Urban Temptations and Socratic Storytelling: The Athenian "Odyssey" of Plato’s Socrates

Abstract

My research focuses on four dialogues of Plato narrated in first-person by Socrates: "Charmides", "Lysis", "Euthydemus", and "Protagoras". I explore an aspect no other scholar has addressed before in relation to these works: Socrates’ own perspective on erôs and philosophy, which is singularly disclosed in what I call the ‘Socratic Narratives’ (SNs). Only in these dialogues, I argue, Socrates, qua character, faces, together with youths and boys, situations of ‘erotic danger’ and is affected by carnal desire and discourses that lead away from philosophy; he makes speeches on the erôs he uniquely partakes in and shows how to philosophise and what erôs – in its various expressions – entails, and what to do and not to do erotically.
This allows me to open a new angle to interpret and understand not only Plato’s most-renowned character but also four Platonic dialogues that have never been explored together in order to highlight Socrates’ erôs and erotics. I aim to show that it is through his words (narrated comments and dialogic exchanges) and actions, and especially via Odyssean citations and actions, that Socrates illustrates to his young interlocutors in the narratives how to philosophise and turn towards the erôs he has been solely revealed (‘demonic erôs’) and thereby resist desires commonly pursued and endorsed in the City par excellence, Athens (‘demotic erôtes’ of riches, honour, wisdom).
By analysing the relevant vocabulary focusing on erôs and Socrates’ reuse of the "Odyssey", I shed light on a still unsolved ‘erotic problem’ explicitly outlined in Plato’s "Republic": it is impossible to resist the erôs in the City; yet, miraculously, some individuals do resist (6.492b-493a). The miraculous solution, in my view, is to be found in Plato’s Socrates, uniquely giving access to erôs and erotics in SNs.