Book contents
- Reception in the Greco-Roman World
- Cambridge Classical Studies
- Reception in the Greco-Roman World
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Altered States: Cultural Pluralism and Psychosis in Ancient Literary Receptions
- Part I Archaic and Classical Poetics
- Part II Classical Philosophy and Rhetoric, and Their Reception
- Chapter 5 On Coming after Socrates
- Chapter 6 Chimeras of Classicism in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Reception of the Athenian Funeral Orations
- Chapter 7 ‘Our Mind Went to the Platonic Charmides’: The Reception of Plato’s Charmides in Wilde, Cavafy, and Plutarch
- Chapter 8 Naked Apes, Featherless Chickens, and Talking Pigs: Adventures in the Platonic History of Body-hair and Other Human Attributes
- Part III Hellenistic and Roman Poetics
- Part IV Multimedia and Intercultural Receptions in the Second Sophistic and Beyond
- References
- Index
Chapter 7 - ‘Our Mind Went to the Platonic Charmides’: The Reception of Plato’s Charmides in Wilde, Cavafy, and Plutarch
from Part II - Classical Philosophy and Rhetoric, and Their Reception
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2021
- Reception in the Greco-Roman World
- Cambridge Classical Studies
- Reception in the Greco-Roman World
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Altered States: Cultural Pluralism and Psychosis in Ancient Literary Receptions
- Part I Archaic and Classical Poetics
- Part II Classical Philosophy and Rhetoric, and Their Reception
- Chapter 5 On Coming after Socrates
- Chapter 6 Chimeras of Classicism in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Reception of the Athenian Funeral Orations
- Chapter 7 ‘Our Mind Went to the Platonic Charmides’: The Reception of Plato’s Charmides in Wilde, Cavafy, and Plutarch
- Chapter 8 Naked Apes, Featherless Chickens, and Talking Pigs: Adventures in the Platonic History of Body-hair and Other Human Attributes
- Part III Hellenistic and Roman Poetics
- Part IV Multimedia and Intercultural Receptions in the Second Sophistic and Beyond
- References
- Index
Summary
This paper examines three different receptions of Plato’s Charmides – Oscar Wilde’s Charmides, Cavafy’s In a Town of Osroene, and Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades. It focuses on their responses to the erotic and philosophical element in the Charmides. Wilde provides an example of minimal textual engagement: the name Charmides is invoked solely for its connotations of young, male beauty. In Cavafy explicit allusion to ‘the Platonic Charmides’ recasts the poem an expression of homoerotic desire, and endows its group of young men with the prestige of a Platonic gathering and Platonic love. In contrast, Plutarch’s engagement with the Charmides is implicit, and depends entirely on the reader’s ability to recognise a series of detailed verbal echoes. Plutarch denies that Socrates’ motivation was sexual, and integrates allusion to the Charmides into a broader network of allusions to other passages in which Plato describes Socrates’ encounters with beautiful young men, or the ideal relationship of a mature man with a younger beloved, in which the sexual element is entirely absent. In so doing, Plutarch “corrects” Plato with Plato, and removes what had become an embarrassment in his period.
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- Reception in the Greco-Roman WorldLiterary Studies in Theory and Practice, pp. 167 - 193Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021
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