Ancient Wisdom Atlas

Motif

divine madness through beauty

divine_madness_through_beauty

A motif of the Beauty Paired with Pain and Paradox family. Every row below is a tagged passage; each rests on a quote in its source text.

1 occurrences

1 traditions


greek

  • Phaedrus PHAEDRUS / INTRODUCTION. / ON THE DECLINE OF GREEK LITERATURE. / PHAEDRUS; lines 2323-2387 confidence: high

    The fourth kind of madness occurs when someone sees earthly beauty, recollects true beauty, wishes to fly away, and is compared to a bird fluttering and looking upward.

    Seeing earthly beauty causes recollection of true beauty; the person is transported, desires flight, and is thought mad though described as inspired.

    read in the book