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Louis Le Roy’s Sympose de Platon and Three Other Renaissance Adaptions of Platonic Eros*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Marc Schachter
Marc Schachter*
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Abstract

This essay considers commentaries on and translations of Plato’s Symposium (by Marsilio Ficino, the Henri Estienne-Jean de Serres team, and, preeminently, Louis Le Roy) as well as an influential Neoplatonic passage from Baldassar Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano to explore some of the implications of, and dynamics behind, the heterosexualization of Platonic eros in the Renaissance. Focusing on the specific work done by different texts in particular contexts rather than homogenizing the translation of pederastic eros, the essay contributes to a critical genealogy of heterosexuality. Links between Le Roy’s effort and the cultural and political ambitions of the French monarchy receive particular attention.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , Summer 2006 , pp. 406 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2006

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Maria Park Bobroff for bibliographical assistance as I completed this essay, Carla Freccero and Todd Reeser for sharing forthcoming work with me, Gerry Milligan for conversation about Castiglione, Helen Solterer and Deanna Shemek for timely and astute feedback, and several anonymous Renaissance Quarterly readers for attentive engagement and helpful suggestions. Unless otherwise noted, translations are my own. This essay is dedicated to Eric Galipo.

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