Socrates (
French: Socrate) is a 1759 French play in three acts written by
Voltaire. It is set in
Ancient Greece during the events just before the trial and death of Greek philosopher
Socrates. It is heavy with satire specifically at government authority and organized religion. The main characters besides the title role is that of the priest Anitus, his entourage,
Socrates' wife Xantippe, several judges, and some children Socrates has adopted as his own.
Like more historical accounts by
Herodotus,
Plato, and
Xenophon, the playwright shows Socrates as a moral individual charged with baseless accusations by a conspiracy of corrupt
Athenians or
Athenian officials although Voltaire implies that the wrongdoers are a select few.
Unlike the historical account, Socrates deals with several judges, whereas his real life counterpart receives his punishment of death by
hemlock by a
jury of 500 Athenians. The presence or mention of Socrates' best-known students such as
Plato,
Antisthenes,
Aristippus, and others are replaced by unnamed disciples, delivering only a few token lines at the end of the play. Socrates is also portrayed as a monotheist and a victim of religious persecution, an interpretation that is not generally shared by modern scholars and historians.
Generally, this is not the most well-known of his works in comparison with Letters on the English which Voltaire published in 1734 or the Dictionnaire philosophique published earlier in 1764. However, hints of his contempt for government and religion are apparent here which later influenced the leaders of the
American Revolution and the
French Revolution.
Characters
The play calls for the following characters.[3] English versions of their names sometimes vary slightly.[4]
Aglae (Aglaé) — young Athenian girl raised by Socrates
Sophronimus (Sophronime) — young Athenian boy raised by Socrates
Drixa — merchant, friend to Anitus
Terpander (Terpandre) — friend to Anitus
Acros — friend to Anitus
Judges
Disciples of Socrates
Nonoti, Chomos, Bertios — three pedants protected by Anitus
The characters Nonoti, Chomos, and Bertios were added in 1761.[5] During Voltaire's lifetime, their names were published as Grafios, Chomos, and Bertillos,[6] translated as Graphius, Chomus, and Bertillus;[7] their names were first changed in the 1784 Kehl edition.[8] The names Nonoti, Chomos, and Bertios are meant to be reminiscent of Voltaire's enemies
Claude-Adrien Nonnotte,
Abraham Chaumeix [
fr] and
Guillaume-François Berthier.[9]
Davis, Rose Mary (1934). "Thomson and Voltaire's Socrate". Publications of the Modern Language Association of America. 49 (2): 560–565.
doi:
10.2307/458176.
JSTOR458176.
S2CID163739890.
Gouldbourne, Russell (2006). "Voltaire, the drame and l'infâme: Socrate, L'Ecossaise, Le Droit du seigneur and Saül".
Voltaire Comic Dramatist. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century. Vol. 2006:03. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. pp. 184–246.
ISBN978-0-7294-0875-2.
Archived(PDF) from the original on 6 August 2020.
Goulbourne, Russell (2016) [2007]. "Voltaire's Socrates". In Trapp, Michael (ed.). Socrates from Antiquity to the Enlightenment. Publications for the Centre for Hellenic Studies, King's College. Vol. 9. London: Routledge. pp. 229–247.
doi:
10.4324/9781315242798.
ISBN978-0-7546-4124-7.
Trousson, Raymond (1967). "Voltaire et le 'sage au nez épaté'". Socrate devant Voltaire, Diderot, et Rousseau: La conscience en face du mythe (in French). Paris: Lettres Modernes, Minard.
Editions
French
Voltaire (1770).
"Socrate, ouvrage dramatique. Traduit de l'Anglais de feu M. Thompson". Seconde suite des melanges de littérature, d'histoire, de philosophie &c. Collection complette des œuvres de M. de Voltaire. Derniere edition (in French). Vol. 5:2. [Lausanne]: [F. Grasset]. pp. 122–179 – via Google Books.
Voltaire (2009). "Socrate: Edition critique par Raymond Trousson". In Cronk, Nicholas (ed.). Writings of 1758–1760. Les Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (in French). Vol. 49B. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. pp. 265–346.
ISBN978-0-7294-0968-1.
Voltaire (1901).
"Socrates". In Smollett, Tobias (ed.). The Dramatic Works of Voltaire. Vol. II. The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version. Vol. 16. Translated by Fleming, William F. Paris: E. R. DuMont. pp. 269–315.
hdl:2027/uc1.b4063565 – via Google Books.
External links
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