Gender and Knowledge’s Exclusivity: Symposium and The Clouds Anonymous College

As a comedy, The Clouds by Aristophanes brings attention to the uses of rhetoric and intellectualism–symbolized by the Sophistry. In an argument between the “right” and “wrong,” we see a debate between a new sophist education (the wrong) and the traditional ways of teaching (the right). The traditional views of intellectualism seen in the right’s argument provoke the idea that knowledge is emasculating; however, Plato’s Symposium unpacks a different take on the new sophist education. In Symposium, a group of men have a deep intellectual conversation which seems to enlighten them. Their speeches and intimate discussion on the topic of love exposes an elitist attitude which makes knowledge and the production of ideas exclusive to men. By producing an argument which ascribes femininity to the new sophist education–thus emasculating men for taking part in this intellectual enlightenment–Aristophanes’ The Clouds undermines an elitist and misogynistic argument found in Plato’s Symposium, which reinforces the idea that knowledge and intellectualism is only inherent to men; however, Aristophanes’ speech in Symposium problematizes his own writing of The Clouds.

In The Clouds, a debate between the Right and Wrong displays a conflict...