Review Of Platos Suddenness The Symposium As A Tragic...

â€Å"Suddenness†: The Symposium as a Tragic Comedy â€Å"All of a sudden he will catch sight of something wonderfully beautiful in its nature; that, Socrates, is the reason for all his earlier labors.† (210E) â€Å"Then, all of a sudden, there was even more noise. A large drunken party had arrived at the courtyard door and they were rattling it loudly†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (212C) â€Å"You always do this to me  ¬Ã¢â‚¬â€œ all of a sudden you’ll turn up out of nowhere where I least expect you!† (213C) â€Å"And then, all of a sudden, while Agathon was changing places, a large drunken group, finding the gates open because someone was just leaving, walked into the room and joined the party.† (223B) All of sudden. A noise, a sight, a Form, a drunken group. In the world of Plato’s†¦show more content†¦But then one must consider the very end of the Symposium: the Final Dialogue. The party is effectively over. The main event is finished. The dawn is just about to break, and the roosters are crowing. In effect, Socrates and his two listeners have just pulled an all-nighter, and as many college students can attest, there is nothing quite like the feeling of buzzed haziness that arises as the sun creeps up and the world springs to life. Yet the ineffable Socrates still has something to say: â€Å"that authors should be able to write both comedy and tragedy: the skillful tragic dramatist should also be a comic poet† (223D). Even as he says this, â€Å"Aristophanes fell asleep in the middle of the discussion†¦Agathon also drifted off.† So the Symposium ends, not on a grand oration or a rousing round of applause, but on a quiet comment to a barely awake audience. What then, is the connection between comedy/tragedy and â€Å"suddenness†? To laugh or to cry. To mock or to exalt. Many people like to separate these actions into two distinct genres of comedy and tragedy. Take, for example, the Golden Globes, an award ceremony that has two categories for Best Motion Picture: â€Å"Drama† and â€Å"Musical or Comedy†, which in effect restricts all movies to one singular tone or lens. But as many others have pointed out, there can be tears in laughter and laughter in tears, as is evident in genres such as dark comedy.