Irigaray's Cave: Feminist Theory and the Politics of French Classicism

Although there are countless feminist readings of Plato and readings of Plato as (a) feminist, the French feminist theorist Luce Irigaray's extended—nearly 200 page!—reading of the cave passage from Book 7 of Plato's Republic may still come as something of a surprise to the classicist. In the recently published book Feminist Interpretations of Plato, however, there is an essay by Irigaray on Plato's Symposium included as just another example of this now established genre. Just any other?—well not quite… As in its sister volume Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle, the editors have decided that unlike any other article in the collection, Irigaray's contribution needs some further exegesis for the classical scholar. An essay on Irigaray reading Plato appears in tandem to her own article. Just like in the Aristotle volume, this essay presents itself as a guide to the perplexed, explaining to the ancient philosopher schooled in a more traditional idiom of Anglo-Saxon academic research some of the context for Irigaray's seemingly inappropriate style. Freeland writes of Irigaray's Aristotle piece: ‘Irigaray's essay will be astonishing to the Aristotle scholar who reads it unaware of Irigaray's earlier writings’; in fact, she continues, ‘…it may seem unclear whether one is reading Aristotle scholarship, a primitive biology text or an erotic novel ….Reading her then,’ she concludes, ‘is far different from reading the usual commentators on the Physics. Clearly, style is paramount to Irigaray's method of reading.’