L’UTOPIA IMPOSSIBILE. PAIDEIA E STRATEGIE DELLA SATIRA IN LUCIANO DI SAMOSATA

The aim of the article is to define the components and the rules of Lucian’s satire, and to illustrate the literary strategies at the time of the Second Sophistic. The mixis, the contamination of genres, starts with the paradoxical combination of philosophical dialogue and comedy, and becomes a compositional tool for the satire of contemporary philosophy and paideia. Thus the spoudogeloion becomes the most effective form of unmasking the conventions and hypocrisies of philosophers. The utopia of an ideal polis of philosophers (described by Lycinus, alias of the author in the Hermotimus) represents the paradigm and a standpoint from which to observe the real cultural world, quite different from that of the polis of Arete. A good example of satire is the Symposium or the Lapiths, as a parody of Plato’s Symposium: it is the most ferocious caricature of contemporary philosophers.