Symposium | Teaching Key Figures

Character Descriptions

This section provides a short description of all the major characters in the book. This can be printed out as a study guide for students, used as a "key" for leading a class discussion, or you can jump to the quiz/homework section to find worksheets that incorporate these descriptions into a variety of question formats.

Characters

Socrates - This person is the famed Greek philosopher, the author's teacher, and has a higher goal of spreading ideas and the good, while believing that the purpose of the main subject of the Symposium is to bring people together to reproduce the beautiful and share in immortality.

Agathon - This person wins a prize for a play, has a party to celebrate the victory, and makes a speech that is comical and unbelievable in many ways.

Aristophanes - This person is an ironic playwright and poet whose speech is intended to make...
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