Search

Copyright of Logos: A Journal, of Religion, Philosophy Comparative Cultural Studies & Art (08687692) is the property of Logos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article explores the phenomenon of ancient Greek theater, portraying it as a unique space where an entire cityscape unfolded before the eyes of thousands of spectators. Despite its mesmerizing effect, there's ongoing debate about its educational impact. In the first part of the article, sources are analyzed in which ancient authors argue for or against the notion that the theater, for which Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides composed, and which was occasionally attended by Socrates, could serve as a kind of school for adults and adolescents. Plato's dialogues, featuring Socrates as the central figure, dissect the differences between philosopher, playwright, and sophist wisdom, suggesting that the theater may not have been primarily aimed at enlightening the masses, but rather at showcasing persuasive rhetoric. Aristotle and Aristophanes stress the importance of playwrights acting as guides for citizens, albeit acknowledging that not all possess the wisdom to effectively mentor citizens in civic engagement and personal growth. In the second part, the article analyzes select tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, seen as valuable sources for instructing citizens. These playwrights' works are depicted as poignant reflections of the challenges faced by inhabitants of various cities, with heroes striving to offer guidance to themselves or others. Based on Aristotle's classification of tragic forms, it suggests that protagonists in these tragedies undergo transformative experiences, whether through reversal, discovery, calamity and spectacle. This also opened up wide opportunities for spectators to project what was happening on stage onto themselves and their city, taking guidance from the playwrights and becoming a special kind of disciples.

Copyright of Cuadernos de Filología Clásica: Estudios Griegos e Indoeuropeos is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Socrates is portrayed as a Homer-lover in Plato's dialogues, both explicitly through his expression of love and respect for Homer since his childhood (Republic 595b9-10) and implicitly through his numerous Homeric quotations and references. Similarly, Socrates frequently uses Homeric references in the dialogues that Xenophon wrote to preserve his memories. The comparative study of these authors so far suggests that the historical Socrates did use Homer often in his conversation. However, we should also consider whether that portrait matches the Socrates depicted in Aristophanes' Clouds, a more contemporary source than Plato and Xenophon's works. This paper examines the portrayal of Socrates in the Clouds and argues that here, too, we can find a reflection of his love of Homer, especially in his invocation of the Clouds in lines 265-74. It will also consider how that portrayal of Socrates can affect our view of Socrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature is the property of Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article looks to Attic comedy to explain Socrates' first argument in Plato's Hippias Major: his refutation of Hippias' claim that the Beautiful is a beautiful girl. As part of his argument, Socrates introduces three examples of beautiful things—a mare (θήλεια ἵππος), a lyre (λύρα) and a pot (χύτρα)—all of which are used in comedy as metaphorical obscenities for sexualized women. The author contends that an erotic reading of the text accomplishes what no other interpretation can: (1) a unified account of the passage that (2) allows for Socrates' successful refutation of (3) a proposal in keeping with Hippias' character. In addition, it explains (4) Socrates' choice of examples—in particular, the rarely cited χύτρα—and (5) Hippias' otherwise inexplicable reaction to the χύτρα, as well as (6) the analogous relationship of monkeys and men to pots and girls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expression ψυχαγωγεῖ Σωκράτης used by Aristophanes in Birds has been interpreted in different ways. However, the fact that the comediographer compares the action of invoking the souls of the dead to Odysseus, ὥσπερ Οὑδυσσεύς, suggests that book 11 of the Odyssey was the model that inspired the scene. Many platonic passages from Protagoras, Republic, Gorgias, Phaedo and Apology explain which could have been the cause of the aristophanic parody: Socrates’ propensity to mention Odysseus in his descriptions of what is awaiting for the souls in Hades after the death.

