Read complete books and articles on: Lysistrata

Aristophanes - ărˌĭstŏfˈənēz, c.448 b.c.–c.388 b.c., Greek playwright, Athenian comic poet, greatest of the ancient writers of comedy. His plays, the only full extant samples of the Greek Old Comedy, mix political, social, and literary satire. The direct attack on persons, the severity of invective, and the burlesque extravagances made the plays fitting for the festival of Dionysus. Aristophanes was conservative in all things, hence he distrusted sophistry and Socrates alike, satirized Euripides' art as degenerate, and deplored the tendency to excessive imperialism that ruined Athens in the Syracusan expedition. The typical plan of an Aristophanic comedy is simple—the protagonist undertakes seriously some preposterous project, and the play is an elaboration of his success or failure. Despite the absurdity of the situation, Aristophanes' characters are real as types; their verisimilitude comes from their perfectly natural behavior in unnatural circumstances. Aristophanes' Greek is exceptionally beautiful, and many of his choruses are among the finest lyric pieces in Greek literature. His careful diction and his ability to characterize in a few words are remarkable, and he shows himself especially astute in his parodies of Euripides. Eleven of his plays survive: The Acharnians (425 b.c.), an attack on the Peloponnesian War; The Knights (424), a political satire on the demagoguery of the period; The Clouds (423), a satire on the sophists and on Socrates; The Wasps (422), a satire on the Athenian passion for litigation; The Peace (421), a defense of the Peace of Nicias; The Birds (414), an escape into an amazing imaginary kingdom; Lysistrata (411), in which the Athenian women boycott their husbands to end a war; The Thesmophoriazusae or The Women at Demeter's Festival (411), in which the women conspire to ruin Euripides because of his misogyny; The Frogs (405), a literary satire involving Aeschylus and Euripides; The Ecclesiazusae or The Women in Politics (c.392), in which the women take over the government; and Plutus (388), in which the blind god of wealth recovers his eyesight and distributes the gifts of fortune more equitably.

See his plays (ed. by M. Hadas, 1962, 1984); studies by G. Murray (1933, repr. 1964), C. Whitman (1964), K. J. Dover (1972), and V. Ehrenberg (new ed. 1974).

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9 of the Best Books and Articles on: Lysistrata

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Birds; Lysistrata; Assembly-Women; Wealth ("Lysistrata" begins on p. 95) » Read Now
by Aristophanes, Stephen Halliwell. 297 pgs.

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This new verse translation 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...
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This new verse translation 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 and an index of names.
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2.

Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays (Chap. 10 "Lysistrata") » Read Now
by Douglas M. MacDowell. 362 pgs.

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...9. Birds 199 10. Lysistrata 229 11. Women at the...HENDERSON JEFFREY. Edition of Aristophanes Lysistrata Oxford 1987 . HOFMANN HEINZ...2nd edn. 1913 , Birds 1906 ...
3.

Aristophanes, an Author for the Stage (Chap. 9 "Lysistrata") » Read Now
by Carlo Ferdinando Russo. 282 pgs.

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Carlo Ferdinando Russo's book has been a seminal work on Aristophanes since its publication in Italy in 1962. In his detailed analysis, Professor Russo considers the plays as libretti for actors and singers rather than as mere texts, and never loses sight of the stage. This is the classic book...
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Carlo Ferdinando Russo's book has been a seminal work on Aristophanes since its publication in Italy in 1962. In his detailed analysis, Professor Russo considers the plays as libretti for actors and singers rather than as mere texts, and never loses sight of the stage. This is the classic book about Aristophanes. Now finally available in English and much-updated, it is essential reading for any student of Athenian comedy.
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4.

Literary Texts and the Greek Historian (Chap. 10 "Lysistrata and Others: Constructing Gender") » Read Now
by Christopher Pelling. 340 pgs.

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Literary Texts and the Greek Historian provides a comprehensive and well-documented survey of the ways in which non-historical texts, as well as historical ones, can be used to construct Greek history.Christopher Pelling introduces the volume with a chapter on the inventiveness of ancient authors...
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Literary Texts and the Greek Historian provides a comprehensive and well-documented survey of the ways in which non-historical texts, as well as historical ones, can be used to construct Greek history.Christopher Pelling introduces the volume with a chapter on the inventiveness of ancient authors and explores the genres of literature from which we construct our accounts of ancient history.
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5.

