"Eros" and poetry in "Phaedrus", "Symposium" and "Republic": the platonic re-elaboration of poetic grounds for reality and desire

Abstract

The work attempts to accounts for the bond between the different platonic conceptions of Eros and poetry, stemming from the poetic legacy of the 5th Century. It analyses the progression of each concept, and each concept’s correlation with philosophy in Phaedrus, Symposium and Republic. This process of distillation of Eros made by poetry, is related to the philosophical Eros developed in Phaedrus, whose incompatibility is only suggested in the Symposium, but becomes explicit and taxative in the Republic. All of this aims to show to what extent Plato’s thinking takes on the preceding poetic legacy, and explains that this process responds, in all of its stages, to a single objective: bringing to life the ultimate poetic longing. That is, the creation of an intermediate space where the irreconcilable duality of human aspirations can be reconciled. Thus, the platonic city is posited as a non-utopian material possibility, a space in which reality and desire are harmonically integrated.