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Nate Gronlund
Newcomer
2 Posts |
 Posted - Sep 18 2005 : 3:21:52 PM
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While reading The Clouds, one finds a brutal attack on Socrates and his friends. This popular comedy must have had some impact on others to question if Socrates' teachings were really good for Athens. How much of an impact did this play have and was it a factor in bringing Socrates to court?
And in response to the last question posted: if Socrates is depicted negatively as a Sophist in the Clouds, couldn't that have made Sophistry partly responsible for his accusations, and Plato's right to criticize it?
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Morrisey
Fledgling
8 Posts |
Posted - Sep 19 2005 : 09:43:29 AM
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I think if we are to try and figure out what impact Clouds had on a Greek audience, we have to put it into perspective. Obviously, the play attacks Socrates and claims he is no better than the Sophists of the time. But just because Aristophanes doesn't like Socrates doesn't mean the rest of the Greek world hates him too. In our modern day political world, there are attacks from one politcal party against the other. We, as the current day audience watching this, listen and watch the arguments unfold. We can hear all the bashing we want, but in the end, we still have to make up our own minds. Hearing all the things wrong with George Bush didn't stop the plurality of people who did vote from voting for him.
I think this play could have impacted some members of the audience. Indeed, there are people who discovered things about George Bush and actually did vote for someone else (or not at all). But for the most part, I think the attacks are taken with a grain of salt, in ancient Greece and in today's world.
I don't know if that answered your question or not but that was the best concept I could think of comparing your question to. |
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Forum Member
Newcomer
3 Posts |
Posted - Sep 19 2005 : 12:31:48 PM
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quote:
While reading The Clouds, one finds a brutal attack on Socrates and his friends. This popular comedy must have had some impact on others to question if Socrates' teachings were really good for Athens. How much of an impact did this play have and was it a factor in bringing Socrates to court?
The answer is more than likely—very little in itself. To be sure, Aristophanes was an influential playwright and represented a trend towards conservatism in Athens; however, he did not begin the trend himself, he did not constitute its sole creative expression, and more to the point there is no real evidence that it was the trend by itself that led to the death of Socrates. Though few texts survive from comic poets of the time besides a smattering of works from Aristophanes, it is hardly a leap to say that as the Philosophers criticized the poets and sought to remove their medium—that of mythological imagery—from the social discourse, so too did the poets in general react against the philosophers.
However, at least as far as we can tell in Plato’s own Symposium, there was an element of lightheartedness and even respect, perhaps similar to being the target of a roast in the modern day, to being lampooned by the comic poets. Aristophanes’ criticism is poignant and often vicious, and some of the bitterness and anger of the trial can be divined from Aristophanes works—but they remain comedy, and he remains a comic. This is a far cry from solemn juries and pronouncements of execution.
It also should be realized that Socrates was not executed until 20 years after the Clouds was written, and that much happened in the meantime that would turn the populace against Socrates without any help by Aristophanes. The foremost reason is some of his students, formost among them Critias, were part of a oligarchy (or Aristocracy, if you prefer) that was posthumously named the thirty tyrants, and which toppled the Athenian democracy, executed its leaders and instituted a new government. This government was summarily overthrown by new democrats shortly after—and the ensuing retribution was the backdrop for Socrates' trial and execution.
Socrates was executed because he had close ties to a political faction that had fallen out of favor, and had made a lot of enemies in its short tenure. Just as crimes were invented for Alfred Rosenberg after the fall of the Nazi regime, so too were crimes brought to the fore that nobody seemed to care all that much about before, but which suddenly became important enough to kill over. |
Edited by - Forum Member on Oct 05 2005 12:24:47 PM |
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Clouds
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