william davenant is credited with having coined the term platonic love.
who is credited with having coined the term platonic love?
william davenant
the english term dates back to william davenant's "the platonic lovers" (performed in 1635); a critique of the philosophy of platonic love which was popular at charles i's court. it is derived from the concept in plato's "symposium" of the love of the idea of good which lies at the root of all virtue and truth. for a brief period, platonic love was a fashionable subject at the english royal court, especially in the circle around queen henrietta maria, the wife of king charles i. platonic love was the theme of some of the courtly masques performed in the caroline era—though the fashion soon waned under pressures of social and political change.
platonic love
in short, with genuine platonic love, the beautiful or lovely other person inspires the mind and the soul and directs one's attention to spiritual things. pausanias, in plato's "symposium" (181b–182a), explained two types of love or eros—vulgar eros or earthly love and divine eros or divine love. vulgar eros is nothing but mere material attraction towards a beautiful body for physical pleasure and reproduction. divine eros begins the journey from physical attraction, i.e. attraction towards beautiful form or body but transcends gradually to love for supreme beauty. this concept of divine eros is later transformed into the term platonic love. vulgar eros and divine eros are both connected and part of the same continuous process of pursuing totality of being itself, with the purpose of mending human nature, eventually reaching a point of unity where there is no longer an aspiration to change. "eros is [...] a moment of transcendence [...] in so far as the other can never be possessed without being annihilated in its status as the other, at which point both desire and transcendence would cease [...] (84)
platonic love