Vulgar Versus Platonic Love in Apuleius’ the Golden Ass

Vulgar Versus Platonic Love in Apuleius’ the Golden Ass
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Love is believed as the foundation of everything else in the world. Despite being an intangible yet concretely defined feeling, it generated vulnerability even in the most influential humans. The craving to love and to be loved resulted in hatred that led to various wars in ancient societies (Green & Ginn, 2014). For these reasons, it has been the favorite central theme in ancient literature, especially in mythology, where it took various forms. These forms are illustrated by Apuleius in his novel in 1932 entitled the Golden Ass.
As mentioned earlier, love or eros can imitate many forms. Some examples of these include vulgar and platonic eros. Vulgar eros refers to the love that dwells on earth. It respects materialism and the physical pleasure of sexual desires that result in the reproduction of the same species. It points to physical attraction to a stunning human body. By contrast, platonic love is formerly known as the divine love, which traverses physical attraction and materialism. This kind of love overwhelms the heart by the beauty of the soul and inspires the person to direct oneself to more spiritual things (Bornstein, 1989).
The Golden Ass depicted vulgar and platonic eros in many instances. However, the number of events where vulgar eros was depicted substantially outnumbers the events portraying platonic eros. Vulgar love can be directed to the bodily desires felt by the men who are allured by the witches. Generally, the men in the story commit adultery over women whose beauties are inconceivable. These men honor their bodily desires over faithfulness and fidelity. Moreover, it has been stated on several counts in the stories that men are often misguided by materialism such as money and power, the structure of the face and body of women, and their charisma (Apuleius, 1932).
Vulgar eros is evident in the following instances: 1) Socrates’ desire to gain Meroe’s beauty and body which mad...