Brisson and Renaut's book provides an extensive and insightful tour de force of the treatment of sexuality in the works of Plato. The topics addressed by this edited collection, and covered by a range of well-known scholars (such as D. Halperin, C. Calame, K. Schöpsdau, R. Blondell and Brisson amongst others) in the field of Platonic studies, include sexual orientations, norms, prescriptions, transgressions and the role that an ‘erotic community’ may play within the wider political community. As such, the book canvasses a great many themes that have been, and continue to be, highly relevant and contested within this area of scholarship.

Recourse to Plato's works with regard to sexuality, gender and sexual orientation is not new. The seminal, if controversial and sometimes problematic, studies of Sir Kenneth Dover and Michel Foucault derived numerous of their positions from Plato, and, in many respects, the current ‘conversation’ may be traced back to that scholarship. This book is no exception, including, as it does, the likes of Halperin, whose earlier work can be closely linked with that of Dover in particular. The fact is that the ancient Greeks left us no manual explaining what and how they thought about sexuality. And modern scholars have had to deduce and derive what they can from minor snippets, and indeed sometimes quite substantial texts, all of which, however, depend on an implicit understanding that we currently lack. Therefore, since Plato has devoted a great deal of his own attention to the question of sexuality, he is naturally a major subject of interest for those who seek to ascertain the elusive ancient Greek perspective on the matter. Even so, the views of esoteric philosophers might not have been those of most people, and a modicum of caution should be taken in generalising too much from them. This book does not fall afoul of that trap. It largely considers erotic matters in Plato qua Plato, as is appropriate.

The contributors to this volume represent a variety of styles in their examination of the erotic in Plato's works. However, for the most part, the main approach utilised here is what might be termed Platonic ‘exegesis’, which is most commonly found in continental European and North American scholarship. Akin to its theological equivalent, this methodology examines a given dialogue (or dialogues) in order to form an expanded interpretation and explication, along given thematic lines, with recourse to the broader Platonic corpus as well as contemporary scholarship about it. The groundbreaking work of Gregory Vlastos provides an example of this type of study. Whereas Vlastos was concerned with the interpretation of specific Platonic texts along the lines of philosophical hermeneutics, this volume is focused more on sexual (or, more aptly, ‘erotic’) matters, but no less follows a similar method. Even so, this book is not merely concerned with Platonic approaches to sexuality; it also asks the crucial question of what role an ‘erotic community’ plays in the establishment of a broader political community.

I shall summarise the chapters briefly, addressing key sections by way of illustration. Starting with Halperin, under the heading of ‘Orientations’, his chapter considers Platonic love and how it compares to ‘what we call love’ in common parlance today. It is primarily focused on the Symposium, itself a kind of ‘erotic community’. In examining this in the light of Homeric attitudes, Halperin makes the insightful observation that Erôs was already regarded, even before Plato formalised it as such, as a kind of appetite. He goes on to illustrate how Plato defined this term through his metaphysics and developed it in an apparently consistent manner throughout the corpus. Thus, basing his interpretation heavily on Diotima's speech, Halperin argues that Erôs is the desire to realise an objective potentiality of the self. In the same section, J.P. Lucchelli's chapter asks the provocative question of what Plato has to teach psychoanalysis. He too focuses on the Symposium, observing an intriguing asymmetry between the characters of the dialogue, notably between Agathon and Socrates/Diotima and Socrates. Much of this chapter compares these and other characters and how they interact, revealing a ‘line of demarcation’ between ‘the hysterical’ and ‘the analytical’ as the only way to ‘produce unconscious knowledge through unconscious desire’ (p. 84), with obvious overtones, as the title suggests, of psychoanalytical theory.

P. Ludwig asks whether or not Plato thought homoeroticism was ‘good’. He focuses mainly on the Republic, identifying a tension between same-sex eroticism and the political. In the main, this chapter considers the role that Plato has devised for the erotic in his ideal politeia, for example how does it relate to the class structure and how does it function as a kind of cohesive force, binding that society together, how does it relate to the ideal orientation of the soul? He develops what he calls a ‘bifocal’ view of homoeroticism in the Republic. This discussion focuses on the mastery of the Platonic tyrant's soul by excessive appetites. Ludwig also considers the Laws, by contrast, in which Plato's narrator contemplates banning same-sex activity while tacitly condoning adultery. He makes a remarkable observation to the effect that modern ‘gay rights’ culture, by advocating for equal marriage rights, may actually resolve a tension over homoeroticism found in Plato's dialogues, at a time when there appears to have been little or no serious conception of same-sex marriage. These are Ludwig's conclusions, and they are, as he is aware, highly speculative but no less consistent with the argument that he has made. L.-A. Dorion's chapter rounds out the section on ‘Orientations’, comparing Xenophon's attitudes towards same-sex activity with those of Plato's Socrates, with recourse mainly to the Memorabilia, the Republic and the Symposium. Much of it addresses the earlier works of C. Hindley on Xenophon, ultimately agreeing with Hindley's assessments, themselves derived from Leo Strauss, but also pointing out some fundamental contradictions. Dorion argues that Xenophon's position on homosexuality was essentially the same as that of Socrates, vis-à-vis self-mastery (enkrateia).

