What Eros truly signifies The word love has several meanings in the English language; one can use it to describe their love for food, family, places, their partner in crime and etc. Unlike English, Ancient Greeks have four ways to describe the meaning of love. Eros which describes the sensual love between a husband and wife, Storge which describes ones love for family, Philia which describes ones love for a friend, and at last Agape the highest form of love an example would be Jesus Christ dying on the cross for all of mankind. All four Loves work together adepend on one another to reach the highest form of love, which is Agape. Eros was usually used to describe or express the sexual love between two people. But Eros is in fact the true love for ones husband or wife, Venus is the sexual side of the relationship. Eros must come before Venus because there is more than just the pleasure in a relationship. Having a sexual relationship is a husbands and wives way to show each other the love they have for one another and the result of that is reproduction. The love of two humans can make another human being that is the significance of Eros. Eros is more than just pleasure it is what both the husband and wife feel for one another and how it can result in such a beautiful thing Eros is very important in a …show more content…
Through Eros, one can build a family as God desired, which is marriage, family and with that unbreakable bond the couple can experience a more profound love which can be Fulfilled through another love and it can be Phileo, Storge, and / or Agape. With a strong marriage, the couple will guide each other closer to God. God gave us the four loves so that we can experience a little bit of the love that is waiting for us in eternity. When we experience Eros or the rest of the loves is when we are closest to
The meaning of love is as intricate and unique as the purpose that it serves. It seems that the nature of love is found in the mind, the body and the soul. In Plato’s Symposium each member of the drinking party gives their own interpretation of love. As each speaker engages in their discourse, the concept of love is evaluated from different angles. According to Phaedrus, homoerotic love is the highest form of love and that sacrificing oneself for love will result in a multitude of rewards from the gods, while Pausanias believes that there are two forms of love: Commonly and Heavenly. As a physician, Eryximachus claims that love appears in every part of the universe, including plants and animals and that protection results from love. Before starting his speech, Aristophanes tells the group that his discussion about love may seem completely absurd, as he explains that in the beginning one body had two people who were eventually split in half by Zeus. This is meant to explain why people are constantly looking for their “other half”. Moreover Agathon, the poet the symposium is celebrating, critiques the previous speakers by stating that they failed to praise the god of love. He claims that love rejects feebleness and embraces youthfulness while also implying that love creates justice, courage and wisdom.
Love is heavily intertwined with being human. Indeed, everyone doubtlessly experiences some form of love in their life, be it towards objects or people. This love is organized into three types; eros, philos, and agape. Eros, likely the most common kind of love in western culture, denotes sexual desire, or lust. Philos covers love among friends, or love for the purpose to gain something. Agape, the rarest of all, encapsulates selfless love, or the willingness to die for another. All forms are present within the three works, Voltaire’s Candide, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, albeit in differing levels.
When Eros comes to mind, one imagines a couple falling in love and growing old together; one could even imagine a man looking at a woman with lust. While Eros is a love between a man and a woman, it involves much more than lust and the event of falling "in love". Gatsby, a character in "The Great Gatsby", forms a love that is equal to Eros. He does this through desiring only one woman and by unfortunately making Eros a god in his life.
the time of Socrates and Plato. To them love was eros, a direct translation of
Eros, defined as an intimate, romantic love, is often what comes to mind when one speaks of
Love by definition is an emotion explored in philosophy, religion, and literature, often as either romantic love, the fraternal love of others, or the love of God based on the definition found in The Encarta Encyclopedia. As I explored the definition by means of the Internet, books, and articles I noticed the definitions changed quite a bit, but yet had the same basic understanding. The definition I found in The Encarta Encyclopedia was probably the most simple and most basic. It refers to love in the whole aspect, which is Godly, fraternal, and romantic. All in which can only be defined by one word and that it love.
In the Aeneid, love is depicted as an uncontrollable emotion. Venus and Juno promote the romance between Dido and Aeneas. Dido, the queen of Carthage, begins to fall in love with Aeneas, even though she has vowed to her late husband that she would set her “face against marriage” (Virgil 975). Aeneas falls in love with Dido and remains with her in Carthage, even though he knows that he must continue his travel to Rome. Love is a passion which consumes the soul in spite of its will. It is an “inward fire” (Virgil 976). Juno arranges it so that Dido and Aeneas consummate their love in a cave during a storm. Again, mortals have little or no control over their loves. The gods are the ones who cause people to fall in love.
