The Complete Plays

By Aristophanes

Book Overview

A brand-new translation of the world's greatest satirist. With a signature style that is at once bawdy and delicate, as well as a fearless penchant for lampooning the rich and powerful, Aristophanes remains arguably the finest satirist of all time. Collected here are all 11 of his surviving plays-newly translated by the distinguished poet and translator Paul Roche.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451214099
• ISBN13: 9780451214096
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Length: 715 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.8" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Ancient and Bawdy

When a foreigner asked Plato about the ways of Athens, he sent him the works of Aristophanes. There is nothing proper about these plays, they are vibrant and ribald. The Athenians were ahead of their time with the idea of free speech, and in Aristophanes they had a comic genius to make use of it. Birds is my favorite, the story of a utopia created in the sky by two dissatisfied Athenians. It's a protest against war and has some great ideas, for instance, their intercepting human sacrifices to the gods until Olympus sends an envoy to negotiate with them. In Lysistrata, the women of Athens refuse to have sex with their husbands until they end their war. Clouds satirizes the Sophists (although, unfairly, using Socrates as his victim). These are comic masterpieces.