The Clouds

Aristophanes' satire of the new learning: Socrates in a basket, measuring heaven with geometry.

Specifications & Metrics

author

Aristophanes

type

Old Comedy (Greek)

era

Classical Athens (423 BC)

language

Ancient Greek

setting

Athens and the Thinkery

source text

The sophistic education boom

acts

1 acts

Relative Scale in Plays

Core Principles & Analysis

• It placed third — last — at its City Dionysia in 423 BC.
• The surviving text is Aristophanes' later, revised version.
• Its caricature of Socrates shaped the comic charge Plato answered in the Apology.

Sources

• Wikipedia: The Clouds