As this is the last post for 2022, we would like to wish you all a Happy New Year filled with personal and professional growth and success!
Because Aristophanes is challenging Socrates to a contest of wisdom, at least in a sense, the Clouds has to be moderate, it has to meet Socrates on his own ground. Think about it, Aristophanes must write a comedy about a man without a sex life, about a man who, unlike the 40-year-old Virgin, shows no interest in obtaining sex life. Here in the play, Socrates has no wife and kids, but Aristophanes has his children – his plays. In Aristophanes’ depiction, Socrates is unerotic and acetic. Aristophanes, moreover, is somehow like the clouds, they are sometimes women as in this play. The clouds are pious towards justice, but they’re also happy people recognize they make it rain. They respect Prodicus, but they like Socrates: he’s tough, he struts, he’s a Mensch, he’s manly. But others in the play do not see him as manly. It’s worth asking, how is Socrates manly?