Assignment task: Explain these quotes from the Symposium by Plato. What rhetorical devices are used and how they help show there is comedy and tragedy in Aristophanes Speech. And why does it matter?
Quotes from Aristophanes Speech:
"They walked upright, as we do now, whatever direction they wanted. And whenever they set out to run fast, they thrust out all their eight limbs, the ones they had then, and spun rapidly, the way gymnasts do cartwheels, by bringing their legs around straight" (190 A).
"So saying, he cut those human beings in two, [190El the way people cut sorb-apples before they dry them or the way they cut eggs with hairs. As he cut each one, he commanded Apollo to turn its face and half its neck towards the wound, so that each person would see that he'd been cut and keep better order"(190 E).
"Each of us, then, is a "matching half" of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him" (191 D).
"The two are struck from their [192C] senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don't want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment. These are the people who finish out their lives together and still cannot say what it is they want from one another" (192 C).