The Erotics of (Re)reading

John La Farge, The Relation of the Individual to the State, 1905. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Plato’s Phaedrus begins astatine the borderline of the metropolis of Athens, successful the countryside, arsenic we would accidental today. Enter Socrates and Phaedrus, his younger friend. Phaedrus has conscionable travel from the location of Lysias, his maestro and erastēs (older antheral lover).

SOCRATES: Dear Phaedrus, wither away, and wherever bash you travel from?

PHAEDRUS: From Lysias, Socrates … and I americium going for a locomotion extracurricular the partition [of Athens].

Earlier that day, Phaedrus says, Lysias had fixed him a code successful which helium described the erotic narration that a maestro tin person with a young disciple whom helium does not love, with whom helium is not successful love.

PHAEDRUS: Lysias has represented 1 of the beauties being tempted, but not by a lover; this is conscionable the clever happening astir it; for helium says that favors should beryllium granted alternatively to the 1 who is not successful emotion than to the lover.

This study does not fulfill Socrates. Dying to cognize more, helium is determined not to fto Phaedrus retired of his sight; helium volition travel him everywhere, hound him until helium agrees to read Lysias’s code to him. At the precise threshold of the speechmaking country determination frankincense emerges a adjacent and analyzable transportation betwixt loving and reading, 2 verbs, 2 gerunds, betwixt which, for reasons that volition soon go apparent, it makes consciousness to permission unfastened each the imaginable punctuation marks, including the anticipation that determination beryllium nary (as though 1 wrote them successful scriptio continua, with nary abstraction betwixt them, which was a communal scriptural signifier successful Plato’s day). Loving()reading could past beryllium work (or connected) astatine slightest successful 2 antithetic ways:

1. Lovingreading oregon loving-reading (a treble verb, conjugated arsenic transitive, wherever what 1 loves-reads is idiosyncratic oregon something, Lysias oregon the book).

2. Loving speechmaking (in which case, it is speechmaking that 1 loves).

For Phaedrus, loving()reading is, supra all, loving and reading, successful a azygous verb, someone. Loving and speechmaking are intertwined successful this scholar who loves the dependable to which helium listens successful the substance to which helium lends his ain body. And it is frankincense nether the motion of this hyphen (trait d’union), the hyphenated loving-reading, that Plato’s Phaedrus opens. It is arsenic though this feature, the enactment contracting the abstraction betwixt the 2 verbs, immoderate benignant of soundless enslaved wherever a contractual narration betwixt them takes place, has brought them unneurotic oregon joined them unneurotic successful bid to explicit the national of emotion and speechmaking successful the enactment of uniting with the 1 who speaks successful the text.

One tin so accidental that Phaedrus, Lysias’s disciple, had already granted his maestro favors and is present prepared to love-read him again, for Socrates. He would person frankincense offered himself to Lysias without being loved successful instrumentality since specified seems to beryllium the “clever” quality of the pederastic and pedagogical declaration suggested successful the code that we, the readers of this dialogue, are astir to perceive successful turn. And Socrates cannot hold to witnesser a benignant of 2nd playing out, a reproduction of this escaped union, with neither jealousy nor possession. He is burning with the tendency to perceive Phaedrus fto himself beryllium penetrated again by Lysias’s code oregon voice, by Lysias’s logos.

Yet the existent enactment of reading, that enactment that galore Greek and Latin inscriptions picture successful openly intersexual terms, is agelong successful coming. Phaedrus archetypal doubts his ain quality to “tell from memory” Lysias’s speech, whereas Socrates insists that helium bash truthful successful a fewer singular lines, lines successful which, successful immoderate sense, helium splits his reticent interlocutor:

SOCRATES: O Phaedrus! If I don’t cognize Phaedrus, I person forgotten myself. But since neither of these things is true, I cognize precise good that erstwhile listening to Lysias helium did not perceive erstwhile only, but often urged him to repeat; and helium gladly obeyed.

It seems, then, that Lysias work his code to Phaedrus respective times; it was not a hapax. And successful the abstraction of this singular rejoinder, Phaedrus, who volition soon work and reread it for Socrates (and frankincense besides for we who work him), moves from the 2nd idiosyncratic singular—the spot of interlocution oregon code successful a dialogue—to the third. For a moment, done these sentences addressed to him, alternatively than you, helium appears to beryllium absent from the scene, arsenic though helium were already taking permission oregon disappearing successful bid to read, that is, to lend his voice, his body, to the words of another. Before helium truly starts to read, earlier giving himself implicit assemblage and psyche to the 1 who volition talk done him, Phaedrus is already nary longer rather himself, is already partially another. Socrates continues, inactive speaking of Phaedrus to Phaedrus arsenic though the second were not truly there: “Yet adjacent that was not capable for Phaedrus, but astatine past helium borrowed the publication [the scroll, to biblion] and work what helium particularly wished.” In a benignant of hyperbolic repetition, Phaedrus, 1 Phaedrus oregon the other, has frankincense taken clasp of Lysias’s penning to transportation it off, to work and reread it elsewhere, extracurricular the metropolis walls.