The present article is divided into three parts. The first discusses the nature of utopias and their hypothetical anti-type, dystopias, and also disaster scenarios that are sometimes assimilated to dystopias, with reference also to the idea of post-utopia. An argument is made for the continuity of the utopian impulse, even in an age when brutal wars and forms of oppression have caused many to lose faith in any form of collectivity. Representations of social breakdown and its apparent opposite, totalitarian rigidity, tend to privilege the very individualism that the utopian vision aspires to overcome. The second part looks at examples of each of these types drawn from classical Greek and Roman literature, with a view to seeing how utopias were conceived at a time before the emergence of the modern ideology of the pre-social self. Finally, the third part examines several stories from the collection A People’s Future of the United States which imagine life in the near future. While most illustrate the failure of confidence in the social that has encouraged the intuition that a utopian future is passé, one, it is suggested, reconceives the relation between the individual and the social in a way that points to the renewed possibility of the utopian.

This philosophical essay aims to return to the Socratic problem, ask it anew, and make an attempt to find its possible solution. In the introduction, the author briefly discusses the genesis of the Socratic problem and the basic methodological problems we encounter when dealing with it. Further on, it defines five basic sources of information about Socrates on which the interpretation tradition is based. Then the author outlines two key features of Socrates' personality, aligned with the vast majority of sources: (1) Socrates' belief that he has no theoretical knowledge; (2) Socrates' predilection towards practical questions, and the practical dimension of his activity. In conclusion, the author expresses his belief that it is just this practical dimension of philosophy that has been in the 'blind spot' of the modern study of Socrates which paid too much attention to the search for his doctrine. The history of philosophy, however, does not only have to be the history of doctrines, but can also be the history of reflected life practices which inspire followers in their own practices while reflecting on them. The author therefore proposes to understand the historical Socrates as the paradigmatic figure of practical philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After appearing for the first time in Agathon's scene of Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae (159-167), the mimesis intended as self-representation becomes a key feature not only in Plato's theory of poetry (Resp. III, X), but also in his implicit poetics: in writing the Republic, Plato portrays himself in the model of the philosopher painting the ideal constitution of Kallipolis (Resp. VI), and in the Symposium both Agathon and Socrates represent themselves in their portraits of Eros. Same attitude towards literary self-representation is to be found in the Thalysia, with Simichidas mirroring Theocritus, and in an epigram of Philodemus, with the pun made by the philosopher-poet on his proper name (AP 5.115 = 10 Sider). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the image of Socrates as found in the Works of Plato and Aristophanes. The author discovers Pythagorean traits in the image of Socrates as portrayed by these two ancient authors. The author also discusses the Pythagoreans and their role in the creation of stable schools of Philosophy. He likewise shows that the sophists were not the only ones contributing to the creation of centres of education and learning in the ancient world

This article concerns the 'ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry' (Plato, Rep. 607b). With the guidance of Leo Strauss, and with reference to French cultural anthropology and the Hebrew Bible, I offer close readings of the origin myths told by the characters of Aristophanes in Plato's Symposium and Socrates in book 2 of the Republic. I contrast Aristophanes' prudential and political esotericism with Socrates' pedagogical esotericism, connecting the former with poetry's affirmation of the primacy of chaos and the latter with philosophy's openness to the measures of nature or phusis. Aristophanes regards the political poetry of Olympianism as a necessary corrective of original human disorder, while Socrates traces the sickness of souls and cities to an excess of poiesis, 'poetry' or 'production' in all of its cultural and material senses. The quarrel between Socrates and Aristophanes illuminates fundamental questions that were of central concern to Strauss: What is the status of nature? Must we orient ourselves by the forceful impressions of culture, or can we make out natural standards of how to live? Is war the primary human condition, or peace? Are human beings essentially erotic, or thumotic? Is philosophy an expression of reckless boldness, or of saving moderation? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses two speeches about Socrates by Dion of Prusa On Socrates (Or. 54) and Socrates and Homer (Or. 55). The main Dionʼs argument is that Socrates was in fact a follower and a pupil of Homer. We argue for the historical veracity of such a view and substantiate Dionʼs argumentation by further evidence which can be found in the texts of other Socratics, mainly in Plato and Xenophon. Subsequently, we formulate the hypothesis, that the main source behind Dionʼs view about Socrates might be also Antisthenes, who was well established author of Homeric declamations in antiquity. We offer first Slovak translation of the Dionʼs speeches.

