Ancient Greek World Comedy Aristophanes Birds Knights Peace Wealth Assemblywoman

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Aristophanes: The Knights, Peace, Wealth Translated by Alan H. Sommerstein; The Birds, The Assembly Women Translated by David Barrett.
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Softcover: 335 pages. Publisher: Penguin Books; (1978).
The acknowledged master of Greek comedy, Aristophanes brilliantly combines serious political satire with bawdiness, pyrotechnical bombast with delicate lyrics. Aristophanes (447-385 B.C.), a contemporary of Socrates, was the last and greatest of the old Attic Comedians. Only eleven of his plays survive, and this volume contains five. Included in this collect are "The Birds", the most graceful of his plays. Also "The Knights", his venomous satire on the behavior of Cleon, one of the most famous of Athenian demagogues. "Peace", which was inspired by the hope of peace with Sparta in 421 B.C. Last, "The Assemblywomen", about sexual equality, and "Wealth".
Birds differs from all other fifth-century plays of Aristophanes that survive in having no strong and obvious connection with a topical question of public interest, whether political, literary-theatrical or intellectual-educational. It has, in its own way, plenty of topical and satirical content; in particular as the city of Cuckooville begins to take shape, it proves in many ways to be a replica of Athens, and is soon visited by many of the less desirable elements of the Athenian population. But satire is kept firmly subordinate to fantasy; and as fantasy Birds has no rival in what we possess of Greek literature, until we reach Lucian nearly six centuries later.
The gentle humor and straightforward morality of Wealth made it the most popular of Aristophanes' plays from classical times to the Renaissance. Here the god Wealth, cured of his blindness, is newly able to distinguish good people from bad. This is the last of Aristophanes' surviving plays. In the story an audacious and imaginative hero finds a miraculous remedy for the all-too-real ills of the contemporary world; in this case the concentration of wealth in the hands of those who don't deserve it at the expense of those who do. To achieve this he needs the aid of no less than three gods, and the play contains the fullest single surviving account of a visit to a sanctuary of the healing god Asclepius.
The sharply satirical knockabout comedy of Aristophanes has been justly famous for centuries. His dazzling verbal agility, the needlepoint accuracy of his jokes, and the scope of his comic fantasies match anything written since. Writing at a time when Athens was undergoing a crisis in its social attitudes, Aristophanes was an eloquent opponent of the demagogue and the sophist, and his comedy reveals a deep sympathy and longing for the return of a peaceful and honest way of life. [Note: The cover of the book shows detail from a Corinthian pyxis of about 600 B.C. origin, courtesy of the British Museum in London].
CONDITION: LIKE NEW. New oversized softcover. Unblemished except VERY slight shelf wear to the covers. Pages are pristine; clean, crisp, unmarked, unmutilated, tightly bound, unambiguously unread. Condition is entirely consistent with new stock from a bookstore environment wherein new books might show minor signs of shelfwear, consequence of simply being shelved and re-shelved. Satisfaction unconditionally guaranteed. In stock, ready to ship. No disappointments, no excuses. PROMPT SHIPPING! HEAVILY PADDED, DAMAGE-FREE PACKAGING!
PLEASE SEE IMAGES BELOW FOR SAMPLE PAGES FROM INSIDE OF BOOK.
PLEASE SEE PUBLISHER, PROFESSIONAL, AND READER REVIEWS BELOW.
PUBLISHER REVIEW
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REVIEW: This new verse translation of Aristophanes' comedies offers one of the world's great comic dramatists in a form that is both historically faithful and theatrically vigorous. Aristophanes' plays were produced for the festival theater of classical Athens in the fifth century BC and encompass the whole gamut of humor, from brilliantly inventive fantasy to obscene vulgarity. This edition includes a substantial general introduction and introductory essays for each of the plays, as well as full explanatory notes and an index of names.
Aristophanes was born, probably in Athens, between 477 and 445 B.C. and died between 386 and 380 B.C. Little is known about his life, but there is a portrait of him in Plato's "Symposium" and in private life he seems to have been a personal friend of Socrates and Plato. He was twice prosecuted for his outspoken attacks on the prominent politician, Cleon. Aristophanes produced his first comedy at the age of nineteen, and in all wrote forty plays of which eleven have survived.
PROFESSIONAL REVIEW
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REVIEW: Aristophanes' comedic masterpieces ridicule - creatively, with supreme wit, and invariably in high spirits - almost every aspect of Athenian political life and culture. These translations of Aristophanes' comedies offers one of the world's great comic dramatists in a form which is both historically faithful and theatrically vigorous. Aristophanes' plays were produced for the festival theatre of classical Athens in the fifth century BC and remarkably encompass the whole gamut of humor, from brilliantly inventive fantasy to obscene vulgarity. There is a substantial general introduction to the author and introductory essays for each of the plays, as well as full explanatory notes.
