The Clouds Themes

Athens was in the middle of the Peloponnesian War when The Clouds was first performed, and so it's not super shocking that war comes up here and there. And not just as an aside or afterthought. The...

You're in for a good time reading The Clouds, since it's not short on the silly factor. Of course, there's a serious point amid all that humor: Aristophanes is trying to show how foolish Socrates a...

It all comes back to education in The Clouds. The question of how best to prepare people mentally for the challenges of life is a huge question (like, just in general), and Aristophanes is definite...

No, you haven't been beamed back to your grandparents' front porch, but it might feel that way—there's a lot of reminiscing about the "good old days" in The Clouds, and chatter about how much bet...

Who would have thought that the discipline of philosophy could be harmful—after all, what could be better and more helpful to human beings than pondering the meaning of life? Well, judging from w...

In addition to his mad rhetorical skills, Socrates is notable for being The Clouds' primary scientist figure. He teaches Strepsiades about how clouds (not Zeus) make the rain, and apparently he has...

Okay, yes, Socrates is a philosopher, but a big part of his philosophy is figuring out the best way to argue a point to get what you want. Sure, you could argue his approach is more about persuasio...

If philosophy and rhetoric are kind of the Big Bads in The Clouds, morality is the white knight. Characters like Socrates and Worse Argument (and Strepsiades, for most of the play) seem to think th...