The League Book Club
In keeping with Mr. Kain’s suggestion for more interaction at this party (less sitting in the corner of the room, glumly sipping a whiskey sour) and pivoting off of Mr. Schaengold’s great post about eros and tragedy, I’d like to suggest that we meet up here next Wednesday to discuss Plato’s Symposium.
Several people have suggested the book club idea and my feeling is that it would be best done in tandem with what I’m already doing. I don’t feel comfortable asking everyone to have read all of Thucydides by next week! But I do think that there are plenty of books that would be great fun to read together. So, I’d like to start alternating between texts where I’ll “go it alone”, so to speak, and book discussions. With any luck, publishers will start putting stickers on the books we discuss, like they do for Oprah!
Okay, so the Symposium is a text dealing with love and eros. Plato has two other dialogues on the erotic: Lysis and Phaedrus, which are good too. (I had planned to do all of the Platonic dialogues together, but I think the book club idea is probably better.) An interesting source on courtesans and boy favorites is Athenaeus.
As for translations, I like the Loeb Classical Library edition. As usual, I’d recommend the Penguin Classics edition, mainly for the introductory essay. And Leo Strauss did an interesting study of the Symposium. Online, I’d recommend the Internet Classics Archive “Symposium”. There is also the Project Gutenberg translation. I’d be amazed if there isn’t a version accessible by Google Books.
My plan, to the extent that I have one, is to post discussion questions on Wednesday in lieu of a long post about my own thoughts, and then we could discuss the text together. Ritual wine drinking is optional.
Too highbrow for me! When you get to Tom Sawyer or Treasure Island, I’m all over it!Report
That’s a fair point. I’m hoping that someone here will propose the next selection from more contemporary fare. My problem is I’m really out of touch with good fiction, especially newer stuff.
Maybe one of the Leaguers would like to do the next book?Report
This is a *GREAT* one to start with. (The only other one I’d feel a worthy challenger to start with would be the Lysistrata.)
It’s been a while since I’ve read this (well, excepting Arisophanes’s story… I keep coming back to that one). I look forward to reading it again!Report
I’m wondering if it would be possible to embed a video… I remember a cartoon of that story in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which I’m assuming is on Youtube.Report
I’m in, and I like this idea.Report
Me as well.Report
William & Freddie, glad to hear it!Report
I was with you until this part. No, it isn’t.Report
Well, you’re certainly welcome to do it. I just don’t want to tell people they can’t post comments if they’re sober. Not that it would necessarily be a problem for anyone here.Report
Actually, non-sobriety is problematic for me. I do my posts at the university. (and I dont have drinks at home).
But hey, I’m weirdly conservative that way.Report
Looking forward to it. Haven’t read any Plato since a high-scool trip to Greece about 10 years ago.Report
High School. Which taught me spelling. Yeah.Report
Spelling is overrated. I have great sympathy for Dan Quayle.Report
Rufus,
My collected dialogues is the Bolligen Series edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. My Symposium translation is Michael Joyce’s. Did I buy the wrong collection?Report