Summary of the Essay "The Case for Xanthippe" (Class 12: Opt. English)

The Case for Xanthippe

- Robert Graves

The essay "The Case for Xanthippe” written by Robert Graves is about a famous Greek philosopher, Socrates’ philosophy and its effects to his wife Xanthippe, who was very famous for her high temper and argumentative behavior. The essay mainly focuses on Socrates’ philosophy, and it talks more about people of ancient times living in Greece.

In the beginning of the essay, the writer talks about intuition and says that he cannot separate himself from reason either. He even says that poets create their creations through intuition, but they have perfect sense.

Then the writer differentiates two terms reasonable and rational, which have the same meaning, but the feelings that we get from them is different. According to him, reasoning is based on facts and data, and it does not believe in random guesses and hearsays. In fact, ‘reasoning’ has warm human feelings while ‘rationality’ gives inhuman feelings.

In the essay, the writer talks about philosophy. He says that philosophy is anti-poetic, so he does not like it. He even says that poets do not like philosophy because it does not care and value individuality, and when poets follows philosophy, they loses their uniqueness.

According to the writer, women and poets are natural allies because they share their intuition. So, Greek women opposed philosophies because they took them as threats. Like other women, Socrates’ wife, Xanthippe was against him and scolded him because he was unable to fulfill his familial responsibilities. He was busy all the time in philosophizing with others. His homosexual leanings, his absent-minded behavior, his idleness and his lover of proving everyone wrong made his wife furious. She even believed that her husband theories would bring destruction in her family. But most of people did not like her behavior towards her husband. But the writer supports Xanthippe and says that her institutions were right because at that time women were taken as working machines and sex dolls.

In the essay, the writer talks about science and religion. During the fourth century, Roman bishops took control of the large territory by their religious principles and closed pagan (worshipping many gods or the earth or the nature) universities, but they could not take control over philosophies. As a result, Galileo discovered a theory that the earth goes round the sun. But he was imprisoned for his theory or intuition by church authority. But in the present time, Catholic priests take science as their blessing.

In the essay, the writer compares modern wives of philosophers with Xanthippe and says that they allow their husbands to do experiment, but they are ready to blame and scold them if something wrong happens.

The writer also talks about intuition. According to him, it must be used very carefully. It is a natural faculty shared by both males and females because it is a human instinct. But the writer feels disappointed because there is the loss of intuition in every field.

In the essay, he talks about urban and village life. He says that villagers are happier than city dwellers because villagers’ life is full of natural things. He even says that urbanization is increasing along with artificiality, and intuition for humanity has been perished.

At last, he focuses on protecting poetic intuition because in this mechanical world, a few poets have intuition because the development of technology has made people’s mind immature and impractical.