What a unusual mode Socrates has! What a unusual mode of addressing Phaedrus by splitting him successful two! For erstwhile Socrates has to importune that Phaedrus really get connected with speechmaking (Phaedrus needs to beryllium begged), helium goes virtually arsenic acold arsenic asking Phaedrus to inquire Phaedrus to bash it: “So, Phaedrus, inquire him [Phaedrus] present to bash what helium volition presently bash anyway.” Why this insistence connected addressing Phaedrus some arsenic you and arsenic him? It is arsenic though Socrates already perceived, already heralded, the part that the imminent country of speechmaking would acceptable up successful Phaedrus, splitting him betwixt his speechmaking dependable and the dependable of the substance that speaks done him.

While Phaedrus frankincense divides himself, arsenic though successful mentation for reading, what excites Socrates’s curiosity is the biblion: that’s what helium wants to see, the hidden entity of tendency that is “in your near hand, nether your cloak.” “Come now, amusement it”—there is undeniable eroticism successful Socrates’s request, arsenic though aft having divided his interlocutor, helium present wanted to undress him. The attraction of the rotation that carries the substance of the speech, a benignant of metonymy for Lysias that Phaedrus hugs, mightiness evoke a magnificent aboriginal epigram (second period C.E.), 1 attributed to Strato:

Fortunate small book, I americium not jealous of you [meaning “would not be, adjacent if you deserved it”]. Reading you, a lad volition interaction you, clasp you adjacent to his feature oregon property you to his lips, oregon possibly helium volition unfold you upon his tender thighs, O astir fortunate of books! Often you volition beryllium carried wrong his garment or, flung down upon a chair, you volition situation to interaction those peculiar things without fear. You volition talk overmuch with him, unsocial with him.

Once the biblion has frankincense been seen oregon glimpsed arsenic an entity of erotic substitution, Phaedrus and Socrates acceptable retired successful hunt of a spot wherever they tin beryllium unneurotic oregon prevarication down unneurotic to work it. Plato describes the spot they yet find, successful the shadiness of a level tree, arsenic a charming place, covered successful mildly sloping grass. When they get there, Socrates and Phaedrus instrumentality up their positions oregon poses. Paraphrasing the signifier directions of different large substance connected speechmaking and emotion (Sade’s Philosophy successful the Bedroom), we mightiness accidental that the disposition is effected, the posture is assumed, successful a mode that prepares for loving-reading Lysias:

SOCRATES: So present that I person travel here, I mean to prevarication down and bash you take the presumption successful which you deliberation you tin work astir easily, and read.

PHAEDRUS: Hear then.

Lying down, Socrates lets himself beryllium penetrated by Phaedrus’s speechmaking arsenic Phaedrus offers himself vocally to his master, Lysias. The 2 of them loving-reading nether the level histrion is, of course, really a threesome.

In the mediate of this triangulation, it is hard to ore connected Lysias’s alternatively boring and poorly constructed speech, which, done Phaedrus, talks astir their pedagogical and pederastic (pederastagogic) declaration based connected escaped love, that is to say, emotion without love. The agelong statement aims to amusement the erōmenos (the younger male, the “loved one”), who is himself speechmaking it to a prone Socrates, that a disciple has everything to summation by giving himself implicit to a maestro who does not emotion him.

However, we, who, similar Socrates, nary doubt, are much funny successful Phaedrus arsenic helium reads than successful what helium is reading, are tempted to crook distant from this arduous objection and toward the fascinating underlying paradox, namely, that when Phaedrus reads, erstwhile Phaedrus is successful the mediate of loving-reading his master, for those of america who work him reading, he is not speechmaking anymore. I mean that successful the text, erstwhile Phaedrus gets to the constituent of reading, determination is nary longer immoderate practice of him reading. In different words, the operation of the speechmaking constituent is specified that it appears lone arsenic it disappears, that it manifests lone intermittently, wherever it is interrupted, wherever it is being prepared oregon acceptable up, wherever speechmaking is going to statesman oregon statesman again.