READER REVIEWS
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REVIEW: [The Knights] Aristophanes was a Greek comic playwright. A brilliant satirist, he used the freedom of Old Comedy to ridicule public figures, institutions, and even the gods. "The Knights" is one of the comic masterpieces of Aristophanes, constituting a direct personal attack on Cleon. The level of invective and satire is pretty astounding, especially since this was only the fourth comedy written by Aristophanes. In his previous comedy, "The Archanians," a character had threatened to cut up Cleon into shoe-leather for the Knights, and in this play the comic playwright makes good on his promise. From satirizing the policies of Cleon's political party and capturing the miseries of war, Aristophanes turns to a personal attack on Cleon as a demagogue.
The comedy begins with two characters, Demosthenes and Nicias, who are caricatures of the historic orators who Aristophanes saw as following public opinion instead of truly leading the people like Pericles. The pair are slaves in the house of Demos, that is to say the citizens of Athens, and are complaining about the new slave, the Paplagonian ("the Tanner"), who represents Cleon and who controls "Demos" by even worst means than they ever did. So they decide to steal the oracles used to persuade Demos and learn that their enemy will be brought down by a sausage-seller. The next thing we know, a sausage-seller stumbles upon stage and the pair convince him to acting, promising him wealth, power, and the support of a thousand knights (who comprise the play's chorus).
At this point the Paphlagonian shows up and the rest of the play consists of mainly a series of agons between him and the sausage-seller in which the two try to out wit, out lie, and outlast each other to win the favor of Demos. The sausage-seller wins over the Demos and Cleon is condemned to sell sausages made with the meat of asses and dogs, always be drunk, to exchange foul language with prostitutes, and to drink nothing but dirty bath water. In the parabasis the chorus ignore Cleon and talk instead about what would happen to the poor tragic poet who wrote this comedy if Athens treats them the way they have other geniuses as they grow old. The big finale has the chorus singing the praises of the knights, their forefathers, the god Poseidon, and of horses (which are sacred to Poseidon).
Compared to "The Acharnians," it is clear "The Knights" is a much more bitter play, portraying the Paplagonian as an unprincipled, lying, cheating scoundrel. The legend is that no other comic dared to lampoon Cleon on stage and that Aristophanes played the role himself and instead of wearing a mask that would clearly represent the features of Cleon smeared his face with wine to represent the purple and bloated visage of the demagogue. The title, as is often the case with the work of Aristophanes, represents the chorus in the play. The Knights were one of the highest orders of citizens in Athens and embodied many of the aristocratic preferences and prejudices that Aristophanes saw as being outdated.
"The Knights" was the fourth play produced by Aristophanes, presented at a Festival in 424 B.C. We do not know much of his first two efforts, "The Revellers" and "The Babylonians," both of which are long lost, but the third comedy, "The Acharnians" was the first of his three great comedies dealing with the subject of the Peloponnesian War, along with "The Peace" and "Lysistrata." "The Knights" was awarded the first prize at the festival, but Cleon remained in power and therefore a subject for further barbs from Aristophanes.
REVIEW: [Peace] A farmer by the name of Trygaeus is weary of war and despairing of relief he does want anyone would do: he rides a giant dung-beetle up to heaven to get the gods to end the war. However, the gods are sick and tired of the Greeks and their constantly little wars and have left War to do as he wants. However, the God of War (identified by the title rather than by Ares, to avoid offending religious sensibilities), has buried Peace in a pit and it is up to the Chorus of Farmers to dig her up. Of course, this greatly upsets the war profiteers. The play was performed at the Great Dionysia in 421 B.C. during the final months of the Peloponnesian War fought between Athens and Sparta. In fact, a few weeks after "Peace" was performed the Peace of Nicias was ratified and suspended hostilities between the two city-states for six years.
It is my understanding that scholars believe the text we have today of "Peace" is pieced together from two different versions, but whether this is the result of two different productions staged by Aristophanes or because of the efforts of some nameless soul recopying the ancient text at some point in history. Aristophanes appeals to me because his satire is usually based on "reductio ad absurdum," the great human impulse to take things to their logical extreme to render them ridiculous and therefore impotent. Certainly "Peace" is representative of Aristophanes as reformer, the gad-fly who wanted to persuade his audiences to change their foolish ways by ridiculing them on stage.
I have always maintained that in studying Greek plays, whether the comedies of Aristophanes or the tragedies of Euripides, it is important to understand the particular structure of these plays and the various dramatic conventions of the theater. This involves not only the distinction between episodes and stasimons (scenes and songs), but elements like the "agon" (a formal debate on the crucial issue of the play), and the "parabasis" (in which the Chorus partially abandons its dramatic role and addresses the audience directly). "Peace" is usually considered a second tier comedy by Aristophanes, below "Lysistrata" and "The Clouds," but I still consider it an above-average Greek comedy.
