the same person to
know how to write good tragedies and comedies?
Regarding the first major question, two things strongly suggest that in fact the dialogue does
have quite a bit to do with tragedy and comedy. First there is the number of characters. And second,
there is the dialogue’s many allusions to tragedy and comedy. Anyone who reads the Symposium
must be struck by the sheer number of significant characters. Nowhere else in Plato’s works do so
many characters have significant speaking roles. Usually, it is just Socrates speaking to one or two
other people. In Symposium, no less than seven (I will argue there are eight) characters have
significant speaking roles. And Socrates does not dominate discussion, as he usually does.
The number of significant characters in the dialogue raises the question of the dialogue’s
structure. Scholars have divided the speeches up differently. R. G. Bury divides the speeches into
three acts: The first act consists of the first five speeches, the second consists of Socrates’ speech, and
the third of Alcibiades’. 1 Both G. R. F. Ferrari and Alexander Nehamas would divide “the praises of
eros” into two groups, the first comprising the speeches of Phaedrus, Pausanias, and Eryximachus,
and the second, the speeches of Aristophanes, Agathon, and Socrates. 2 But if we take Diotima’s as
separate speech, and appreciate dialogue’s intimate connection to Greek drama, its structure becomes
immediately clear: there are eight speeches, divided into two tetralogies. And this mirrors the
structure of the festivals of the Great Dionysia in 5 th and 4 th century Athens. At these festivals, tragic
poets competed by presenting three tragedies followed by a satyr play. And here in the Symposium
we have two sets of three serious speeches followed by a humorous speech. In the first tetralogy,
Phaedrus, Pausanias, and Eryximachus present serious or tragic Speeches, and Aristophanes presents
a humorous speech or satyr play. In the second tetralogy, Agathon, Socrates and Diotima present
serious or tragic speeches and Alcibiades presents the humorous speech or satyr play. There can be no
doubt that Plato intends us to take Alcibiades’ speech as a satyr play, because Socrates calls it a satyr
play. At Symposium 222d, Socrates says to Alcibiades: “You think that I should be in love with you
and no one else, while you and no one else, should be in love with Agathon – well, we were not
deceived; we’ve seen through your little satyr play.” 3 But if Alcibiades’ speech constitutes a satyr
play, then it would make sense to take Aristophanes’ speech as a satyr play as well. Thus the
1 Robert Gregg Bury, The Symposium of Plato, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Heffer, 1932). lii.
2 Alcibiades’ speech is apparently a separate issue. Alexander Nehamas, "The Symposium," in Virtues of Authenticity:
Essays on Plato and Socrates (Princeton: Princeton University, 1999), 306; G. R. F. Ferrari, "Platonic Love," in The
Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed. Richard Kraut (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 250. For a review of the
literature on this topic dating from 1932 see Bury, The Symposium. For a more recent review, see Kevin Corrigan and Elena
Glazov-Corrigan, Plato's Dialectic at Play: Argument, Structure, and Myth in the Symposium (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004). Chpt 3. Corrigan and Glazov-Corrigan attempt to show how the first five
speeches (Phaedrus, Pausinaus, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon) are reflected in the ascent to the Form of the
Beautiful in Diotima’s speech. Cf. also Meyer William Isenberg, "The Order of the Discourses in Plato's Symposium" (The
University of Chicago, 1940); John A. Brentlinger, "The Cycle of Becoming in the Symposium," in The Symposium of
Plato, ed. Leonard Baskin (Amherst: 1970).
3 Except where otherwise noted, translations of Plato’s works will be taken from John M. Cooper, ed. Plato: Complete
Works (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997).