The Massachusetts Review, Inc.

Socrates and Aristophanes by Leo Strauss Review by: Jacob Klein The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Spring, 1968), pp. 399-400 Published by: The Massachusetts Review, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25087721 . Accessed: 09/07/2013 18:39
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SOCRATES AND ARISTOPHANES

Jacob Klein
Whatever supplementing cance of which book deals with its the has two intrinsic author's not this work, book1 the can be and best understood signifi The bent on tied as

merits, lifetime

deep

yet been stands man without the fact of

recognized sufficiently in this world of takes considering civic life; the man's the the one lot

challenging and appreciated. the one in it, the seldom

ours:

apprehending in varying upon and

this world degrees to

other

rather

embarked

other and yet unavoidable other, necessarily by impeded in its far-reaching little understood implications. The tide of the book The is somewhat?and so?ambiguous. deliberately as he reveals meant confrontation it is between in himself by Aristophanes comedies and the Aristophanean all the other Socrates as presented in the Clouds.

his

Accordingly
Clouds, Platonic the and

the book is divided

second the to

into two parts: the first is devoted

extant

to the

for Except Most attentive

straight tative of analysis hinted at?of only "transform transcomic vides effects not the

Xenophontic the Clouds, to follow is required the reading of the actions and statements reporting these what actions is at and stake statements in them. of

Both the of Aristophanes. plays are never Socrates forgotten. the plays are taken up in their chronological order. transitions in the and from the author's to his plays interpre to his own views?often

specific

two-dimensionality

the

three-dimensionality." (p. author with the opportunity with his own subdued irony and concerned the burlesque the luster with and the

It is the author's to design into a comedy [Aristophanes'] It is this new dimension that pro 51) to match the poet's immediate comic dead-pan wit. Strauss is, on the the whole, ingenious

directly

surprising

the plays. laughter-exciting They to of that comic His task is to de two-dimensionality. tect the serious in what is or even with deeply comically presented farcically, out ever a to the wisdom an of thesis and reducing poet's dry exposition For "comedy tithesis. is the most itself effective of wisdom." disguise 64) (p. Strauss seeks to find the sometimes but concealed outspoken, mostly position or see from one?or we hear of the poet in what more than one?personage punning, all belong in a given play, it in the relations the personages is contrasted to find that in them with that it in what exist between state or do not state, the parabaseis to find the plays themselves with to what regard it is this position do. And of the poet which in the Clouds. A most important role is

circumlocutions, in situations

say and of Socrates

Leo Strauss, Socrates

and Aristophanes.

New

York:

Basic Books,

1966. $8.50.

399

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The Massachusetts
assigned to the Just Speech and the Unjust
reverts Just to Speech is them nor himself inclined who but who of Eros, time the and again in reviewing

Review
Speech
the

in this play. The

other plays. the Neither

author
the of

Aristophanes Strauss

however, Unjust Speech, or that taken by his Socrates. to consider with the is concerned

represents

position as

Socrates, youthful and physiologia, know the secrets

Aristophanean "the aloft," things

Socrates with

the

who

who is incapable of understanding men, lacks phronesis is both and a-Music totally

astronomy not does and

totally apolitical, (pp. 4, 51, 173, 313-314)

view One in Plato's wonders Phaedoy Parmenides, Socrates how could and ever

He

finds confirmation of this

ever Socrates could have Aristophanean to the at the As Socrates. of this change, Strauss refers, phontic possibility to of his end Muhammad The al-Razi's book, very Philosophic b.Zakariyya

as well as in Symposium Xenophon. have the how acquired phronesis, or the Xeno become the Platonic

Way

of Life. At any rate, what distinguishes Socrates in the Clouds decisively

himself Socrates is their disregards of divine respective the relation "three to the civic community. requirements" of As father-killing, to the first not exist," that the that (p. two fundamental

from Aristophanes The Aristophanean of the the City: prohibition the

requirement, but he does Aristophanes

the prohibition rule, acceptance to them. of adheres incest; Aristophanes asserts of the Clouds the Socrates that "Zeus go be beyond said to but raises, let the this gain assertion. an It

does

not can

sophist-philosopher never Socrates

poet alone answers,

advantage is able to raise as to

at this is precisely point over ". . .not Socrates: and the answer godness as the of question the gods." the

313) Wealth
names, sensitive come from (p. This into "are

(Plutos)
each severally Plutos or

and Peace
divinity "is

(Eirene),
itself"

in the plays which

they embody

bear their is in
to infers

inasmuch

ingredients of the divine

to pain); his own

(p. 306): Eirene

in need himself." is a god uncertain (p. whom

is a beautiful statue (which

of human help, 296) other the Ultimately?as gods Strauss

of man,

in order

to be "he

the Frogs?only and man 245), is only one, of

is left if perhaps

about

the most comedies. of Strauss'

interpretation the convey

Aristophanes' richness labyrinthine

to be a god" proclaim of this veracity proclamation. of a most result important, thorough cannot This brief to review presume work.

400

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