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    The Clouds
    The Clouds
    The Clouds
    Ebook80 pages55 minutes

    The Clouds

    By Aristophanes

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Strepsiades complains to the audience that he is too worried about household debts to get any sleep – his aristocratic wife has encouraged their son's expensive interest in horses. Strepsiades, having thought up a plan to get out of debt, wakes the youth gently and pleads with him to do something for him. Pheidippides at first agrees to do as he's asked then changes his mind when he learns that his father wants to enroll him in The Thinkery, a school for wastrels and bums that no self-respecting, athletic young man dares to be associated with.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInteractive Media
    Release dateOct 25, 2016
    ISBN9781911535812
    The Clouds
    Author

    Aristophanes

    Aristophanes (446–386 BCE) was a Greek comedy writer, who produced about 40 plays throughout his career. His work was the embodiment of “Old Comedy”—an early form of the genre that used exaggerated characters and scenarios. Aristophanes’ first play, The Banqueters, was produced in 427 BCE, quickly followed by The Babylonians. His most famous production, Lysistrata, was initially performed in 411 BCE and centers on one woman’s attempt to end a war by holding a sex strike. Due to his sensationalized plots and vibrant characters, Aristophanes is considered one of the architects of Greek comedy.

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    Reviews for The Clouds

    3.5/5

    94 ratings8 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I'm not sure I get this, but it's an interesting glimpse into Athenian life a very long time ago. The moral appears to be that you should not trust philosophers; there's not much else to it.
    • 4/5
      Aristophanes won some of the drama competitions under a pseudonym before he was old enough to enter. He references both Aeschylus (as a conservatives choice) and Euripides (as liked by the new "wrong logic" generation of youth). In addition, he continues his debate/feud with Cleon. More than anything, this work represents the same criticisms put against Socrates during his trial -- that he was leading the youth of the time away from discipline and tradition. The victory of Wrong Logic in his debate with Right logic demonstrates the twisted argument that men found so hard to refute. The sexual innuendo is also thick throughout the interaction with Socrates and his students. I often wonder how much the content has been altered from the original when the rhyme is this good. It was fun to read, aloud even, and would make a great speech excerpt. The thought process by Strepsiades is hilarious in places, and the words of the Clouds (chorus) are quite powerful.
    • 4/5
      Strepsiades was a terrible character, and I adored him. The way that he stomped on everything insightful or serious with a fart joke should have pissed me off, but instead it had me laughing out loud. My favorite part is near the beginning, where the chorus comes on for the first time. This must have been hilarious seen on the stage. Socrates is revering the chorus and going, "O great Clouds!" and so forth, and Strepsiades says, with the same religious fervor, that he's so amazed and enraptured by him that if it's allowed, and even if it's not, he's so awed that he must take a crap. I am not at all a fan of crude humor like that on a general basis, but for whatever reason, I find myself unfailingly amused.The whole thing was a mixture of the terribly wonderful. It was interesting to see Socrates being approached as a regular guy with a bit of an ego problem. In my encounters of learning about Socrates, he'd always held some heavy connotations of serious thought, though he did have his light-hearted moments. It's both ridiculous and hilarious to see Socrates, such a revered scholar, being made fun of. Whenever I read Plato, I now have this impression in the back of my mind of some guy swinging down on a wire and talking in a haughty voice about ducks. I'd say the play did its job.
    • 4/5
      This translation retains much of the raunchy Greek comedy. As such, this is not a book for the prudish or faint of heart. For any classics scholar, dramatist or theater fan this is a must read classic.
    • 3/5
      satire on philosophy and Socrates. tad crude at times and funny at times
    • 2/5
      Probably only interesting to your hardcore classical Greek/Athens inter/intra-philosophy-school-fighting crowd (who also like bawdy 'jokes'). And the people who study them. Kind of goofy for my tastes.
    • 4/5
      This was really decent. It was a play full of high, and low, comedy as well as interesting (historically and fictionally) characters as well as situations that you could appreciate the humour of. I didn't think I would like this very much, but I was proven wrong from almost the beginning. For those who like drama, classics, or Greek literature- you should read this and give it a try.3.75 stars.
    • 4/5
      While this edition suffers from a too modern translation The Clouds resonates, all too self aware, castigating the audience, slurring them actually. This great farce takes aim at the secular university and the godless wiseasses it produces.

      As Goodreads friend Sologdin noted, it is intriguing to see Socrates cast as a pre-Socratic. Much like Derrida’s post card.

      A middle class father is deep in debt as a result of his son's lavish lifestyle. Father hopes education will allow the son to use logic and rhetoric to defeat these legal challenges. Son learns well and eventually canes his father.

      The pale effeminate world of the sophists is ridiculed at every turn, though I wasn’t expecting the apocalyptic conclusion.

      I recommend this satire at those who can still giggle with Deconstruction.

    Book preview

    The Clouds - Aristophanes

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