Symposium - AIC

Harold Tarrant
the arrival of Aristophanes.
Some Possible Conclusions:
• Varieties of diction in the Symposium are intended to be noticed by Plato’s audience; they are
used partly as a means of controlling our expectations, and, where these prove false, of increasing our
perplexity;
• Diotima’s diction, perhaps recognizably female, varied, and ultimately weighty, creates an
atmosphere designed to challenge our expectations of a female voice;
• Phaedrus’ diction is modelled on that of the orators on whom he doted, and undermines any
seriousness behind the speech;
• Intermediate speeches are seemingly all examples of a type of speech associated by later
Platonists with a serious message and elevated subject matter;
• Agathon’s speech seems intended to sound technical rather than inspired, and so the
audience’s confidence is ready to be undermined by Socrates’ challenge;
• Aristophanes’ speech is the one that most resembles myth, and hence is the most likely of the
early speeches to conceal a weightier message below the surface;
• There is little in either the text or the stylistic results to discourage the idea of a general
increase in depth from Phaedrus to Diotima that nevertheless bypasses Agathon.
• There is little difference in level of ‘richness’ or ‘weightiness’ between the speeches of
Eryximachus and Aristophanes, and combined with the hiccough device that has the two speak out of
order, there is once again an ambiguity that encourages one to ponder which is the proper order of
speeches.
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