I always like surrounded by books and magazines. However, I am the type of person who instead of finishing them just drools over the fact that there is so much to read and learn from it and therefore whenever I get bored I switch to another, in the process of delaying in complete any of them. But my love for them never fades.
Why am I writing this? This is to declare that finally, I have read in its entirety the book that I chose more than 2 months ago: Phaedrus.
Why Phaedrus?
Originally, I chose this from the Book Fair, which is held every year in Pragati Maidan, Delhi. I’ve heard a lot about Plato. So, I decided to meet him from my first-hand experience. I read the back cover and the topic of conversation was love, or should I be more specific, homoerotic love.
In modern times, when LGBTQ remains a secret affair for fear of facing hatred, discrimination, oppression, and objection even in a progressive state, I was drawn to the fact that there was a time when philosophers had not only talked about it, but we had a discussion about whether “love” is good or bad. It piqued my interest.
The book invited me to a rhetorical moment, and I was inside; know their opinion, their opinions and traditions about much of what has always been taboo.
Reading Phaedrus – A Review
Phaedrus is the eponymous speaker of the book. Writing about it is as difficult as reviewing his speeches. It is confusing and liberating at the same time. Although the opening pages explain what’s inside, the real imagination begins to build only after immersing yourself in your actual conversation.
On his way for a walk outside the city walls, Phaedrus encountered Socrates and lured him to join his company under the pretext of Socrates’ love of speech rather than speech. He told her that he had just come out listening to Lysias’s speech on the subject of love where he argues that a boy should offer his favors and services to a non-lover rather than a lover. Then seriously ask to know their opinion.
Socrates, being Socrates, drew a sketch of the person Phaedrus is and her affection for him. As the process of legitimacy between them occurs, it carries the characteristic behavior of both personalities, giving an impression of how well they know each other. After shedding his demeanor, Phaedrus revealed the speech in possession and decided to read it under a tree by the river Ilissus.
Speech I: The first speech was from Lysia where she remarked on the madness that love brought with it and forced a man to lose his sanity in the process. A loved one overlooks the irrational behavior of the lover and the damage it can cause in his life if he does (what he does). However, when he finished, he regained his sanity and realizes the loss he caused himself and then blames and curses him over and over again. Also, people are sure to discover their love and it will soon become the talk of the town, whereas this is not the case when they are not lovers. To avoid chaos and clamor, it is in the beloved’s self-interest to favor a non-lover over a lover.
Interlude: Phaedrus was in awe of Lysias’s speech and believed that he could not improve as the speech is well composed and he had no room to add more. He relied on the wisdom of Socrates, who saw directly the loose formation and the gaps, affirming the incompetence of Lysias to add novelty to his speech and give the same meaning with a different flavor. Phaedrus challenged Socrates to compile a better speech, which he timidly refuses. Seeing his reticent behavior, Phaedrus threatens him, first by force and then by his oath never to engage in future speeches.
Discourse II: Socrates made a revealing revelation that the non-lover is, in fact, the lover of the child in disguise who did not want to bear the consequences of love and is therefore trying to convince the child of what he is like. for your benefit to please a non-lover than a lover. Thus, killing two birds with one stone. As he continued, he presented a rhetorically correct form of speech, in the process of renewing each structure of Lysias’s speech and what he meant by it.
Interlude: Shortly after explaining the non-lover’s point of view, Socrates abruptly ends the speech. He then goes on to tell Phaedrus how he made a mistake in handing it over and desecrated against the goddess of love, Aphrodite. He got carried away without much thought, and if it weren’t for him, he would never have made such a horrible speech. Socrates wanted to leave the place, but he did not, since he felt the responsibility to purify the two previous speeches and this time nothing but the truth.
Speech III: The speech begins in favor of ‘madness’, severely criticized in the first two speeches as a secondary effect of love; that ‘Some of our greatest blessings come from madness’ and if it were pure evil, this would not be the case.
It affirms four types of insanity that led people to transmit divine truth or inspire music and poetry or purify them from evils and evils. The fourth type of insanity is love.
The focus shifted from eros as the central theme in the two previous speeches to myth in the last one, in which he discussed the nature of the soul, both human and divine, and how the soul gains and loses its wings with reference to the Greek god. and goddesses and mythical creatures.
My analysis
Understanding Phaedrus is an amazing exercise. At first it seemed smooth, as their conversation readied and we got to know how well they are aware of the ability of others and are good at reading minds, especially Socrates. It also portrays an image of how close they are, the flash of what we find in the way Socrates distinguishes a character from Phaedrus and he, in return, prompts him to engage in conversation, respect his declamation, and even more so not hesitated to threaten. him to open up on the subject. There is a sense of mutual respect and admiration for each other.
In the first speech, I was able to relate to the reasons Lysia had given against falling in love: irrational nature, blind love, overprotective behavior, losing her sanity, and then smearing each other when they broke up. In addition, the attention that she loves brings with it to the eyes of society, the moral code and the stigma attached to it. And when in the next one, Socrates made an extension of his speech, it started to make more sense. Until that moment, everything was clear in my head after having gone through it many times, when out of nowhere he realized that it was crazy. What madness? There must be a reason, and there was one.
As he progressed through reading his redemption speech, it refused to make sense. Mainly, for two reasons:
1. Now that the shift has passed from eros to mythos, great precision was required to understand the whole issue of spirituality from ‘movement of a soul’ to ‘divine being’ to ‘reincarnation’. Even if you read it again, the basic consciousness of the speaking subject demands to be known beforehand.
2. Talking about love, wisdom, madness, soul, declamation, is much more philosophical than I expected. Maybe another time!
This book has given me a serious “food for thought” and a message: “Don’t judge a book by its thickness.”