Aristofanes & Plato Socrates
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In viewing the Platonic dialogues and Aristophanes’ comedy Clouds, we are presented with two completely contrasting characterizations of Socrates. In the Platonic dialogues as written by Plato, Socrates is wise, reverent, loyal to the state, and the ideal citizen of Athens. He is a wise teacher of youth seeking virtue, knowledge, and wisdom. He is the repository of virtue, justice, and philosophical wisdom (aware of the good). In Aristophanes’ Clouds, Socrates is presented in a much less glowing light. Under Aristophanes satirical pen, Socrates is characterized as a political subversive who is responsible for causing Athenian youth to reject civil morality in favor of contemplating nonsensical questions. Literally, then, Aristophanes is telling us that Socrates has his feet in the “clouds.” The Clouds focuses on the story of an old man called Strepsiades. Because of his son’s gambling habit, Strepsiades is in debt and decides to attend Socrates’ Thinking Ship to figure out how he can use logic to thwart his creditors. All he finds the first day he attends is Socrates sitting in a suspended basket contemplating the sun. This has Strepsiades so confused, he decides to send his son, Phidippides, to school in his stead. In Aristophanes’ most censorious barb at Socrates, Strepsiades’ son quickly learns Socrates’ wisdom and uses it to justify morally the beating of his father. Throughout Clouds we are presented with Socrates in this
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h innuendoes and gestures that invite mockery of Socrates and his methods in relation to Plato’s idealized view, he also shows that Socrates’ method of logic can be used by Phidippides to morally justify beating his father. We find that Phidippides is able to fool anybody with the lessons and techniques he’s learned from Socrates, so well in fact that he is able to morally justify beating his father. When his father asks him to save himself from Socrates’ misguidance, Phidippides responds “I will not injure my teachers” (Aristophanes 53). When Strepsiades appeals to the gods for help, his son, in a slam against Socrates’ view of the gods, responds “’Paternal Jove’ quoth’a! How antiquated you are! Why, is there any Jove?” (Aristophanes 53).
After reading Plato’s dialogues we are not sure if either Plato or Aristophanes really knew the real person. This is because as mocked and ridiculed of a characterization of Socrates and his beliefs as we receive from Aristophanes, Plato’s idealized, do-no-wrong, repository-of-all-virtue characterization of Socrates comes in at the other end of the spectrum of disbelief. It is like asking a Republican to define Al Gore than reading a Democrat’s description of him. Plato presents Socrate
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Approximate Word count = 1588
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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