Aristophanes Frogs

The master of ancient Greek comic drama, Aristophanes combined slapstick, humour and cheerful vulgarity with acute political observations. In The Frogs, written during the Peloponnesian War, Dionysus descends to the Underworld to bring back a poet who can help Athens in its darkest hour, and stages a great debate to help him decide between the traditional wisdom of Aeschylus and the brilliant modernity of Euripides. The clash of generations and values is also the object of Aristophanes’ satire in The Wasps, in which an old-fashioned father and his loose-living son come to blows and end up in court. And in The Poet and the Women, Euripides, accused of misogyny, persuades a relative to infiltrate an all-women festival to find out whether revenge is being plotted against him.

This book is a translation of Aristophanes' play 'The Frogs' by W. J. Hickie, which tells the story of the god Dionysus and his quest to find a great poet to restore the glory of Athens. The play is a satirical commentary on the state of Greek poetry at the time, and a celebration of the power of literature to effect social change. The book is a valuable contribution to the study of Greek drama, and a reminder of the importance of literature in shaping our understanding of the world around us. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature introduces individual works of Greek and Latin literature to readers who are approaching them for the first time. Each volume sets the work in its literary and historical context and aims to offer a balanced and engaging assessment of its content, artistry, and purpose. A brief survey of the influence of the work upon subsequent generations is included to demonstrate its enduring relevance and power. All quotations from the original are translated into English. Aristophanes was the comic mastermind of classical Athens, and Frogs is widely regarded as his most brilliant and multi-faceted play. Written and performed in 405 BCE and deeply embedded in that specific cultural moment, Frogs won first prize in that year's festival competition and has been-admired by readers and critics ever since, a testament to its timeless appeal. In addition to its hilarious language, stage antics, and plot, Frogs provides modern readers with an unparalleled range of insights into ancient Greek mentalities, exploring and critiquing the Athenians' ideas about drama and music, citizenship, slavery, and the possibilities of personal salvation and life after death. With this up-to-date and engaging account, Mark Griffith places Frogs in its original historical and cultural context, while underscoring the play's originality in its relation to parallel developments in tragedy and ancient Greek aesthetics in general. This volume provides not only a detailed analysis of the play itself and its reception but also to succinct introduction to Greek comedy overall, making it an invaluable companion to ancient theater for students and general readers alike. Book jacket.

A comedy about tragedy and a play about playmaking, Aristophanes' Frogs (405 BCE) is perhaps the most popular of ancient comedies. This new introduction guides students through the play, its themes and contemporary contexts, and its reception history. Frogs offers sustained engagement with the Athenian literary scene, with the politics of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, and with the religious understanding of the fifth-century city. It presents the earliest direct criticism of theatre and a detailed description of the Underworld, and also dramatizes the place of Mystery cults in the religious life of Athens and shows the political concerns that galvanized the citizens. It is also genuinely funny, showcasing a range of comic techniques, including literary and musical parody, political invective, grotesque distortion, wordplay, prop comedy, and funny costumes. Frogs has inspired literary works by Henry Fielding, George Bernard Shaw, and Tom Stoppard. This book explores all of these features in a series of short chapters designed to be accessible to a new reader of ancient comedy. It proceeds linearly through the play, addressing a range of issues, but paying particular attention to stagecraft and performance. It also offers a bold new interpretation of the play, suggesting that the action of Frogs was not the first time Euripides and Aeschylus had competed against each other.

Aristophanes's classic send-up of rivalry within the ultra-competitive world of fifth-century Athenian theatre wins a new lease on life in this fresh line-for-line translation by Peter Meineck. Premiered in 2021 by Aquila Theatre and accompanied here by Meineck’s notes and wide-ranging Introduction, this Frogs offers the best view yet of a high-stakes afterlife contest between two of Athens's late great playwrights. Both are undisputed masters of tragedy. But only one can win and return to save the city.

Aristophanes is widely credited with having elevated the classical art of comedy to the level of legitimacy and recognition that only tragedy had hitherto achieved, and producing some of the most intriguing works of literature to survive from classical Greece in the process. Among them, Frogs has a unique appeal; written and performed in 405 BCE, the comedy won first prize in that year's Lenaea festival competition and was re-performed soon thereafter--a rare occurrence for comedies at the time. Frogs has been admired and quoted by readers and critics ever since, a testament to its timeless appeal; it remains among the most approachable of Aristophanes' plays, as well as perhaps the richest of all in insights it provides into ancient Greek cultural attitudes and values. Mark Griffith's study of the Frogs is the first single book to offer a reliable and sophisticated account of this play in light of modern notions of culture, performance, democracy, religion, and aesthetics. After placing the work in its original historical, cultural, and biographical context, Griffith goes on to underscore the originality of Frogs in relation to parallel developments in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides, among others. He highlights the play's unique portrayal of the figure of Dionysus, the Eleusinian mystery cult, and the question of life after death. This title provides not only a detailed analysis of the play and a concise account of its reception, but also a succinct introduction to ancient Greek comedy, exploring the extraordinary range of theatrical conventions, moral and aesthetic assumptions, and religious beliefs that underlie the action of Aristophanes' play. The book provides an invaluable companion to Aristophanes and the theater of classical Greece for students and general readers alike.

Aristophanes is the only surviving representative of Greek Old Comedy, an exuberant form of festival drama which flourished in Athens during the fifth century BC. One of the most original playwrights in the entire Western tradition, his comedies are remarkable for their brilliant combination of fantasy and satire, their constantly inventive manipulation of language, and their use of absurd characters and plots to expose his society's institutions and values to the bracing challenge of laughter. This vibrant collection of verse translations of Aristophanes' works combines historical accuracy with a sensitive attempt to capture the rich dramatic and literary qualities of Aristophanic comedy. The volume presents Clouds, with its famous caricature of the philosopher Socrates; Women at the Thesmophoria (or Thesmophoriazusae), a work which mixes elaborate parody of tragedy with a great deal of transvestite burlesque; and Frogs, in which the dead tragedians Aeschylus and Euripides engage in a vituperative contest of 'literary criticism' of each other's plays. Featuring expansive introductions to each play and detailed explanatory notes, the volume also includes an illuminating appendix, which provides information and selected fragments from the lost plays of Aristophanes.