3 h 39 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 3 h 39 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if love is not about what you have, but what you lack?
At a dinner party in Athens, the guests at Agathon’s house set aside heavy drinking for a different pleasure: speeches in praise of Eros. In Plato’s Symposium, a celebration becomes a lively search for love’s meaning. Phaedrus links love with courage, while medicine, comedy and philosophy each offer another way to understand desire.
At the centre stands Socrates, who turns to the teachings of Diotima. What do we want when we love, and where can that longing lead? From the myth of divided human beings to the ladder of beauty, the dialogue asks you to look beyond praise and consider what love is for.
What you’ll discover
- A party of ideas Join Agathon’s guests as a shared evening becomes a contest of views on love.
- Love and courage Consider Phaedrus’s claim that love inspires bravery and brings people great good.
- The search for wholeness Explore the myth of divided human beings and the longing for another half.
- Desire and what is missing Follow Socrates into the question of whether love reaches toward what we lack.
- The ladder of beauty Encounter Diotima’s teaching as Socrates explores the ties between love, desire and beauty.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy humorous arguments and lively talk about big ideas will love this book. It also suits those curious about ancient Greek views of desire, friendship and beauty.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Love makes courage personal
- Love deserves praise for its purpose
- Love brings opposites into balance
- Love longs to become whole
- Desire reveals what we lack
- Love reaches toward what lasts
- Attraction can lead beyond one person
- Socrates gives the teaching a face
- Love joins wanting with making
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Symposium
by Plato
Guests at Agathon's dinner trade wine for speeches on love until a drunken Alcibiades storms in.
Challenging2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What would you say if a room of clever friends asked you to praise love, and only love, with the best words you have? That is the task set at a dinner in Athens, in the house of the tragic poet Agathon, the day after he wins a prize for his first play.
Symposium at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 5 min1 h 35 min fast, 2 h 25 min slow
- Length
- 29,200 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- about 385 BCby Plato
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Love teaches shame and courage
The dialogue opens years later on the road to Athens. A friend asks Apollodorus to retell the speeches given at Agathon's dinner. He repeats what Aristodemus, a barefoot admirer of Socrates, told him.
The night begins oddly. Socrates brings Aristodemus along uninvited, then stops in a neighbor's porch, lost in thought. The physician Eryximachus proposes speeches in praise of Love, going from left to right. Phaedrus starts, because he complains that poets sing of every god but Love.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 13 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2 h 20 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Plato. Symposium. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/symposium.
Plato. (2026). Symposium. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/symposium (Original work published ca. 385 B.C.E.)
Plato. Symposium. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/symposium.
@book{plato2026symposium,
author = {Plato},
title = {Symposium},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/symposium},
note = {First published ca. 385 BCE}
}
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What is Plato's Symposium about?
It is about love. At a dinner in Athens, guests give speeches in praise of Love in turn, and Socrates answers them with a teaching from Diotima that leads from bodily beauty up to beauty itself.
Who is Diotima in the Symposium?
Diotima is a wise woman from Mantinea whom Socrates names as his teacher in the art of love. She explains that Love is a spirit between mortal and divine, born of Poverty and Plenty.
What is the myth of the split humans in the Symposium?
Aristophanes tells it. People were once round, with four arms and legs and two faces, until Zeus cut them in two. Love is the longing of each half to find the other and become whole.
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