Die pseudoplatonischen Dialoge Ã_ber die Tugend und Alkyon Hubertus Neuhausen: Der pseudo-platonische Alkibiades II und die sokratischen Alkibiadesdialoge Rosa Maria Piccione: Gli Pseudoplatonica nella tradizione dei florilegi Christopher ...

Two librettos are examined, one of them baroque and the other contemporary, in which the character Socrates plays the major role. The libretto La patienza di Socrate con due moglie, written by N. Minato for A. Draghi (1680) and later reelaborated by G.P. Telemann for his opera Der geduldige Sokrates (1721), is based on an imaginary anecdote that dates back to antiquity, according to which Socrates was married to two wives, Xanthippa and Myrto. In the libretto written by E. Krenek (...) for his opera Pallas Athene weint (first production 1955), the end of the Peloponnesian War is transformed into a mirror of the fascist dictatorship of Adolf Hitler and of the time of cold war. At the center of the action is Socrates, fighting in vain against tyranny and lack of political freedom, and at the end he will be a victim of this struggle. (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to Socrates is a collection of essays providing a comprehensive guide to Socrates, the most famous Greek philosopher. Because Socrates himself wrote nothing, our evidence comes from the writings of his friends (above all Plato), his enemies, and later writers. Socrates is thus a literary figure as well as a historical person. Both aspects of Socrates' legacy are covered in this volume. Socrates' character is full of paradox, and so are his philosophical views. These paradoxes have led (...) to deep differences in scholar's interpretation of Socrates and his thought. Mirroring this wide range of thought about Socrates, this volume's contributors are unusually diverse in their background and perspective. The essays in this volume were authored by classical philologists, philosophers, and historians from Germany, Francophone Canada, Britain, and the United States, and they represent a range of interpretive and philosophical traditions. (shrink)