REVIEW: [The Birds] Or rather, you can give an Athenian wings but he won't become a gentle agrarian bird rather, he'll rouse the citizenship, attack the Gods, and turn on you at the last possible moment. While some literary critics tout this as Aristophanes' most unfathomable work, well, I just think they're being silly. Maybe that's my own lack of education speaking, but I think The Birds a pretty obvious, as well as bitingly funny, commentary on humans, or men, or Athenians (all of these concepts probably being more or less the same to Aristophanes) as hopelessly political and power-hungry beings.
One thing I love about this, and, I suppose, all of the Greek dramas, is that they are ultimately very malleable and applicable to my (our?) modern experience. (With a certain amount of difficulty) you can lead a 21st Century North American to social consciousness but they're still gonna want and have the economic buying power to get, cheap Nikes. Cynical? Yes. Scathing? Yes. Real? You betcha. Sure we've got indoor plumbing, but our cultural context is back in the golden age. Lucky we've still got dudes like Aristophanes to give us a clue as to how to slog through it all.
REVIEW: [The Birds] "The Birds" ("Ornithes") is generally seen as a political satire about the imperialistic dreams that resulted in the disastrous invasion of Sicily (which happened the year before his play was produced in 414 B.C.). Then again, this could just be Aristophanes bemoaning the decline of Athens. Pisthetaerus ("Trusting") and Euelpides ("Hopeful") have grown tired of life in Athens and decide to build a utopia in the sky with the help of the birds, which they will name Necphelococcygia (which translates roughly as "Cloud Cuckoo Land").
Pisthetaerus and his feathered friends have to fight off those unworthy humans, malefactors and public nuisances all, who try and join their utopia. Then there are the gods, who come to make some sort of agreement with the new city because they have created a bottleneck for sacrifices coming from earth. Because it is a more general satire, "The Birds" tends to work better with younger audiences than most comedies by Aristophanes. Besides, the chorus of birds lends itself to fantastic costumes, which is always a plus with young theater goers.
REVIEW: [Assemblywomen] In Assemblywomen Athenian women plot to save Athens from male misgovernance. They institute a new social order in which all inequalities based on wealth, age, and beauty are eliminated, with raucously comical results. Aristophanes is at the top of his form here, despite what some critics say. His lampooning of several ideas floating around Athens at the time (women's rights, communism, free love, etc, to use modern terms) is hilarious, and this praise is coming from an avid supporter of everything he's satirizing.
The raunchy sex jokes are just as entertaining and twice as intelligent as anything coming out of Hollywood these days, and the political humor teaches one a great deal about contemporary events in Athens. The actual political and social order depicted in the play is very reminiscent of Plato's Republic (written later). In fact this play is excellent when read in tandem with Plato's writings on the subject. A class dealing with both works was how I came across this play in the first place, and it provided excellent fodder for discussion. PS: If you loved this play, Lysistrata is at least as good, if not even better.
REVIEW: [Assemblywomen] This premise animates the plot of Aristophenes' comedy "Ecclesiazusae" (or "Assembly of Women"), wherein the heroine Praxagora leads a conspiracy of hags dressed as men to vote themselves into power. Fresh from her victory, Praxagora unveils her plan for a brave, new world where all property, children and sex are held in common. What follows is an uproariously funny, shockingly vulgar, tremendously insightful satire of communists and the logical consequences of their ideology.
The plays makes a perfect pairing with Plato's "Republic". Aristophanes has arguably innovated aspects of communism that would later influence Plato. Second, the play contains so many allusions to contemporary events that it provides a useful introduction to ancient history, political philosophy, and dramatic literature. Last, the comedy is funny enough for anyone to enjoy, and if it's the only play they actually read, they'll know something important about ancient Athens.
REVIEW: [Wealth] "Wealth" ("Plutus") has always been of more than passing interest to drama historians because this comedy by Aristophanes, produced in 388 B.C., is our only example of the Middle Comedy form. Unlike other comedies by Aristophanes that attack a contemporary situation (e.g., the Peloponnesian War) or specific person (e.g., Creon, Socrates), "Wealth" does a comic twist on a myth to make a more general point. The idea here is that good men are poor for the simple reason that Plutus, the god of Wealth, is blind. However, even when this situation is rectified, Aristophanes points out that things will not change because human greed and ambition will only serve to perpetuate the problem.
The character of Cario, the servant of Chreymlus, is the comic prototype of the contriving slave often found in New Comedy, and which continues down through Shakespeare and Moliere to today. Ironically, at one point in history this was the most popular Aristophanes comedy, mainly because it was fairly easy to read and did not involve a lot of background to explain what all the jokes were about, again evincing the fact the topic was much more general than was usually found in his plays.
REVIEW: Alan Sommerstein went to some length to translate the puns and plays on words (as further explained in the endnotes), which results in a very active play, and, for the careful reader, wit in nearly every line. He also uses the endnotes to explain further the Greek personalities mentioned in the plays, which adds to the understanding; my recommendation would be to read the play straight, then read the associated endnotes, then reread the play in question. This translation captures the humor of the original, which ranges from low-brow slapstick to witty one-liners to political asides--a union of vaudeville, Oscar Wilde, and Mark Russell.
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