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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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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
recognized sufficiently in this world of takes considering civic life; the man's the the one lot
ours:
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
to the
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
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
author
the of
Aristophanes Strauss
however, Unjust Speech, or that taken by his Socrates. to consider with the is concerned
represents
position as
Socrates with
the
who
who is incapable of understanding men, lacks phronesis is both and a-Music totally
He
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
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
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"
bear their is in
to infers
inasmuch
of man,
in order
to be "he
is left if perhaps
about
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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