The Clouds
Place on List:
IV. Special Area: Literary
Social Criticism
2. Primary
Texts: Drama
Aristophanes.
The
Clouds.
Supporting References:
- "Clouds." The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Ed. Howatson, M. C.. : Oxford University Press, 2011. Oxford Reference. 2011. Date Accessed 3 Sep. 2013
“Clouds
(Nephelai) (Lat. Nūbēs). Greek comedy by Aristophanes,
ridiculing Socrates (then aged 46) as a typical sophist
and corrupt propagator of absurd new ideas among the young. The play
was originally produced at the City Dionysia
of 423 bc but won only third (and last) prize, and Aristophanes, who
seems to have thought it his best play to date, set about rewriting
it. We have only the revised version dating from the period 418–416.
The revision was never completed and the play never performed.
“Strepsīades (‘Twister’), an
elderly dishonest farmer, has been financially ruined by his
fashionable wife and horse-loving son Pheidippides, a young man in
the cavalry. He has heard of Socrates, a man who can make the worse
cause appear the better, and hopes that he will teach his son how to
defraud his creditors. As his son refuses to enter Socrates' school
(the phrontisterion, ‘think-shop’), Strepsiades decides to
go himself. He is told he must resign himself to hard work and simple
living, and is introduced to the chorus of Clouds; they are the
deities who produce thunder and rain (and not Zeus, as generally
believed). But Strepsiades is too stupid and too much concerned with
his debts to learn very much, and Pheidippides has to take his place
as pupil. Socrates hands Pheidippides over to be instructed by Right
(the Better Argument) and Wrong (the Worse Argument) in person. A
contest between these two (one of the substituted scenes) follows, in
which Wrong is victorious. Strepsiades, by the aid of what little he
has learnt, fobs off and drives away his creditors. But the tables
are turned when, as a result of the same learning, Pheidippides
starts to beat his father (and threatens to beat his mother too), and
proves that he is justified in doing so. Strepsiades, disgusted with
the new education and repenting of his dishonesty, sets fire to
Socrates' school and drives the inmates away.”
- Hartnoll, Phyllis, and Peter Found. "Aristophanes." The Concise Oxford Companion to the Theatre. : Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference. 2003. Date Accessed 21 Aug. 2013
The article offers
an overview of the author and less a discussion on the above-cited
text.
“Aristophanes
(c.448–c.380 bc), Greek dramatist, author of
some 40 comedies, of which 11 are extant (the only Greek comedies to
be preserved in their entirety): the Acharnians (425),
Knights (424), Clouds (423), Wasps (422),
Peace (421), Birds (414), Lysistrata
(411), Women at the Festival (Thesmaphoriazousae)
(410), Frogs (405), Women in Parliament
(Ecclesiazousae) (392), and Plutus (388). Many of
these take their titles from the disguises assumed in them by the
chorus—wasps,
clouds, frogs, etc. Aristophanes' direct influence on drama has been
slight; the form and spirit of his comedy were so intensely local
that they offered no models and little material to comic dramatists
of other times and places. On the other hand, his purely literary
influence has been great, particularly on Rabelais and Fielding.
The earlier plays have very little plot. Instead a farcical
situation, usually having direct reference to some political or
social problem of the time, is briefly sketched, and is then
exploited in a series of loosely connected scenes. In the Acharnians,
for example, an Athenian citizen, weary of the war, makes a private
treaty with the enemy and consequently enjoys the advantages of
trading with them. The iambic scenes develop the ludicrous
possibilities of the invention, and enable Aristophanes to hit out at
people he dislikes—politicians, busybodies, philosophers.
Characters are often burlesques of contemporary Athenians, and even
the gods. These earlier plays are an astonishing mixture of fantasy,
unsparing (and often violently unfair) satire, brilliant verbal wit,
obscenity, literary and musical parody, exquisite lyrics,
hard-hitting political propaganda, and uproarious farce. Aristophanes
was essentially a popular dramatist, fond of slapstick
and comic business. The Frogs marks the transition to a
quieter form of comedy in which personal and political invective
plays a smaller part and the plot is more elaborate. Some of
Aristophanes' plays, notably the Frogs, the Birds,
and Lysistrata, have been successfully produced in English
translations.”
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