Clouds

If you've never read "Clouds", go do so now! Or at least read the synopses offered by previous reviewers. Unless you want to reimburse me for completing your humanistic belle-lettristic education by PayPal, that is. I've taken a lesson from the sophist think-tank depicted by Aristophanes, and decided to convert my hobby to a cash-in-advance enterprise. No more free history lessons! No tips on investments based on my insider's contacts with the Obama's dog! And no fire insurance for homes where intellectual conversations occur! The orthodox opinion on "Clouds" has been that Socrates is unfairly and inaccurately portrayed as an unscrupulous shyster and philosophical fraud. There has been ink spilled about the angry suggestion that Aristophanes's representation of Socrates as a 'disbeliever' in Zeus and the other Homeric Gods was a specific causative factor in the trial and execution-by-suicide of Socrates, the martyr for free thought. Well now, hold on! We have basically only two depictions of Socrates the man and teacher: 1. this obviously satiric portrayal by the acidulous Aristophanes, done from life with the subject in the audience, and 2. the post-trial accounts by disciples of Socrates, Xenophon and Plato, the latter colored by adulation and plainly committed to the exposition of Plato's own complex philosophical notions. Almost everything we think we know about Socrates is myth and legend of later centuries. Unless we CHOOSE to prefer Plato's Socrates to the doofus portrayed by Aristophanes, the honest thing to do would be to admit that all we know is nothing. But Plato was a slippery character, a literary type, and you know what they're like! Whereas Aristophanes was a comedian writing for a sophisticated contemporary audience; if his portrayal of Socrates wasn't at least close to the mark, the audience would have sat on their hands. Taking my precedent from another play -- Frogs, in which Dionysius rationalizes his verdict in favor of Aeschylus over Euripides on a purely pragmatic basis -- I hereby conclude that the Aristophelian Socrates seems far more plausible as a historic figure than the Platonic. This is a solid 'reading' translation, as literal as any, with a well-argued introduction reaching the opposite verdict, and with clear explanatory notes, which you will need. The play is replete with allusions to living figures of Aristophanes's Athens. What I think might be fun would be to gather a crowd of friends and read the thing aloud together, appropriately lubricated with libations (but not on the carpet!) and followed by furious debate over the possibility that the chorus of Clouds were cryptic harbingers of anthropogenic climate change.

Aristophanes' comedy "Clouds" is a humorous send-up of Greek rationalism, science, atheism, and lawyerly sophistry, as supposedly represented by Socrates and the philosophical and sophistic schools of Athens. Aristophanes portrays intellectuals as an arrogant class of effete and pasty skinned unbelievers. Except for their skills in rhetoric, which help them get around the law and rip people off, their knowledge is of little worldly or practical value. In other words, their heads are figuratively in the clouds (hence the play's title). "Clouds" is funny in places, but also disturbing in its anti-intellectualism and nostalgia for marshal virtues and doubt-free theism. If Aristophanes were alive today, he might be a caustic, and very conservative, Republican (or even a Fascist). For all this, his play has an undeniably contemporary feel in its critiques of rhetoric, and makes a good primer for reflection on the nihilistic and shameless uses of argumentation (as when oil company representatives engage in blatant sophistries to cast doubt on global warming science). But when, at the end of the play, the lead character (Strepsiades) gleefully burns down the school of Socrates, one is sobered by the reactionary nature of the play. The ending reminds one of humanity's long and tragic history of genocide and iconoclasm (the destroying of a rival ideology's texts, idols, symbols, or buildings). The ending of Aristophanes' play clearly suggests that the killing of an entire class of people in his society would be a positive development. It is not without reason that Plato famously attributed Socrates' death, at least in part, to the popular prejudice generated against him by Aristophanes' "Clouds." In short, Aristophanes' play is thought-provoking, funny, and sobering. It's an easy read and, even after 2500 years, still relevant.

All dramatists, playwrights and intellectuals should be thoroughly familiar with Aristophanes. His work will live on for thousands of more years!

The legend is that when Aristophanes' comedy "The Clouds" was first performed in Athens in 423 B.C., his target, Socrates, stood throughout the performance so that everyone in the audience was aware that he was there and hearing what was said of him. The portrait of Socrates clearly satirical and most critics consider it to be inaccurate. But Aristophanes is making fun of Athens' renowned "Think-tank" the "Phrontisterion," the school where the rich young men of Athens were taught the fine art of rhetoric. Instead of anything lofty the comic poet suggests the primary purpose of such an education is to be clever and out-reason greedy creditors. This is an especially good translation of the play, which includes insightful notes and essays on both Old Comedy and the Theater of Dionysus that helps readers understand the conventions of staged comedy at the time of Aristophanes. In this comedy Socrates is consulted by an old rogue, Strepsiades (sometimes translated as "Twisterson"), who is upset with the mountain of debts his playboy son Phidippides, who loves fast horses and fast living. Phidippides agrees to go to Socrates' school of logic where he can learn to make a wrong argument sound right. After graduation is able to use the system of "unjust logic" to outwit his father and kick him out of the family home. The Chorus of Clouds comments on the proceedings and in the end the Phrontisterion is burned to the ground by Strepsiades.The flaw of the play is Aristophanes is trying to satirize the Sophists, who were popularizing a new philosophy that denied the possibility of ever reaching objective truth, he picked the wrong target. The Sophists were mostly teachers who were not native to Athens, such as Isocartes and Gorgias. "Sophist" basically meant teacher, so while Socrates was a "sophist" he was not a "Sophist." Twenty-four years later, when Socrates was condemned to death for "corrupting the youth of Athens," the only accuser he said he could name was a certain "comic poet." For contemporary audiences who are untutored in the traditions of classical Greek philosophy it is easy to see Socrates as the prototype for the absent-minded professor, but historically that is, of course, far from the truth. Ironically, even today, Socrates is still one of the few "sophists" that a contemporary audience would recognize by name if not by reputation. The version of "The Clouds" that has passed down to us is not the original version, which was defeated by Cratinus' "Wine Flask" at a comedy competition during the Great Dionysia celebrations. We know this is a revised version because the Chorus complains about Aristophanes finishing third in that competition. However, critics assume it is essentially the same play, albeit a more polished version. Once you forgive Aristophanes for his unfair characterization of Socrates, "The Clouds" is a great comedy employing all of his standard tricks of the trade from fantasy and ribaldry to funny songs and obscene words.

I'm in a humanities program at the University of Vermont, and this book was like watching "Roseanne" after a marathon of "The McGlocklin Group" (or however one spells that). It's not humoruous in the way that many fine Shakespere funny--Aristoph. actually made me laugh out loud! Read this when you're in the mood for something witty, but not too pretentious.