Enrichment Activities in 2009 : All about Love: Stories from Ancient Greece

Brief Description

The drinking party recorded in The Symposium features seven speeches in praise of love, personified by the Greek god and goddess Eros and Aphrodite. As we go through the speeches one by one, we notice that almost each speaker refers to a love story or two about Greek gods, goddesses, and heroes. Meanwhile, the careful reader may notice that underlying all speeches is a tug-of-war between Dionysus and Apollo.

To add to your enjoyment and understanding of The Symposium, we will be happy to run a storytelling session at lunchtime next Monday. You will hear the fascinating myths and legends of both gods and humans, from Aphrodite to Hermes, Orpheus to Alcestis. Some of them may be sad and others may be joyful, but all of them are about Love. We will focus on love stories that might have been in wide circulation in the time of Plato, and have a discussion of the kind of tradition that Plato is writing against in The Symposium.

The storytelling will be aided with images of sculptures and paintings depicting mortals and immortals in Greek myths and legends.

The storytelling will last about an hour, and there will be a discussion afterwards.