Handthrown

Grand Piano 1781 France - Louis Bas

Sappho and Plato

Following on from our conversation the other day, I just got hold of Page duBois' Sappho is Burning, and there's a 20-page chapter on "Sappho in the Text of Plato". So watch this space, I guess? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 09:36, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

That’s so interesting about Sappho is Burning and Plato. Having just read again The Symposium it mentions Sappho just once, but in modern works when an author mentions another author I take it as a challenge to try to find out why — there must be a reason — something in the text — some debt the author owes to the cited author. And she is the only one named in that particular citation. The Symposium is such a “boy’s club”, that at times it almost seems to be a spoof: It begins with the men boasting about being hungover for having partied the night before, and saying that they’d therefore better not drink too much, and then it ends with Socrates besting them all by drinking them under the table. The only woman present at the banquet is a flute-girl, a poet of the flute, who is sent away to join the other excluded women. Only then can the serious discussion begin. Which makes me say: Hmm? This tiny little excluding moment that begins a talk of erotic love? It’s almost as though Plato is presenting the flute girl as some kind of "key" as the door opens on The Symposium. And then how does the “speech contest” among the men end? It ends with Socrates reciting a poetic monologue in the voice of a woman — Diotima. He cloaks himself in her words at such length, that if The Symposium were performed as a play a director nowadays would probably have the actor playing Socrates drunk and dressed in drag. The problem is I have no idea what it all means!!!!!!! Thanks so much for the note, I’m very interested.@Caeciliusinhorto: Handthrown (talk) 11:24, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Well, duBois' chapter on Plato and Sappho, it turns out, is mostly about how Plato conspicuously doesn't cite Sappho. So no new paragraph, but I did find what I think is a better way of working in a mention to the allusion in the Phaedrus. [1] Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:32, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto: Well, if Plato doesn’t merit a paragraph of his own in the article, it may be his own fault for being so tight-lipped on the topic. But I like even better the intriguing addition about the Phaedrus that you added. It was nice of you to let me know about it. Thank you. Handthrown (talk) 10:36, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Question about the reference on norm

I tried to verify the reference you added to norm, but I don't see the word "norm" used anywhere on page 141 of Agdestein 2013. Am I missing it, or did you intend to refer to a different page? I intend to rewrite the norm entry to make it more concise and will use Hooper & Whyld as the main reference, so this isn't of critical importance. Quale (talk) 02:35, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

I changed my mind about rewriting the definition. I'm going to leave it alone for the time being. Since we have a main norm article I think we could tighten it up a little, but the norm standalone article isn't great now so probably it should be improved first. Quale (talk) 02:43, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

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