Socrates represents a turning point in the history of Greek thought. He achieved radical changes in the way of thinking and obtaining knowledge without writing even one word. But through his discussions with his students and contemporary artists and philosophers, he exposed the intellectual vices and failings that dominated Athenian life in the last 30 years of the 5th century B.C., a time that witnessed the disintegration of Athenian Democracy, especially after the Peloponnesian wars which ended with the defeat of Athens. A Belle in the Prison of Socrates presents the character of the renowned Greek philosopher as historically known from the original Greek sources, i.e., The Clouds of Aristophanes, The Dialogues of Plato and the writings of Xenophon. While attempting to capture the historical image of Socrates, the play provides a subtle criticism of our contemporary life as characters and events shed light on the fragility of Democratic practices nowadays. Readers are persistently lured to hold a comparison between Democracy as it originated in ancient Athens and its modern variations and deviations. The play, therefore, addressees not only the classicist but the common reader as well, both in the Arab world and everywhere. A Belle in the Prison of Socrates is a culmination of years of research in Greek history about Athenian intellectual and political life. It blends knowledge and pleasure in a highly entertaining dramatic composition
Editorial Reviews
Review
This play takes the Athenian thinker Socrates, the ‘gad-fly of Athens’, and follows his conversations at home, in the Agora, on the city walls of the defeated polis and in his eventual trial, imprisonment and execution at the behest of the restored democracy. The dramatic structure and idiom of the play draws on and reworks major classical sources on Socrates’ life and thought. Etman contextualizes these in the themes of the war between the Athenians and the Spartans and the resulting disruptions of Hellenic social identity and unity amid the shifting alliances with Persia –Lorna Hardwick, Prof. of Classics. The Open University. U.K.
Democratia herself in my prison’, Socrates exclaims, wondering who that phantom may be that haunts him in the sudden absence of his guards! ‘Socrates…you are a god Socrates’, she replies. Two these sentences, belonging to the last moments of Socrates in prison, reveal a lot. On the one hand, there is this man, a philosopher, dressed in rags, bare-footed, a louse on his bald-head, meditating in his last moments, not afraid to die. On the other hand, there is this woman called Democratia, symbol and allegory, representative of a culture based upon power, manipulation and deceit… As a character belonging to the political arena, she represents just one of the many cheap and superficial humans, who do not understand at all what Socrates is dealing with –Freddy Decreus, Professor of Classics. University of Ghent, Belgium
About the Author
Ahmed Etman is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University; Chairman of the Egyptian Society of Graeco-Roman Studies (ESGRS); Chairman of the Egyptian Society of Comparative Literature (ESCL). He has written a number of plays including: Cleopatra Worships Peace (1984, English tr. 2001, Italian 1992, Greek 1999, French 1999); The Blind Guest Restores his Sight (French tr. 2005); Al-Hakim Does Not Join the Hypocritic Procession (1988, Spanish tr. 2006); The Goats of Oxyrynchus (2001, English and French tr. Forthcoming); The Wedding of Libraries Nymph (2001, Italian tr. 2007, French tr. Forthcoming)
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