Plato's treatment of poetry is usually discussed without reference to other contemporary reception of Greek poetry, leading to divergent political or aesthetic accounts of its meaning. Yet the culture of the Greek polis, in particular Athens, is the defining context for understanding his aims. Four distinct points are made here, and cumulatively an interpretation of Plato's opposition to poetry: on the basis of other evidence, including Aristophanes' Frogs, that Plato would quite reasonably understand poetry to claim the craft of looking after a city (political technê)-, that Socrates makes a rival claim that philosophy is the pursuit of this skill; that Plato considers the poets, owing to this rivalry, to aim to exclude philosophy from Athens; and finally, that Plato's exclusion of poetry from the theoretical just city of the Republic is part of his defence of the possibility of philosophy in Athens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay aims to illustrate how literature has had a critical attitude towards education, particularly towards the institutional university education, since the emergence of the first system of thought in favor of Reason and against myth. We will present a historicalsociological approach to see how there is a counter-hegemonic literary element in every period in the history of university education, which calls into question the games of truth and education of the university institution. To illustrate that point, we will establish a connection between Aristophanes' The Clouds and the Socratic-Platonic thought, given that it is in the Academe founded by Plato where we can find a precedent of the universities of our days. Next, we will focus on the development of the medieval university and the appearance of the Goliards, who play a very similar role to Aristophanes' The Clouds in relation to the institutional education. Finally, we will examine how American and European universities have been transformed by the entrance of the market and capitalist rationality in these institutions, while exposing the reflection of these changes in literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract It is a common experience to dream of a world where everyone would live happy and in harmony with both the environment and the other people, without sufferings and injustice, under a perfect socio-political system, without wars or hunger. This dream has inspired different people form different eras and cultures to build imaginary worlds for compensating the dissatisfaction with the current one. Utopia is the name of the imaginary world they proposed either as alternative one or as temporary oasis able to release people from the reality. Literally meaning ‘no-place’, the term has an ancient Greek root but it does not exist in the vocabulary of ancient Greek language. Although ancient Greeks did not have a conscious concept of utopia, they, however, dreamt, wrote, proposed – with different aims - what we would call now ( paradoxically using a ‘modern’ term ) ‘utopic’ worlds. From the archaic to the post-classic period, we find literary expressions of utopic thought in ancient Greek culture. Such expressions constitute the basis of the modern Utopia and Utopianism with their positive and negative implications. This essay takes a more detailed look at the work of Aristophanes, considered one of the greatest Greek playwrights, and inquires whether his comedies can be considered utopias.

