Session 11 Discussion

• Contrast the view of love offered in Socrates’ first speech and that offered in his second speech, his “Palinode to Love.” 
• In the charioteer speech, what is the relationship between the love of beauty and the love of wisdom?  Discuss this question in light of one of the following passages at 248d, 250d, or 256aff. 

• In Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, the writer Gustav von Aschenbach twice uses Plato’s Phaedrus (and the character Phaedrus) to meditate on the effect Tadzio has on him. What is the central difference between these two extended passages?  Why does Aschenbach change his stance towards the Phaedrus?
• Did Aschenbach have any control over his own demise?  Did Francis in Exotica?  Did Ted and Susan have control over their falling in love in Dubus’ story?    
• When Aschenbach first sees Tadzio, what is the significance of comparing Tadzio with the Greco-Roman statue “Boy with Thorn” (right)?

Boy with Thorn, or Lo Spinario; from the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini in Rome. Image courtesy of Sixtus.