I have always thought that there was only one type of love, which was that feeling of overwhelming liking to someone else. I am aware that Lust does exist and that it is separate from Love, being that the desire for someone's body rather their mind. In Plato's Symposium, Plato speaks of many different types of love, loves that can be taken as lust as well. He writes about seven different points of view on love coming from the speakers that attend the symposium in honor of Agathon. Although all these men bring up excellent points on their definitions on love, it is a woman that makes the best definition be known. I will concentrate on the difference between the theory of Common and Heavenly love brought up by Pausanias and the important role that Diotima plays in the symposium.
Ultimately, the god aids humans in our quest towards completion; Eros attempts to transform the despondency sewn into people by Zeus into happiness and contentment. Individuals have born into them, an affliction stemming from an overwhelming feeling of longing, and man must try to overcome this affliction by any means necessary. However, it is Eros that is able to truly bring two slices back to a unified whole. By following Eros, not only are we able to be healed from our yearning, but we are also capable of being pious beings while being truly
Aristophanes thinks that a human’s love is clearly “a lack” – a lack of one’s other half- and having no meant to satisfy themselves they begin to die. Zeus, having failed to foresee this difficulty repairs the damage by inventing sexual reproduction (191 b-c). Any “embracements” of men with men or of women with women would of course be sterile – though the participants would at least “have some satiety of their union and a relief,” (191 c) and therefore would be able to carry on the work of the world. Sex, therefore, is at this stage a drive, and the object is defined only as human. Sexual preferences are to emerge only as the human gains experience, enabling them to discover what their “original form” had been.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “love” first appeared in the year 825. Love was first written and pronounced as “lufu” in Old English. It had many different types of meanings, but the first definition that was put down was ‘That disposition or stated feeling with regard to a person which(arising from recognition of attractive qualities, from instincts of natural relationship, or from sympathy) manifests itself in solicitude for the welfare of the object, and usually also in delight in his or her presence and desire for his or her approval; warm affection, attachment,’ (“Love,” 2017, p. 52). According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it means ‘to feel love for, cherish, show love to; delight in, approve’ (Harper, n.d.). Another great definition for the word “love” is ‘an intense feeling of deep affection,’ (“Love,” 2017, p. 56). Though these definitions talk of affection towards an object or person, in history the word “love” has been used in very different ways. In the 1950s, the term “make love” was a euphemism for “have sex”(Harper, n.d.). This term was most utilized by teenagers, using love, instead of lust, as a reason to have sex. On the other hand, the word “love” is used as a term in tennis. At the beginning of every game, the words “love all” are said to signify that both opponents start out with the score of zero. Though it is unclear as to when this began, the most
In Plato’s work Symposium, Phaedrus, Pausania, Eryximachus, Aristophane and Agathon, each of them presents a speech to either praise or definite Love. Phaedrus first points out that Love is the primordial god; Pausanias brings the theme of “virtue” into the discussion and categorizes Love into “good” one or “bad” one; Eryximachus introduces the thought of “moderation’ and thinks that Love governs such fields as medicine and music; Aristophanes draws attention to the origin and purposes of Love; Agathon enunciates that the correct way to present an eulogy is first to praise its nature and gifts. As the last speaker, and the most important one, Socrates connects his ideas with Diotima of Mantinea’s story of Love’s origin, nature and purpose. Different from the earlier five speakers who regard Love as an object and praise different sides of it, Socrates, referring to Diotima’s idea, considers Love as a pursuit of beauty gradually from “physical beauty of people in general” (Symposium, Plato, 55) to the “true beauty” (55).
with some very different views of love as brought to us by Agathon, Phaedrus and
Everyone has their own interpretation of love. They all have their own meaning and understanding. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary the definition of love is, “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties”(Merriam-Webster), the dictionary definition tells us that it is a feeling toward someone you know and have some sort of connection with. However, to each and every person love has a different meaning that relates to how they have experienced love in the past, and what they have seen or heard about love. Regardless of what each person believes love might mean, the science behind it cannot be changed. Understanding the science of love will give it a definite meaning, inform us why we have love, and it can reshape you.
Love is an interpersonal relationship developed, maintained, and possibly destroyed through communication, but also can be enhanced by communication. Love is often described as a feeling of closeness, caring, intimacy and commitment between two people. There are six different types of love: eros, ludus, storge, pragma, mania, and