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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Originally published in 1852. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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The comedies of Aristophanes are known not only for their boldly imaginative plots but for the ways in which they incorporate and orchestrate a wide variety of literary genres and speech styles. Unlike the writers of tragedy, who prefer a uniformly elevated tone, Aristophanes articulates his dramatic dialogue with striking literary and linguistic juxtapositions, producing a carnivalesque medley of genres that continually forces both audience and reader to readjust their perspectives. In this energetic and original study, Charles Platter interprets the complexities of Aristophanes' work through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin's critical writing.

This book charts a new course for Aristophanic comedy, taking its lead from the work of Bakhtin. Bakhtin describes the way multiple voices -- vocabularies, tones, and styles of language originating in different social classes and contexts -- appear and interact within literary texts. He argues that the dynamic quality of literature arises from the dialogic relations that exist among these voices. Although Bakhtin applied his theory primarily to the epic and the novel, Platter finds in his work profound implications for Aristophanic comedy, where stylistic heterogeneity is the genre's lifeblood.

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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What was ‘comic’ about Aristophanes’ comedies? For those approaching Aristophanes without a knowledge of Greek, Sir Kenneth Dover’s companion to "Clouds" and Simon Tremmewan’s to "Acharnians" and "Lysistrata" provide an insight into the characteristically Greek elements of comedy which can be lost when reading in translation. They also address the serious issues and criticisms which Aristophanes presents all the more effectively through comedy, and give interesting notes on the treatment which the translation gives to the original Greek. ... Read more

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Flying to Heaven to demand an end to war, building Cloudcuckooland in the sky, descending to Hades to retrieve a dead tragedian such were the cosmic missions on which Aristophanes, the father of comedy, sent his heroes of the classical Athenian stage. The wit, intellectual bravura, political clout and sheer imaginative power of Aristophanes' quest dramas have profoundly influenced humorous literature and satire, but this volume, which originated at an international conference held at the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford University in 2004, is the first interdisciplinary study of their seminal contribution to the evolution of comic performance. Interdisciplinary essays by specialists in Classics, Theatre, and Modern Literatures trace the international performance history of Aristophanic comedy, and its implication in aesthetic and political controversies, from antiquity to the twenty-first century. The story encompasses Jonson's satire, Cromwell's Ireland, German classicism, British Imperial India, censorship scandals in France, Greece and South Africa, Brechtian experiments in East Berlin, and musical theatre from Gilbert and Sullivan to Stephen Sondheim. ... Read more

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Since the publication of the first edition of this book, in 2003, much important new literature has come out, requiring review. The works on drinking parties have focused more and more on Hellenistic and Roman banquets, while drawing parallels with sympotic matters in Classical Athens. This revised second edition provides translations or paraphrases of all the Greek and Latin (except in a few passages which contain discussions of technical matters) to make the book more accessible for students of Aristophanes who do not read these languages. ... Read more

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Athenian comic drama was written for performance at festivals honouring the god Dionysos. Through dramatic action and open discourse, poets sought to engage their rivals and impress the audience, all in an effort to obtain victory in the competitions. This book uses that competitive performance context as an interpretive framework within which to understand the thematic interests shaping the plots and poetic quality of Aristophanes' plays in particular, and of Old Comedy in general. Studying five individual plays from the Aristophanic corpus as well as fragments of other comic poets, it reveals the competitive poetics distinctive to each. It also traces thematic connections with other poetic traditions, especially epic, lyric, and tragedy, and thereby seeks to place competitive poetics within broader trends in Greek literature. ... Read more

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This book is designed as a companion to the new OCT of Aristophanes. After a brief introduction giving a sketch of the textual transmission of the plays the editor discusses a large number of passages which present textual or other difficulties. Problems of this kind in many cases require notes that are too long and complex to be incorporated in the relatively limited space allocated to the apparatus criticus in the Oxford series. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1836 edition by John Murray, London. ... Read more

