Sappho as Initiatory Figure in the Platonic Mysteries: Scholarly Grounding and Literature Review

Thesis. Platonism can be read as functioning structurally as a mystery religion, with Sappho serving as its concealed initiatory figure — the threshold of erotic-epistemic descent that enables philosophical ascent. The paper synthesizes three established scholarly threads (Plato's deployment of mystery religion structures: Nightingale, Morgan, Riedweg; Sappho's influence on Platonic erotics: Carson, Halperin, Dover; the theological function of poetic voice in philosophical transmission: Hadot, Nussbaum, Ferrari) and extends them by arguing that Sappho's Fragment 31 — specifically its encoding of somatic collapse into textual medium — provides the structural template for Platonic anamnesis, erotic ascent, and…