Berkeley Undergraduate Journal of Classics

The purpose of this paper is to examine the conception of the body and its relationship to desire articulated by Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium. The paper begins by analyzing the progress of Aristophanes creation myth and determining the role of the body as origin, hindrance, and aid of love. Then the paper compares the account of Aristophanes to the experience of Alcibiades. Lastly the paper compares the account to the one put forward by Plato's Socrates via Diotima. Through this multi-step analysis, we reconstruct a unique conception of the body not found in other works by Plato and come to better understand the role of the body in Plato's account of desire as a whole.