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Concept
The Clouds
Summary
The Clouds (Νεφέλαι, Nephelai) is a Greek comedy play written by the playwright Aristophanes. A lampooning of intellectual fashions in classical Athens, it was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423 BC and was not as well received as the author had hoped, coming last of the three plays competing at the festival that year. It was revised between 420 and 417 BC and was thereafter circulated in manuscript form.
No copy of the original production survives, and scholarly analysis indicates that the revised version is an incomplete form of Old Comedy. This incompleteness, however, is not obvious in translations and modern performances.
Retrospectively, The Clouds can be considered the world's first extant "comedy of ideas" and is considered by literary critics to be among the finest examples of the genre. The play also, however, remains notorious for its caricature of Socrates and is mentioned in Plato's Apology as a contributor to the philosopher's trial and execution.
Socrates, the philosopher who runs The Thinkery
Strepsiades, student who joins The Thinkery
Pheidippides, his son
Chaerephon, disciple of Socrates
The Clouds, who form the chorus
Chorus Leader
Slave
Students
First Student
Wrong Argument
Right Argument
First Creditor
Second Creditor
Witness
Xanthias
The play begins with Strepsiades suddenly sitting up in bed while his son, Pheidippides, remains blissfully asleep in the bed next to him. Strepsiades complains to the audience that he is too worried about household debts to get any sleep – his wife (the pampered product of an aristocratic clan) has encouraged their son's expensive interest in betting on horse races. 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 is asked then changes his mind when he learns that his father wants to enroll him in The Thinkery, a school for wastrels and bums with which no self-respecting, athletic young man dares to be associated.
Official source
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