If Not Winter Sappho Summary

It is often—in books, poems, paintings, and sculptures—that one hears of and sees the goddess of love. But when is it that one hears of the god? In Greek mythology, Eros is the god of love, and a god who is many times overlooked. In Robert Bridges’ “EPÙÓ” and Anne Stevenson’s “Eros”, the idea that Eros is overlooked is portrayed, but in two separate ways. Techniques such as diction, imagery, and tone are used to help convey the idea.

In fragments 16, Sappho claims that mortals cannot compare to the beauty of Helen. Sappho remains simple and to the point with her description of Helen. Unlike Homer, Sappho claims that the cause of

In Plato’s Symposium, sequential speeches praise the god of Love, but they stray from truth until Diotima’s speech provides a permanent form in which love “neither waxes nor wanes” (Sym. 211A). Through the speeches, love shifts from identifying with the concrete to the abstract, but still ultimately advances goals of present: Phaedrus sees love as helping “men gain virtue,” Aristophanes as only a “promise” to restore humans to their “original nature” and Pausanias and Eryximachus have to use two changing notions of love (Sym. 180B, 193D). In contrast, Diotima relates love as the closest humans can come to immorality, a future goal motivating us to seek completeness and an uninhibited timelessness. She uses this shift to explain love’s

There are different forms of love, ranging from the lust of one another to a familial fondness. Two poets, Sappho and Catullus, each represent a different type of love in their respective poems. Sappho, a female poet born in the early sixth century B.C. on the Greek island of Lesbos, was said to be the tenth Muse and a supreme lyric poet of her time. Her life remains mostly a mystery, but through her poems it has been found out that she had a husband, and a daughter named Cleis. Catullus, a Roman poet that lived from roughly 84 to 54 B.C., found inspiration in and was influenced by Sappho, opting to write about love rather than politics like the rest of the poets of his time. He also popularized the style of “love elegy” in poems. Sappho and Catullus, as seen in “Sleep, Darling” and “If Ever Anyone Anywhere” respectively, use diction, the speaker, figurative language, and imagery in similar and different ways to express varying versions of love.

In calling love “a serious mental disease,” Plato inspired centuries of authors, doctors, and philosophers. Unlike romantic comedy movies and the Top 40 pop songs chart, which idolize love, literature frequently portrays it as a sickness. Both love and mental illness affect brain chemistry, mood, and behavior. In pieces such as Euripides’ Medea, symptoms of love range from mental illness-like ailments to physical manifestations such as a vanishing appetite, concentration, and apparent sanity. In Longus’ work, love is described as having similar traits. Throughout the story of Daphnis and Chloe’s pastoral romance, love drives both of them mad with longing. Love amplifies their innocent feelings for each other, resulting in a disorienting combination of depression and mania. The affliction goes deeper; their total devotion to each other and pastoral

Sappho’s poem, entitled Fragment 16, is of the lyrical style instead of the epic style we are used to in Homer’s Iliad. The lyrical style of poetry got its name because it was usually accompanied by a lyre while it was recited. It also was used to express more emotion rather than telling a story. This form of poetry seems to be more artistic rather than the story telling of epic poetry of the time. In this poem we are able to use the comparison of different imagery to understand a common theme within the poem itself. The reason for the interesting title of the poem is because most of Sappho’s poetry is now only found in fragmented forms. Most of Sappho’s writing is from 600 B.C.E.

Pain can be expressed in both sorrow and anger. Sappho creates great imagery in this fragmented poem by taking pain into natural moving actions. She expresses how her feelings change from hurt to anger and how heavy pain can really be. Sappho uses physical movement to express her emotions in different directions. She also emphasizes how she sees revenge is the ultimate goal in order to recover from that pain.

