Drinking to Get Drunk: Pleasure, Creativity, and Social Harmony in Greece and China

This essay examines the multifaceted roles of drinking parties in early Greece and in medieval China. It takes as paradigm examples descriptions of ritual intoxication in Plato\u27s Laws and in the poetry of Ouyang Xiu and Mei Yaochen, arguing that these divergent cultural and philosophical traditions can be both related and made distinct through concepts of pleasure, creativity, and social harmony