Clancy Merton The Symposium Summary

The symposium is a book constructed on Plato’s conceptions around the passionate erotic love. To Plato and others during this time love (eros) was known as a god, with such beauty and goodness that others praise and competing for its entity. As a young boy of royalty older men would advertise themselves for a chance at love (eros). This was an opportunity to raise a boy into a man, teaching all the necessary tools needed for adulthood. Some of these roles as a partner included being sexual active. Once the choses his lover he must comply with the elder man, catering to the demands. Plato see’s that everyone has this desire or want to love. He states that since birth we have always been in a continuous search for the thing that satisfy our needs

In his essay about truthfulness, deceit, growth, and of course love Merton enlightens us about how his struggles with telling the truth especially. When love was put in Merton’s face his infidelity would always but an end to his relationships. It would always start with one of his biggest struggles, which always involved his telling a lie. After his second marriage he begins to learn the meaning of honesty. Merton believes that if we are honest about the lies we have built or created in our relationships, then loving shouldn’t be hard. His past experiences has led him to believe that love should be masked by lies that in a sense it should the truth should be a voluntary definition behind love. In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes’ delivers a speech about his experiences of have loved or being in love. Aristophanes’ speech captures how powerful the feeling of love, that since birth love has condition our lives involuntary and will remain so. Love to Aristophanes’ is a form of completion that a lucky couple receives once the meet each other. This completion is empowered by an enormous amount of love, intimacy, and affection that neither bonds can be separated. With out any form of love Aristophanes’ believes that humans are missing out on life, hence why we are constantly longing or missing the company for another