From the very beginning, the nature of love in She Walks in Beauty is alluded to be captivating. That is that the woman he sees is very attractive or interesting and that she is taking up all of this thoughts and attention. Typically in this time period, the beautiful women were blonde and pale, opposite to this is the woman portrayed in this poem. The comparison to night and day or light and dark, two completely opposite things, shows one really beautiful thing. In the first line the simile “like the night” (Ln 1) established the initial beauty he saw. In addition, the use of the personification in “tender light” (Ln 5) shows that through the woman’s beauty his

Socrates sees love as something that is in between being beautiful and ugly and believes that love is a search for beauty and wisdom. Much like Diotima, Socrates presses Agathon to have him admit that love is not beautiful as it desires beauty, and one does not desire what one already has therefore it is not beautiful. Socrates view contrasts with that of Aristophanes from the benefits of love to the nature of love, as Socrates sees no benefits in something that is not beautiful. Love is seen as primarily a relational property by Socrates that holds between things rather than a desire or a need for another person. Love is not itself beautiful or good or anything specific as much as it is a relation that holds between the beautiful, the good, and those who

with some very different views of love as brought to us by Agathon, Phaedrus and

Plato was a philosopher from Classical Greece and an innovator of dialogue and dialect forms which provide some of the earliest existing analysis ' of political questions from a philosophical perspective. Among some of Plato 's most prevalent works is his dialogue the Symposium, which records the conversation of a dinner party at which Socrates (amongst others) is a guest. Those who talk before Socrates share a tendency to celebrate the instinct of sex and regard love (eros) as a god whose goodness and beauty they compete. However, Socrates sets himself apart from this belief in the fundamental value of sexual love and instead recollects Diotima 's theory of love, suggesting that love is neither beautiful nor good because it is the desire to possess what is beautiful, and that one cannot desire that of which is already possessed. The ultimate/primary objective of love as being related to an absolute form of beauty that is held to be identical to what is good is debated throughout the dialogue, and Diotima expands on this description of love as being a pursuit of beauty (by which one can attain the goal of love) that culminates in an understanding of the form of beauty. The purpose of this paper is to consider the speeches presented (i.e. those of Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon) in Plato 's Symposium as separate parts that assist in an accounting of the definition and purpose of platonic love.

For example, in “Hymn to Aphrodite”, you can sense that Sappho is trying to talk about real human experiences. She also provided fragments of survival in this poem, which allows the reader to escape from reality. “Hymn to Aphrodite”, begins when Aphrodite, the daughter of Zeus is called. In this poem, Aphrodite uses her skills to lure her lover.

In the Symposium on that night, Socrates’ speech is one of the most important of the night as he is clearly a central figure, admired by the other guests. Socrates begins by presenting his argument that if love is nothing, then it is of something, and if it is of something, then it is of something that is desired, and therefore of something that is not already possessed, which is then usually beautiful and good. Human beings begin by loving physical beauty in another person, then progress to love of intellect and from that level to see the connection among people and ultimately, the lover of beauty enjoys a kind of revelation or vision of universal beauty, which we find ourselves in the pursuit of during our own study of Plato’s work. The

In his poem, “But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again”, he focuses on warning women to find love soon because beauty will not last with age. He compares a woman’s beauty to a flower: “the fairest flower that ever saw the light / men do not weigh the stalk for what it was / when they find her flower, her glory, pass” (Daniel 6, 13-14). Through this metaphor, he shows how men view beauty in love. No one looks at a dead flower and thinks about what it used to be, rather, he or she looks towards other flowers that bloom with life and colour. This sonnet begins as an admiration for his subject’s beauty, but it ends by telling the subject that when her physical beauty deteriorates, no one will love her. This poem reflects society’s fixation on superficial beauty because it reminds women that they will never find love without external beauty, as a result of the superficiality of men in society. Both poems of the Renaissance Period assert the idea of perfection and the importance of physical beauty in love and relationships.

The term “Eros,” referring to passionate love in English, has long been the mainstream of themes in drama, literature, arts, and cinematic media. The fascinating power of love has been exhaustively publicized, and the pursuit of love is diffused in streets and lanes. Conversely, in ancient times, many poets, especially Virgil, Ovid and Apuleius, described eros as such an evil spirit that it will destroy the female soul thoroughly, except for the one in Apuleius’ story of Cupid and Psyche. Even if taking into account the historical background of a patriarchal community and therefore the esteemed male dominance, the particular case of Psyche’s surviving and even thriving her encounter with eros