Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue: Four Stories
- PART I INTRODUCTION
- PART II AIDÔS
- PART III PARRHÊSIA: THE PRACTICE OF FREE SPEECH IN ANCIENT ATHENS
- PART IV THE LIMITS OF FREE SPEECH
- 6 Truth and Tragedy
- 7 Thucydides' Assemblies and the Challenge of Free Speech
- 8 Protagoras' Shame and Socrates' Speech
- Conclusion: Four Paradoxes
- References
- Index
6 - Truth and Tragedy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue: Four Stories
- PART I INTRODUCTION
- PART II AIDÔS
- PART III PARRHÊSIA: THE PRACTICE OF FREE SPEECH IN ANCIENT ATHENS
- PART IV THE LIMITS OF FREE SPEECH
- 6 Truth and Tragedy
- 7 Thucydides' Assemblies and the Challenge of Free Speech
- 8 Protagoras' Shame and Socrates' Speech
- Conclusion: Four Paradoxes
- References
- Index
Summary
Today we consider it a matter of decency not to wish to see everything naked, or to be present at everything and “know” everything. “Is it true that God is present everywhere?” a little girl asked her mother; “I think that's indecent” – a hint for philosophers! One should have more respect for the bashfulness with which nature has hidden behind riddles and iridescent uncertainties. Perhaps truth is a woman who has reasons for not letting us see her reasons.
(Nietzsche, The Gay Science [V.2.20])Greek tragedy and comedy, though often set in Thebes or Mycene or in the case of comedy in such places as Cloudcuckoobury, were part of the civic festivals of Athenian democracy and served as venues in which the playwrights might encourage reflection on, among much else, the political life of the city. While Aeschylus' Persian Chorus sing of the unfettered tongue in the free city of Athens, other plays from the remaining corpus of Attic plays also pay tribute in speech to this peculiar freedom enjoyed by the Athenians. But, the appearance of this practice within the dramatic action does not always earn the unqualified praise we find in Aeschylus' Persian Women. The playwrights, especially Euripides, also suggest how this democratic practice has become exclusionary in Athens, freeing some and yet silencing others, and they portray as well the destructive effects of the openness and revelatory power of this practice for members of the community.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens , pp. 129 - 145Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005