person
Socrates
Ancient Greek philosopher (c. 470-399 BC), proverbial byword for calm rational equanimity; Platonov's half-lucid exhortation to the shattered Voynitsev ("Be a Socrates!") invokes him as an ideal of composure that Platonov himself immediately admits he can't sustain.
Reading notes
- Untitled Play (Bezottsovshchina / "Platonov") §5240 Be a Socrates!
Triletsky's ironic exhortation to the shattered Voynitsev to muster philosophical calm, invoking Socrates as the byword for equanimity in the face of ruin -- undercut by Triletsky's own admission a line later that he doesn't know what he's saying.
- To I. L. Leontyev, 10 January 1888. Moscow. §4 "Socrates, X, 5"
A mock scholarly citation -- Chekhov invents an aphorism about writers needing practice and attributes it to Socrates with a fake chapter-and-verse reference, a comic device he uses elsewhere in his letters.