The section on ‘Normes, prescriptions, transgressions’ broadens the discussion along those lines. The first contributor, A. Larivée, also takes up the issue of Xenophon's approach to the erotic, but striking a counterpoint with Dorion's chapter in considering how Socrates inspired his students to go down different theoretical paths. And this is particularly the case in terms of the role of women in the Oikonomikos when compared to their status in Plato's works. The focus here is very much on those authors’ attitudes towards the feminine, as they have defined it. Calame's chapter, in a not dissimilar tone, looks at the gendered function of choruses in Plato's Laws and how they amount to a kind of ‘educational initiation’ along normative, sexual lines. Schöpsdau's chapter too examines the Laws and its sexual ethics. In the main it considers ‘the problem of homosexuality’, which, as indicated, Plato's narrator contemplates banning due to it being ‘contrary to nature’, amounting to a loss of self-mastery and submission to the rule of the appetites. He offers a close reading of the relevant passages and points out that the Athenian Stranger expresses considerable doubt as to whether such a ban could ever be enforced as well as how the proposed colony of Magnesia could, if it deemed it appropriate, abandon Platonic prescriptions concerning these sexual ethics, given that the whole discussion in the Laws about such matters is of a highly hypothetical nature. Blondell and S. Boehringer's chapter, the last of this section, contrasts Plato's Symposium with the work of the second-century ad satirist and rhetorician, Lucian of Samosata. The authors use Lucian, in part, as a comedic foil to illustrate better Plato's views, along with their later reception. In particular, his Dialogues of the Courtesans is brought to bear in contrast to the Symposium, where normative sexuality may be seen to ‘intrude’ on the scene in Plato. The proposed prescriptions of the Laws are also considered in this chapter.

The final section is titled ‘Communauté érotique, communauté politique’. It begins with A. Jaulin's chapter, which is preoccupied with Leo Strauss's lecture on the Symposium. It is a fairly close reading and analysis of that lecture. The purpose of the exercise, it seems, is to demonstrate the relationship between poetry and philosophy, which shows how the writing of politics is also played out in the production of a nomos relative to erôs. Next, Renaut considers Pausanias’ account of paederasty in the Symposium as a challenge to the Platonic education. Pausanias’ speech is regarded as posing a specifically political problem for the regulation of sexual ethics in a state. C. Araújo's chapter, on a related theme, looks at Erôs and communitarianism in the Symposium. She considers the love of certain characters (Apollodorus, Aristodemus and Alcibiades), as evinced in their speeches, for Socrates and how the practice of Socratic love changes people's characters, making them part of a larger community. Diotima's speech looms large here, and the different types of Erôs that these characters reveal may be mapped onto her ‘ladder of loves’, potentially leading to the love of ‘the Good’. Brisson's chapter on the treatment of marriage in the works of Plato concludes this section and the book. He examines the differing approaches to marriage and reproduction specifically in the Republic and the Laws, texts that demonstrate a marked contrast on the matter. Brisson also entertains a notion, not unlike Ludwig above, that, when reproduction is taken out of the equation, and especially given the radical import (as he interprets it) of Diotima's speech, marriage between people of the same sex, and men in particular, should be conceivable within a Platonic community. Brisson is engaging in a kind of speculative game, but one backed by thorough analysis and sound argument.

To conclude, I am confident in saying that this volume is an excellent collection that makes some significant contributions to both Platonic and gender studies. It is the case that some chapters add more to the ongoing scholarly ‘conversations’ on these subjects than others; but all add something and all are firmly rooted in their respective traditions. The volume is clearly designed by and for specialists in these areas of study. Yet it would also be an invaluable resource for students of Plato and gender studies, both undergraduate and postgraduate. And it almost goes without saying that this is a worthy topic for them to take up for, as Plato has written, ‘such is the power of Erôs: it is so varied and great that in all cases it might be called absolute’ (Symposium 188d3).