Week 2

So once again I find my week ending far too soon. This weeks reading was eyebrow raising for sure. Platos Phaedras was a chewy piece. Before my text books came in the mail I went to the library and checked out a book that included the Phaedras and the Symposium, this book was called Platos Erotic Texts (cite later). The title was rather off-putting at first but I didn’t want to be behind on the readings. When I got my book in the mail, I switched to reading from that copy because it was the correct translator. The difference in translation was surprising to me. The Erotic Text version seemed a bit more crudely done. The section of Platos second speech describing wings seemed to be making an extremely phallic insinuation. The translator made the sensation of the wings growing or filling out sound like a direct comparison to the male erection. Right after there was a description of filling ones lover up and the lover wanting to grow wings too. To me it really seemed like the translator was trying to make the section of the speech refer to the male erection and then intercourse. (I’ll have to add the quote in when I’m not at work) The translation used in class did not make me think that this is what was meant. The fact that the same words can be translated in such different ways plays into the topic of style, audience, and presentation that we discussed in class.

When we were discussing the different levels of the soul I was reminded of a section of my textbooks for my College Instruction course that talks about Blooms Taxonomy and the idea of different levels of knowledge and learning (will follow up with quote/citation)