Framing In Plato's Symposium

Plato’s Symposium begins with Apollodorus relating the events of the dinner to an unnamed friend. The seemingly unnecessary framing of the gathering actually creates a distance between the gathering and its retelling, sets up the later frame of Socrates and Diotima by the layers of reporting, and the movement of the characters involved further explores the themes discussed in Diotima’s speech to Socrates. Altogether, Apollodorus’s initial scene sets up ideas explored later on in the symposium itself. This imitation is necessary to the Symposium overall because it shows how the concepts discussed within the gathering can be applied to life. Allowing Apollodorus to start the dialogue forces distance between Apollodorus as the narrator and

The central event, Diotima’s talk with Socrates, is related because of the nature of the symposium. The gathering itself frames the talk, and the gathering in turn is framed by Apollodorus as the narrator, and his friend who wants to hear about it. The framing also explores the movement of characters, specifically their walking. Apollodorus tells his friend that he met up with Glaucon while on the road to Athens. Aristodemus meets Socrates, who has just bathed and is wearing shoes, something he supposedly did not do often (174a4). Socrates invites Aristodemus to walk with him to Agathon’s feast. Much later in the story, a drunk Alcibiades arrives, interrupting the calm discussion. The final sentence says that Socrates ἀπιέναι, went out, walking away from the rest of the characters who are all asleep (223d9). In each of these examples, walking to or away from something or someone is a focal point. While the symposium is occurring, there is very little movement recorded, which suggests that movement itself is also used as a framing device, along with Apollodorus’s prologue. Hornsby connects the physical movement to the purpose of the dialogue, saying that the description is not only “a detail to create an illusion of reality, but also a significant gesture which illuminates the whole concept of love and Plato's intention in the dialogue” (Hornsby, 38). Hornsby continues to say that the movement relates to Diotima’s speech, which tells Socrates that Beauty is obtained through traveling along an upward path which has many stages (Hornsby, 38). Diotima uses the image of moving upward on a path to allow Socrates to understand how Eros helps people travel toward the