Did Socrates write plays? If he did, what plays did he write?

Answer 1

As far as we know Socrates did not write anything. What we know of him came from other writers, particularly Plato. He didn't write plays but he was a character in Aristophane's play the Clouds written during his life.

Answer 2

I study Classical Greek, and can help you. Socrates wrote nothing - Plato transcribed 'Socratic Dialogues' in works like the 'Republic.' Many of them read slightly like plays, since they consist of conversations between two or more characters, with the character of Socrates posing questions to various 'interlocutors' who respond (usually very briefly) in order that Socrates might continue espousing his wisdom on various subjects. Thus, through the work of Plato we gain an insight into Socrates, since Plato knew him personally (although the 'Socrates' in the dialogues of Plato probably has parts of Plato in him too).

In Republic Book X for example (which I studied in detail this year), Plato talks with the interlocutor Glaucon, a particularly dim-witted man who just replies "oh yes, I totally agree with you" to just about everything Socrates says.

Some of Plato's dialogues could be staged as plays, I suppose, but Socrates himself made a point of writing nothing down himself. Certainly, nothing he wrote survives.

Answer 3

Socrates wrote no plays. Rather, Plato, his student, wrote down conversations that he remembered that Socrates had with other persons. These are the dialogues and "The Republic." So if you read them, it seems that you are reading or "seeing" plays.

Answer 4

Everything was oral with Socrates. Plato was a major interpreter of Socrates.

Answer 5

no, Socrates didn't write plays, but there are plays written about him ("The Clouds" by Aristophanes)

also, there was a playwright called Sophocles ("Oedipus the King", "Antigone", etc.) in case that is who you meant

Answer 6

If he did write plays, none of them seems to have survived, but no doubt he was interested in theatre because the evolving theatre of the Greeks was so closely linked to Greek religion and power and legends and myth and government and the galloping human mind.