In this paper I address the relationship between Aristophanes' Ecclesiasuzae and books 2-4 (and the first parts of Book V) of Plato's Republic. To address this issue, I examine passages of the two works deemed similar by James Adam and others in the light of Holger Thessleff's work on Platonic chronology with assistance from Debra Nails. I dispute Ussher's conviction that the confluent ideas are a result of the intellectual atmosphere in Athens during the beginning of the 4th Century B.C.E., as well as the notion that the production of Ecclesiasuzae preceded the dissemination of any parts of the Republic. My conclusion is that an unfinished "Proto-Republic" was circulated in Athens prior to 392 (the most commonly accepted date for the production of Ecclesiasuzae) and that it was this work which Aristophanes parodying through the reforms of Praxagora. While the conclusion I reach is similar to that of Thesleff, I do not rely on (nor indeed, necessarily agree with) several of his specific arguments in order to arrive at a pre-Ecclesiasuzae date for the "Proto-Republic." Instead, I draw upon the compositional practices of ancient authors, the preeminence of the Republic in Plato's corpus, the inadequacy of previous arguments attempting to describe the two works' similarity, and the texts themselves to reach my conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonly assumed that line 2 of Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae, where it appears that the action of our play begins in the early morning after dawn, is inconsistent with lines 277-9, where the Kinsman is told to hurry off to the women's Assembly so as to arrive there before dawn (cf. 376). This article offers a fresh approach to the problem by re-analyzing the temporal co-ordinate offered by the Kinsman's wish for the appearance of χελιδων, 'the swallow', in line 1. It is argued that for an audience of mid-April 411, the play's production date, χελιδων did not primarily evoke the coming of spring as is usually presumed. Rather, the word evoked a specific time of night, the pre-dawn hours of ορθρος;, during which, in April 411, not only the swallow could be heard but also a star called Χελιδων could be seen ascending before sunrise. The Kinsman's reference to χελιδων therefore situates the beginning of the play at some unspecified time before dawn, implying that Euripides and his Kinsman have been tramping around in circles ever since the dawn of the day before, and that the dawn of line 376 is the dawn of a second day. The twenty-four hour wandering of our play's protagonists in search of a solution to Euripides' predicament therefore provides a comic precedent for Alcibiades' description of Socrates' twenty-four-hour, dawn-to-dawn, stint of philosophizing in Plato's Symposium (220c3-d5). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article two figures, the most representative of the fourth century b.C. are seen in their context, through their drive to institute a new form of politeía within the boundaries of the events taking place right after the Peloponessian war. The article contains three parts: an introduction which attempts to sound the ruling ideas once the war has ended; a second part deals with pólemos and stasis in the thought of Plato, who starts from a definite conception of war and determines his model, basing himself on the ability of the legislator to produce reconciliation so as to reach a harmonious organization centered on the communitarian and justice. The third part takes some points from Aristotle which are intended to insinuate a direction through which he will see as his main problem, in the case of civil wars, the distribution of property, foreseeing that although it is true that education can contribute to improve the distribution of oysía, it is more important to educate in epilhymía, that is to say ambition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws attention to the Symposium's concern with epideictic rhetoric. It argues that in the Symposium, as in the Gorgias and the Phaedrus, a contrast is drawn between true and false rhetoric. The paper also discusses the dialogue's relationship to drama. Whereas both epideictic rhetoric and drama were directed to a mass audience, the speeches in the Symposium are delivered to a small, select group. The discussion focuses on the style of the speeches delivered by Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates and Alcibiades. Aristophanes speaks in the simple style of comedy, fable and folktale, also used by Protagoras in Plato's Protagoras. Agathon speaks in the high-flown style of Gorgias. Socrates' speech is a miniature Platonic dialogue, and both Alcibiades' speech and Socrates' speech may be compared to satyr play. The paper concludes with a suggestion that the claim at 223D, that the same person should be able to write both comedy and tragedy, refers to style as well as subject-matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article is divided into three parts. The first discusses the nature of utopias and their hypothetical anti-type, dystopias, and also disaster scenarios that are sometimes assimilated to dystopias, with reference also to the idea of post-utopia. An argument is made for the continuity of the utopian impulse, even in an age when brutal wars and forms of oppression have caused many to lose faith in any form of collectivity. Representations of social breakdown and its apparent opposite, totalitarian rigidity, tend to privilege the very individualism that the utopian vision aspires to overcome. The second part looks at examples of each of these types drawn from classical Greek and Roman literature, with a view to seeing how utopias were conceived at a time before the emergence of the modern ideology of the pre-social self. Finally, the third part examines several stories from the collection A People's Future of the United States which imagine life in the near future. While most illustrate the failure of confidence in the social that has encouraged the intuition that a utopian future is passé, one, it is suggested, reconceives the relation between the individual and the social in a way that points to the renewed possibility of the utopian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]