Experiencing beauty: reading the symposium and phaedrus in the Neoplatonic Academy of Athens

Abstract

In both the Phaedrus and Symposium, Plato presents the contemplation of the Forms, and that of Beauty in particular, as a deeply emotional experience comparable to falling in love or initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries. The first part of this article explores this notion of the contemplation of the Forms as an experience in Plato and the ways in which he seeks to give the readers of his dialogues a taste of such an experience through literary means. The second part examines the reception of intelligible contemplation as an experience in the Neoplatonic Academy (Syrianus, Proclus). I will argue that these Neoplatonic readers of Plato had a keen eye for the emotive qualities of his texts, not least because their own personal experiences with theurgical rituals bred new life into Plato's comparison of the effects of the contemplation of the Forms to initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries.