Funeral Oration for Socrates

Essay # 30270

History > Greek and Roman
Literature > Greek and Roman
Philosophy > Ancient Greek

Using the literary device of a funeral oration, this paper analyzes Plato's "The Trial and Death of Socrates".

1,446 words () | 1 source | MLA | 2001 United States

Paper Summary:

In this essay, the author persuades the reader that Socrates was a man of great moral character and uses excerpts from Plato's "The Trial and Death of Socrates" in order to prove this. It also demonstrates how the people of Athens took Socrates to be a threat to their static day to day lives and saw to it to conspire against him and ultimately eliminate him. Using his argument in his defense, this paper shows that Socrates would certainly admit that he is a menace to the people of Athens, but only to stir them up into an intellectual frenzy. The paper shows that Socrates demonstrates through logic that he would never try to spoil the minds of the youth intentionally. The paper argues that Socrates died as a martyr because he held to his moral beliefs even in the face of an unfair death.

From the Paper:

"Today we mark the day in which a part of Western thought died. For when the great philosopher, Socrates, died yesterday at sundown, he took with him a way of thinking that will never be quite duplicated. But let us not grieve for what we may miss out on in the future; let us instead celebrate the gifts we have received from this great thinker. For with the advent of the spoken language and the written word, we are able to record and remember Socrates' contributions to the citizens of Athens and the world. In effect, they will reverberate through the ages and continue to affect the way philosophers think for centuries to come. Unfortunately, Socrates' unorthodox nature earned him a number of enemies, enough to warrant death wishes. Certainly one could believe this statement when one looks at the circumstances of his unnatural death. Unfortunately, those who persecuted him were superstitious individuals, who shall remain unnamed. They persecuted him under the false pretense of impiety. Truly, however, they were simply frightened that someone might not only question the current propaganda and dogma of the time, but also have the audacity to persuade others to do the same."