THE EROS OF POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY: TECHNĒ ERŌTIKĒ IN MAXIMUS OF TYRE, SAPPHO, PLATO, AND LOUISE LABÉ

In his Oration 18, Maximus of Tyre asks whether the lyric poet Sappho and philosopher Socrates share an erotic art. Maximus draws the term ‘erotic art’ from Plato, but there is no clear definition of the erotic art anywhere in Plato. The term is used by Socrates himself just once, in the Phaedrus. Socrates does not define his erotic art, but he does draw an implicit parallel between his fear of losing his sight and his fear of losing his erotic art, by indicating that his palinode (the central long speech of the Phaedrus) will protect both. To claim understanding of the term ‘erotic art’ therefore means to understand it by drawing parallels rather than by exact science. This project argues that the mysteriously undefined quality of Socrates’ erotic art is deeply purposeful.The thesis of this dissertation is that we should be reading the term ‘erotic art’ not as the art of eros but rather as an art that is, itself, erotic. In this sense, Socrates’ reference to his erotic art is not descriptive of his ability to engage erotically with young men, but rather, it describes an art of communicating in a way that preserves a sense of eros—that is, of longing or non-wholeness. The example of Socrates’ non-definition of his erotic art is one particularly powerful example of this type of communication. In the context of all five chapters of this project, the erotic art is inherently about the use of two-fold language, rather than about the perfect erotic alliance between two human beings.