Socrates in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

by Trapp,Michael; Trapp,Michael

• ISBN13: 9780754641230
• ISBN10: 0754641236
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-07-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

With contributions by both established and rising scholars, Socrates in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries surveys interpretations and uses of this most iconic of all ancient philosophers over the past two centuries, principally outside the confines of formal philosophy. The representations discussed range from the hugely influential readings of Hegel, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, to presentations and exploitations of Socrates in twentieth-century American political discourse and Cold War Bulgaria. Special attention is given to perceptions inspired - in drama, music and visual art - by the Socrates of Plato's Symposium. A companion volume deals with Socrates from Antiquity to the Enlightenment.Socrates, son of Sophroniscus, of Alopece is arguably the most richly and diversely commemorated - and appropriated - of all ancient thinkers. Already in Antiquity, vigorous controversy over his significance and value ensured a wide range of conflicting representations. He then became available to the medieval, renaissance and modern worlds in a provocative variety of roles: as paradigmatic philosopher and representative (for good or ill) of ancient philosophical culture in general; as practitioner of a distinctive philosophical method, and a distinctive philosophical lifestyle; as the ostensible originator of startling doctrines about politics and sex; as martyr (the victim of the most extreme of all miscarriages of justice); as possessor of an extraordinary, and extraordinarily significant physical appearance; and as the archetype of the hen-pecked intellectual. To this day, he continues to be the most readily recognized of ancient philosophers, as much in popular as in academic culture.This volume, along with its companion, Socrates from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, aims to do full justice to the source material (philosophical, literary, artistic, political), and to the range of interpretative issues it raises. It opens with an Introduction summarizing the reception of Socrates up to 1800, and describing scholarly study since then. This is followed by sections on the hugely influential Socrateses of Hegel, Kirkegaard and Nietzsche; representations of Socrates (particularly his erotic teaching) principally inspired by Plato's Symposium; and political manipulations of Socratic material, especially in the 20th century. A distinctive feature is the inclusion of Cold War Socrateses, both capitalist and communist.Contents: Foreword, Judith Herrin and Michael Trapp; Introduction: the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Socrates, Michael Trapp; Socrates in Hegel, Glenn W. Most; A simple wise man of ancient times: Kierkgaard on Socrates, George Pattison; Nietzsche's Socrateases, Michael Silk; Later views of the Socrates of Plato's Symposium, James Lesher; Anselm Feuerbach's Das Gastmahl des Platon, John Henderson; From amor Socraticus to Socrates amoris: Socrates and the formation of a sexual identity in late Victorian Britain, Alistair Blanshard; The thorn of Sokrates: Georg Kaiser's Alkibiades Saved and Berthold Brecht's Sokrates Wounded, John White; 'Socrates knew...' affect (besetzung) in Britten's Death in Venice, Christopher Wintle; Effacing Socratic irony: philosophy and technê in John Stuart Mill's translation of the Protagoras, Alexandra Lianeri; Totalitarian Socrates, Iskra Gencheva-Mikami; 'Gadfly in God's own country': Socrates in twentieth-century America, Melissa Lane; General bibliography; Index. About the Author: Michael Trapp is Professor of Greek Literature and Thought in the Department of Classics, King's College London, UK.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction: the 19th- and 20th-century Socrates

Socrates in Hegel

A simple wise man of ancient times

Kierkgaard on Socrates

Nietzsche's Socrateases

Later views of the Socrates of Plato's Symposium

Anselm Feuerbach's Das Gastmahl des Platon

From amor Socraticus to Socrates amoris

Socrates and the formation of a sexual identity in late Victorian Britain

The thorn of Sokrates

Georg Kaiser's Alkibiades Saved and Berthold Brecht's Sokrates Wounded

'Socrates knew...' affect (Besetzung) in Britten's Death in Venice

Effacing Socratic irony: philosophy and technê in John Stuart Mill's translation of the Protagoras

Totalitarian Socrates

'Gadfly in God's own country'

Socrates in 20th-century America

General bibliography

Index

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