Indeed, it is erstwhile Phaedrus has finished speechmaking that we again spot him reading, that we spell backmost to speechmaking him arsenic helium was erstwhile helium was speechmaking (since we cannot work him reading), done the words and regard of Socrates, who listens:

PHAEDRUS: What bash you deliberation of the sermon [logos], Socrates? Is it not wonderful, particularly successful diction?

SOCRATES: … I americium rather flooded by it. And this is owed to you, Phaedrus, due to the fact that arsenic I looked astatine you, I saw that you were delighted by the code arsenic you read.

As helium is reading, Phaedrus does not lone radiate Lysias’s logos, the logos that penetrates him and passes done him. He besides radiates the pleasance helium gets from reading. As Socrates had sensed successful the dialog earlier the speechmaking scene, Phaedrus splits oregon duplicates his reading, draws attraction to it done the pleasance helium takes successful it, a pleasance that we tin read. But for us, arsenic we work what helium reads, these marks oregon traces of his reading—of the enactment of his speechmaking alternatively than of what helium reads—can beryllium discerned lone aft the fact, with Socrates’ retrospective comments (“while you were reading, you seemed …”).

***

The remainder of the Phaedrus has been glossed truthful galore times that I volition lone summarize it, pausing connected what matters to america here, namely, arsenic we volition see, rereading.

Having taken it upon himself to critique Lysias’s speech, which helium has conscionable heard, and responding to Phaedrus’s insistent request, Socrates gives a better, much inspired mentation of the code nether the spell of an enthusiasm that, helium explains, possesses him (enthousiasō). Then, afloat of remorse erstwhile helium hears his daimon’s voice, Socrates launches into improvising a 2nd speech, 1 that volition beryllium the nonstop other of the first, successful bid to close what helium present sees arsenic sacrilegious oregon impious with respect to the deity of Love (Erōs): “I americium acrophobic of Love himself,” helium explains to Phaedrus, and truthful helium “wish[es] to lavation retired the brine from [his] ears with the h2o of a saccharine discourse.”

Through this speech-washing (one logos wiping retired another), Socrates inaugurates a wide question of inversion successful the dialog that volition go a hymn to the mania of emotion and each its affirmative effects connected the soul. Phaedrus, the erōmenos, finds himself successful a caller relation facing his erastēs, Lysias. As Sade would say, the posture is dissolved, the attitudes are dissolved, and, successful the ensuing permutation, Phaedrus is fixed an unexpected spot successful the loving-reading scene: “When you person spoken the praise of the lover, Lysias indispensable of people beryllium compelled by maine to constitute different sermon connected the aforesaid subject.”

Everything gets turned astir here, arsenic though Phaedrus, who present promises to dictate his aboriginal speeches to Lysias, had go the latter’s erastēs portion becoming henceforth erōmenos to Socrates, his erastēs. There is simply a circulating gyration successful this threesome that carries them to loving-reading each different backward oregon upside down.

Socrates erstwhile again addresses Phaedrus successful the 3rd person, but this clip arsenic a emotion object, the entity of a emotion declaration that Phaedrus seems to countersign likewise done an oblique pronouncement, speaking of himself arsenic of another:

SOCRATES: Where is the younker to whom I was speaking? He indispensable perceive this also, lest if helium bash not perceive it, helium judge a non-lover. …

PHAEDRUS: Here helium is, ever adjacent astatine hand, whenever you privation him.

But why, connected the threshold of the large code Socrates is astir to improvise to observe the delirium brought connected by love—this mania that, arsenic helium volition enactment it, is the anamnesis of existent beauty, erstwhile souls retrieve memories of contemplating essence and information (ousia and alētheia), glimpsed arsenic they scope the extremity of their travel connected the outer aboveground of the heavens—why does Socrates again marque usage of this unusual mode of addressing his interlocutor arsenic though helium were some contiguous and absent, some present and elsewhere, some himself and another?

You whitethorn person guessed that my proposal is that Phaedrus, some arsenic a scholar and past arsenic the auditor of another’s code (Lysias’s and present Socrates’s), is so double, divided: arsenic helium prepares to work oregon to listen, Phaedrus splits into the erōmenos (the passive Phaedrus who makes himself into a axenic transparent conveyance for the dependable that speaks done him) and the erastēs (the Phaedrus who reads oregon listens to that voice, successful the astir progressive senses of those verbs). And it is precisely due to the fact that determination are 2 Phaedruses, truthful to speak, due to the fact that 1 Phaedrus hides another, that the permutation, the cycling gyration of loving-reading tin instrumentality place, 1 Phaedrus taking implicit from the other.

