November 2, 2015
by Shelby West
About a year ago, I invited my two male friends to Florida over summer vacation. Within the many photos we took, there is a photo taken of the two of them holding their hands in front of the sunset. One of them claimed, “this is a purely, platonic handhold”. Unaware of this term, I searched it online and saw that it meant something in which is intimate and affectionate, yet not sexual. A year later in philosophy class, we learned about the philosopher Plato, and his vision of love, or “platonic love”. This kind of love Plato believes is one of the highest of Forms in the external world, one that focuses on the souls of one another and nothing physical. In Plato’s Symposium, he uses Socrates as a great exemplar of love, since he is a lover always seeking for the platonic love that is unattainable until after death (Symposium 17). According to this allegory, every true philosopher is a lover who is always striving for but not finding love. Platonic lovers are also shown throughout British Literature, especially in the works of Sir Philip Sidney.
Platonic love relates to the “courtly” love we see in the late 16th century. Platonic love is referred to as “ideal” love, which is full of perfect, non-changing things, such as Plato’s Form of Love. This Form of love brings the notion of “Neo Platonism”. This is the idea that God is the highest Form, who is perfect and non-changing, which is the umbrella that holds platonic or ideal love. Within a court, these men were said to practice the virtues of “ideal courtly” love. This idea comprised of learning how to fight, think, write, speak, dress, and devoting love to their King. This courtly love was also known as “unrequited” love, as there was the love men strived for with a woman, but was never attained, because they were reaching for platonic love. These men crave ideal love and cannot accept the worldly love that is given and reachable. Within this court and within the minds of philosophers, there is an ideal, perfect, non-changing love, mind, speech and thought process they all aim for. Sidney reveals this ideal love, as he becomes the lover or philosopher. In one of Sidney’s famous poems, Astrophil and Stella, he falls in love with a woman named Stella. This name is a metaphor for a star, which is unreachable, equivalent with the platonic, ideal love. Sidney portrays courtly or unrequited love because the platonic love cannot be returned from nor obtained from the unreachable Stella or star (Atrophil and Stella, Line 11). Hence, this platonic, ideal love is unattainable. In one of Sidney’s following stanzas, he realizes, “this beauty can be but a shade” (Astrophil and Stella, Line 10). In other words, his love he has for Stella is only a copy or a shade of the ideal love he is striving for; only a copy of the unreachable Form of platonic love.
Platonic Love is not only love that is affectionate, intimate and non-physical. According to Plato, it is something that one may strive for and never obtain. It is one of the highest Forms of Plato’s hierarchy of Forms, and we will never know what love is until after death according to Plato. Until then, it is unexplainable, yet we know it is something extraordinary that is beyond our conscious.
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