No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Aristophanes vs. Socrates
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2014
Abstract
In Plato’s Apology, Socrates claims that phthonos and diabolē caused Aristophanes to become one of his accusers. Either Socrates is blowing things out of proportion because Aristophanes was clearly just kidding around, or we are wrong to pass Aristophanes’ humour off as ‘just kidding around.’ In this paper, I defend the second alternative. I argue that Aristophanes is a specific kind of social conservative and that Socrates was the sort of social liberal that bothered Aristophanes. I conclude that Clouds is not innocent, but is, as Socrates claimed, driven by phthonos and diabolē.
Dans l’Apologie de Platon, Socrate affirme que phthonos et diabolē ont conduit Aristophane à devenir l’un de ses accusateurs. Soit Socrate commet une grossière exagération, car clairement Aristophane ne faisait que plaisanter, soit nous avons tort de penser que l’humour d’Aristophane n’est rien d’autre que de la plaisanterie. Dans cet article, je défends la seconde position. Je soutiens qu’Aristophane est un type spécifique de conservateur social et que Socrate était le genre de social-libéral qui dérangeait Aristophane. Je conclus que Les Nuées n’est pas un texte innocent, mais est, comme Socrate le prétendait, motivé par phthonos et diabolē.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 691 - 713
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2014
References
Apte, M.L.1985 Humour and Laughter: an anthropological approach. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail 1984 Problems in Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Edited and translated by Emerson, Caryl. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowie, Angus M.1993 Aristophanes: myth, ritual and comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Smith, Nicholas D. 1989 Socrates on Trial. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
de Ste. Croix, G.E.M.1972 The Origins of the Peloponnesian War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Edmunds, L.1987 Cleon, Knights, and Aristophanes’ Politics. Lanham: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Edwards, Anthony J.1993“Historicizing the Popular Grotesque: Bakhtin’s Rabelais and Attic Old Comedy.” In Theater and Society in the Classical World, edited by Scodel, Ruth, 89–117. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Ford, Thomas E., Boxer, Christie F., Armstrong, Jacob, Edel, Jessica R. 2008 “More Than ‘Just a Joke’: The Prejucide-Releasing Function of Sexist Humour.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34:159–170.Google Scholar
Freydburg, Bernard 2008 Philosophy & Comedy. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Frontisi-Ducroux, F.1989“In the Mirror of the Mask.” In A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece, ed. Bérard, C., Bron, C., Durand, J.-L., Frontisi-Ducroux, F., Lissarrague, F., Schnapp, A., Vernant, J.-P.; trans. Lyons, D., 150–65. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Halliwell, Stephen 1984a“Aristophanic Satire.” Yearbook of English Studies 14:6–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halliwell, Stephen 1984b“Ancient Interpretations of onomasti kōmōdein in Aristophanes.” Classical Quarterly 34:83–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halliwell, Stephen 1991“The Uses of Laughter in Greek Culture.” Classical Quarterly 41:279–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halliwell, Stephen 1993“Comedy and Publicity in the Society of the Polis.” In Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis, edited by Henderson, J., Halliwell, S., Sommerstein, A.H. and Zimmermann, B.. Levante Editori: Bari, 321–40.Google Scholar
Halliwell, Stephen (translator) 1998 “Introduction.” In Birds and Other Plays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ix-lxvi.Google Scholar
Heath, M.1987 Political Comedy in Aristophanes. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht; 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heath, M.1997“Aristophanes and the Discourse of Politics.” In The City as Comedy: Society and Representation in Athenian Drama, edited by Dobrov, G.W., 230–49. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Henderson, Jeffrey 1993“Problems in Greek Literary History: The Case of Aristophanes’ Clouds.” In Nomodeiktes: Greek Studies in Honor of Martin Ostwald, edited by Rosen, R.M. and Farrell, Joseph. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 591–601.Google Scholar
Henderson, Jeffrey 1996 Three Plays by Aristophanes: Staging Women. New York, N.Y.: Routledge.Google Scholar
Henderson, Jeffrey 1998 Aristophanes: Acharnians, Knights—v. 2. Clouds, Wasps, Peace. Harvard: Loeb Classical Library, 1998.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Jay S.2012 “Albert Brooks and Sheetal Sheth Looking for Symmetry with the Muslim World.” PopEntertainment.com. Web. March 22. <http://www.popentertainment.com/brookssheth.htm>..>Google Scholar
Kopff, E. Christian 1990“The Date of Aristophanes’ Nubes II.” American Journal of Philology 111:318–29.Google Scholar
Lott, Eric 1993 Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ludwig, Paul W.2002 Eros and Polis: Desire and Community in Greek Political Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha 1980“Aristophanes and Socrates on Learning Practical Wisdom.” Yale Classical Studies 26:43–97.Google Scholar
O’Regan, Daphne 1992 Rhetoric, Comedy and the Violence of Language. Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press.Google Scholar
Patzer, Andreas 1993 “Die Wolken des Aristophanes also philosophiegeschichtliche Dokument.” In Klassische Sprachen und Literaturen, vol. 27: Motiv und Motivation, edited by P. Neukam. München: Bayerischer Schulbuch-Verlag.Google Scholar
Platter, Charles 1993“The Uninvited Guest: Aristophanes in Bakhtin’s ‘History of Laughter’.” Arethusa 26:201–16.Google Scholar
Platter, Charles 2001“Novelistic Discourse in Aristophanes.” In Carnivalizing Difference: Bakhtin and the Other, edited by Barta, P.I., Miller, P.A., Platter, C., Shepherd, D.; 51–77. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Platter, Charles 2007 Aristophanes and the Carnival of Genres. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Sidwell, Keith C.2009 Aristophanes the Democrat: The Politics of Satirical Comedy During the Peloponnesian War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sommerstein, Alan H.1994 Review of Aristophanes: Myth, Ritual and Comedy, by A.M. Bowie. The Journal of Hellenic Studies 114:188–9.Google Scholar
Sommerstein, Alan H.1996“How to Avoid Being a Komodoumenos.” The Classical Quarterly, New Series 46:327–356.Google Scholar
Storey, Ian C.1993“The Dates of Aristophanes’ Clouds II and Eupolis’ Baptai: A Reply to E. C. Kopff.” American Journal of Philology 114:71–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Storey, Ian C.1998“General Introduction.” In Aristophanes 1: Clouds, Wasps, Birds. Translated, with Notes, by Meineck, Peter. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Vasiliou, Iakovis 1998“Conditional Irony in the Socratic Dialogues.” Classical Quarterly 35: 456–72.Google Scholar
Wolfsdorf, David.2007“The Irony of Socrates.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65: 175–87.Google Scholar