ABSTRACT
Love, says Plato (through Socrates) is the desire of the mortal to become immortal (Symposium 56). It is the life-giving principle that ensures our continual regeneration and renewal. Plato’s Symposium has nourished Western discussions and negotiations of love throughout the ages, both directly and more à propos. This chapter will investigate three literary engagements with Plato’s philosophy of love: Angela Carter’s novels The Passion of New Eve (1977) and The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972) and John Cameron Mitchell’s off-Broadway punk rock musical and film Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001). 1 These have both been treated as canonical for the growing body of queer and third-wave feminist literature, but I will argue that these queer and feminist readings have obscured and simplified the most interesting aspect of their philosophical framework: the vitalism and corporeality of their Platonic erotics. Plato becomes the catalyst for something new and creative in Carter and Mitchell’s work. He is the instigator of a continually changing and regenerating choreography of becoming.