I would similar to instrumentality this 1 measurement further: the doubling that Plato stages arsenic though it were the precondition of immoderate speechmaking (as I read, I divided into my speechmaking dependable and the dependable that I read), this part is intrinsically—albeit subterraneously—connected to what is possibly the astir softly singular lawsuit of this dialogue, namely, that Socrates soon asks Phaedrus to reread Lysias’s speech. He really suggests rereading respective times lone to observe successful the end, together, that they bash not similar this logos, the dry, alternatively anemic code that advocates not loving.

Both of these rereadings instrumentality spot aft Socrates holds distant for the 2nd time, erstwhile the dialog is moving toward a statement nary longer astir quality successful general, oregon quality successful love, but astir the quality of speeches, a quality that besides supposes cognition of truth. Lysias’s code is archetypal evaluated according to this criterion:

SOCRATES: Then, my friend, helium who knows not the truth, but pursues opinions, will, it seems, attain an creation of speech, which is ridiculous, and not an creation astatine all.

PHAEDRUS: Probably.

SOCRATES: Shall we look successful the code of Lysias, which you person with you, and successful what I said, for thing which we deliberation shows creation and the deficiency of art? … Read maine the opening of Lysias’s discourse.

Phaedrus obliges, rereading the lines we person already work with him. However, arsenic though erstwhile were not enough, arsenic though it were indispensable that a rereading, similar a reading, not stay a hapax (to usage the word that you volition retrieve Socrates uses astatine the precise opening of the dialogue), Phaedrus volition person to reread again, reread a 2nd time: “Socrates: Read, that I whitethorn perceive Lysias himself.”

Rereading present is not astatine each passive. The passivity of speechmaking flips into an progressive rereading, fixed that, arsenic it is reread, Lysias’s code is judged, analyzed, criticized, that is it is besides disassembled, decomposed, dismembered into its constituent parts:

SOCRATES: [Lysias] surely does not astatine each look to bash what we demand, for helium does not adjacent statesman astatine the beginning, but undertakes to aquatics connected his backmost up the existent of his sermon from its end.

Indeed, contrary to Socrates, Lysias did not proceed successful an orderly fashion, defining emotion astatine the beginning. That is why, being upside down, his code does not travel the regularisation that would instrumentality the quality oregon the harmony of the assemblage arsenic a model:

SOCRATES: Every sermon indispensable beryllium organized, similar a surviving being, with a assemblage of its own, arsenic it were, truthful arsenic not to beryllium headless nor footless.

Diagnosing what present seems to them to beryllium a clumsy inversion of the integrated parts of the speech, Socrates and Phaedrus crook around, oregon upside down, the erotics of powerfulness successful loving-reading. In different words, arsenic their captious judgement spins the code around, the corporal postures of the speechmaking country are besides rearranging themselves. Lysias, whom Phaedrus could already imagine—as Socrates was astir to statesman his 2nd speech— being forced to constitute nether his dictation, present is intelligibly successful the presumption of the 1 suffering the reading. In different words, and to enactment it crudely (that is, successful the presumption of galore Greek and Latin inscription oregon epigrams, specified arsenic the 1 attributed to Strato), whereas during the archetypal reading, Lysias was penetrating Phaedrus, who was penetrating Socrates, this clip Socrates penetrates Phaedrus, who penetrates Lysias.

Rereading frankincense foreshadows the anticipation of reshuffling the roles: not lone the members of the discursive organism, the parts and articulations of the corpus of the substance that is read, but also, supra all, the bodies of those who work and the relationships of domination successful which they are caught are rearranged. This is the accidental for a change, an speech of positions oregon a swapping of partners successful the pederastic psychagogy of reading.

It is, of course, an unfastened question what remains of the Phaedrus/Socrates/Lysias threesome, what happens to their switching triangle, erstwhile speechmaking goes silent. Might it beryllium that they resurface successful america each clip we read? Might it beryllium that we transportation them successful us, passim the subvocalizing mumbling that is tacitly progressive successful our interior selves arsenic readers?

An adapted excerpt of Powers of Reading: From Plato to Audiobooks, translated from the French by Olivia Custer, to beryllium published by Zone Books successful March.

Peter Szendy is the David Herlihy Professor of Humanities and Comparative Literature astatine Brown University. His 4 books include For an Ecology of Images; The Supermarket of the Visible: Towards a General Economy of Images; Of Stigmatology: Punctuation arsenic Experience; and All Ears: The Aesthetics of Espionage.

Olivia Custer is simply a student and the writer of L’Exemple de Kant.