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Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Pomona Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Aristophanes comic take on dramatic criticism
On the one hand Aristophanes's comedy "The Frogs" is a farce, but it is of more interest because it presents the earliest known example of dramatic criticism. Presented in 405 B.C., the play tells of how Dionysus, the god of drama, had to go to Hades to fetch back Euripides, who died the previous year, because Athens no longer had any great tragic poets left. The first part of the comedy involves Dionysus, who has disguised himself as Heracles, and his slave Xanthias on their way to Hades and features several interesting songs by the chorus of blessed mystics and the chorus of frogs. However, the high point of the comedy is the contest between Euripides and Aeschylus.

Each of the two great tragic poets denounces the other and quotes lines from their own works to prove their superiority. We discover that Euripides writes about vulgar themes, corrupts manners, debases music and has prosaic diction. In contrast, Aeschylus finds obscure titles and is guilty of turgid prose. In the end Dionysus finds that artistic standards of judgment are useless and turns to a political solution. This makes sense since the problem facing Athens is a political one: what to do about the tyrant Alcibiades. What is most interesting is the implicit belief that the tragic poets had a social responsibility towards the audiences of their dramas.

"Frogs," in addition to being one of the better comedies by Aristophanes, is also of interest because it contains the only fragments from several tragedies by Euripides and Aeschylus that have been long lost to us. As always, I urge that if you are studying Greek plays, whether the comedies of Aristophanes or the tragedies by those other more serious fellows, it is important to understand the particular structure of these plays and the various dramatic conventions of the Greek 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). ... Read more

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Working from the combined perspective of feminist literary theory and performance theory, Lauren Taaffe takes an unprecedented look at the representation of women in the plays of Aristophanes. Her analysis of the relationship between ancient and contemporary theatrical representation and gender identity brings a new critical perspective to Aristophanic studies. Taaffe discusses the portrayal of women in all of Aristophanes' extant plays, but focuses on Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazusae and Ecclesiazusae. Her main contention is that Aristophanes' representation of women draws upon the ancient Greek construction of femininity as being inherently artificial and deceptive--a construction of femininity that is directly related to the convention of male actors playing female roles. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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The women of Athens concoct a daring scheme: penetrate the male-dominated Assembly disguised as men and vote themselves into power, after which they will overturn the old laws and inaugurate a new society where all are equal and where property and sex, too is shared. This new translation of Aristophanes' last extant play recaptures the spirit, the bawdiness, and the brilliance of this rollicking farce, which is at the same time a profound critique of contemporary Greek customs and manners. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Sex and Communism--Could you ask for more?
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); as the previous reviewer has stated, this play is excellent in conjuction 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.

In terms of this specific edition, Mayhew translates every joke with absolute faith to the witty, vulgar original.The footnotes are unobtrusive, but they provide just the right amount of explanation of obscure references and odd figures of speech.They even mention which sections were expurgated by uptight Victorian translators!Accept nothing less than this version. (PS: If you loved this play, Lysistrata is at least as good, if not even better.)

Middle Comedy never looked so new!
A specter is haunting Athens, the specter of communism.

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.Freshfrom her victory, Praxagora unveils her plan for a brave, new world whereall property, children and sex are held in common.What follows is anuproariously funny, shockingly vulgar, tremendously insightful satire ofcommunists and the logical consequences of their ideology.

Mayhew'stranslation and introduction would make for a perfect adjunct to anydiscussion of Plato's *Republic*, especially in an introductory Greek Lit& Civ course.First, Aristophenes has arguably innovated aspects ofcommunism that would later influence Plato.Second, the play contains somany allusions to contemporary events (helpfully explained by Mayhew), thatit provides a useful introduction to ancient history, political philosophy,and dramatic literature.Last, the comedy is funny enough for anyone(particularly sophomores!) to enjoy, and if it's the only play theyactually read, they'll know something important about ancient Athens,thanks to the guidance of Robert Mayhew. ... Read more