Symposium. One of Plato's greatest works, it has been described as the most complete glorification of love. The story unfolds in the house of the young poet Agathon, who has just won the tragic games with his first tragedy. There are distinguished members of Athenian society present. The characters of the dialogue, in addition to Socrates, are Agathon, Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes and Alcibiades, who reaches the end. The speakers are in a pleasant and relaxed mood and decide to praise love. Thus, one by one, they take the floor, weaving the praise of love. Each of the speeches characterizes the one who utters it while at the same time giving a new perspective on the subject.
Socrates speaks last, his speech constituting the core of the Symposium. He recounts a conversation he had with a wise priestess, Diotima of Mantinea. She argues that love seeks beauty and since the good is also beautiful, it also seeks the good. Therefore, it is neither shameful nor evil, but a demon, a spirit that lives between gods and mortals and is between the good and the shameful (ugly), the good and the evil. […]
Phaedrus. This work is related to the Symposium both thematically, since the subject of discussion is again love and beauty, and in that the rhetoric of the orators is contrasted with the dialectic of Socrates. Plato manages to combine this theme with an examination of the psychology of love, ending up describing with the help of myth and allegory the ideas as objects of transcendent emotion and, in fact, of secret vision.
