Instead of acting like I know everything about what I just read, all I feel that I can do is talk about the text in terms of what I see, and my interpretation of the story.
This story is filled with themes of:
- love
- debate
- speech
- writing
- madness
- writing
As far as love goes, I feel that the message here is that love means madness, and clear thinking can be achieved only by the non-lover. But Socrates disagrees with this ideal and this is where the theme of debate is introduced.
Side note: Does anyone else feel like they are entering a weird parallel universe where everyone is all: "Lets write about rhetoric while using rhetoric and while we are writing about the rhetoric we use we are going to criticize our views of rhetoric but at the same time we are going to make our view of rhetoric stronger when we criticize them but we aren't going to tell you we are doing that, you will just feel that way for yourselves when you read this and if you don't then all of this will go way over your head?...Because I do.
Anyways, I thought this text was interesting because it seemed as though it followed the structure of a traditional debate with it's concessions to the opposing view, the respect for the opponent's view which displays ethics, supporting facts, personal testimony, background to the issue, and a clear basis for argument. These are things I can identify with! Alas!
Another big theme I noticed was speech and it seems as though in this genre, and in this time period if you have something of importance to say that may influence others it is almost a crime not to say it. Displaying these thoughts in speech is of insane importance. I also think that Socrates suggests clams that writing is not as influential as speech because in writing there isn't anyone driving like there is in speech, this is so interesting to me personally as someone who is a writing major but really just dreams of speaking. So to this I say HELL YEAH! But then it makes me wonder, what do others think? Do my fellow classmates feel that writing is more or less powerful than speech?
The next point that I kind of picked up and kind of didn't understand was madness, I feel that the point was being made about madness is that there are many parallels of madness that effect people in different ways and, like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. But I developed my own thoughts connecting Socrates with writing and madness. In the first speech I noticed that his style was similar to taht of "spewing" which is a writing technique that we discuss often and it entails putting down on the page whatever comes to mind, which in its self seems to be a form of madness.
So even though I don't think I've even come close to an understanding or a correct understanding of this texts, I took away some lessons and ideas to chew on that make sense to me! That's all I could ask for and I am excited to talk about the text in class to further understand.
Spewing is a great way to describe how Socrates seems to have written his first speech. I could imagine is madness coming out through his writing, grabbing papers franticly, “spewing” thoughts on to the pages, writing so franticly because he was afraid the ideas would escape him. That is what I see as madness, however I am not referring to madness in a bad way. I could see Socrates as more of a mad genius.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I feel like I am spewing ideas down on paper, hoping that I can fully capture them before my mind has moved on and they have disappeared forever. But that is when I find myself most passionate about what I am writing. It is possible that Socrates became passionate about a topic and that drove him to the madness and spewing that we are referring to.
I agree, this text was challenging for me to follow as well. I was so glad when I saw your side note about the writers, writing rhetoric while they discussed rhetoric and criticized their views, and how it was over your head. Because I completely felt as if it was over my head and they were just gonging circles about the same points. To tell you the truth I found it somewhat frustrating.
The parts of the text that were hard for me to understand, were the actual speeches themselves, and not necessarily the dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus. However, I did get just about the same message as you. Lysias favored the non-lover because the lover was mad. Socrates favored the lover because he thought that the madness of love was actually a divine gift. His arguments for this, however, were extremely mind-boggling, and I had no idea what he was talking about.
ReplyDeleteI do feel that is very confusing and ambiguous, that the authors write about rhetoric while using rhetoric. I feel like this will all make more sense as we get deeper into the book.
I liked what you had to say about speeches and writing, and how they relate to each other. I think that there are different techniques to use when you are speaking, as opposed to writing. For instance, simpler language should be used when you are making a speech, so that it is easier understood by the audience, because they do not have the power to go back and re-read. But there is a power in writing, because you can play with complexity and be a smarty-pants, and it works because your reader can re-read as many times as they need to. You can add hidden meaning into your works, and make the reader search for it. This is not as possible with speeches.