Aristophanes' Old-And-New Comedy, Vol. 1 ("Loyalty to Communitas: Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazusae" begins on p. 301) » Read Now
by Kenneth J. Reckford. 567 pgs.

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6.

Dialect in Aristophanes and the Politics of Language in Ancient Greek Literature ("Songs at the End of Lysistrata" begins on p. 260) » Read Now
by Stephen Colvin. 350 pgs.

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Did the Greeks find it amusing, irritating, or threatening when they heard another Greek speaking in a different dialect? This book exploits the evidence of ancient Greek comedy in an attempt to answer some of the questions about ancient language attitudes. Colvin draws conclusions from a...
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Did the Greeks find it amusing, irritating, or threatening when they heard another Greek speaking in a different dialect? This book exploits the evidence of ancient Greek comedy in an attempt to answer some of the questions about ancient language attitudes. Colvin draws conclusions from a comparative study of the language of dialect speaking characters and other foreigners in Old Comedy, and on an examination of linguistic attitudes in other genres of Greek literature.
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7.

The Songs of Aristophanes (Discussion of Lysistrata begins on p. 358) » Read Now
by L. P. E. Parker. 588 pgs.

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Aristophanes' comedies were as much musical as dramatic performances. The scores from these performances are lost, and the only way of recovering a sense of what the Athenian audience experienced is to study the rhythms of Aristophanes' poetry. His lyric verse covers a wide range of styles--from...
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Aristophanes' comedies were as much musical as dramatic performances. The scores from these performances are lost, and the only way of recovering a sense of what the Athenian audience experienced is to study the rhythms of Aristophanes' poetry. His lyric verse covers a wide range of styles--from popular song to parody of tragedy. in this book, L.P.E. Parker provides a full text, with scansion, of the surviving plays' lyrics, and an introduction to the different rhythms used by Aristophanes, their origins, and literary associations. Parker emphasizes the role played by lyric meter in dramatic architecture and distinguishes the different levels of musical style. In this way, Parker illustrates meter's centrality in Aristophanes' dramatic art and satire.
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8.

Venom in Verse: Aristophanes in Modern Greece (Chap. 3 "The Lysistrata Euphoria of 1900-1940: Sexual and Antifeminist Paravase") » Read Now
by Gonda A. H. Van Steen. 284 pgs.

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Aristophanes has enjoyed a conspicuous revival in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Greece. Here, Gonda Van Steen provides the first critical analysis of the role of the classical Athenian playwright in modern Greek culture, explaining how the sociopolitical "venom" of Aristophanes' verses remains...
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Aristophanes has enjoyed a conspicuous revival in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Greece. Here, Gonda Van Steen provides the first critical analysis of the role of the classical Athenian playwright in modern Greek culture, explaining how the sociopolitical "venom" of Aristophanes' verses remains relevant and appealing to modern Greek audiences. Deriding or challenging well-known figures and conservative values, Aristophanes' comedies transgress authority and continue to speak to many social groups in Greece who have found in him a witty, pointed, and accessible champion from their "native" tradition.The book addresses the broader issues reflected in the poet's revival: political and linguistic nationalism, literary and cultural authenticity versus creativity, censorship, and social strife. Van Steen's discussion ranges from attitudes toward Aristophanes before and during Greece's War of Independence in the 1820s to those during the Cold War, from feminist debates to the significance of the popular music integrated into comic revival productions, from the havoc transvestite adaptations wreaked on gender roles to the political protest symbolized by Karolos Koun's directorial choices.Crossing boundaries of classical philology, critical theory, and performance studies, the book encourages us to reassess Aristophanes' comedies as both play-acts and modern methods of communication. Van Steen uses material never before accessible in English as she proves that Aristophanes remains Greece's immortal comic genius and political voice.
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9.

Inside the Moscow Art Theatre (1925) (Chap. VIII "The Humors of the Immortal Greeks: Aristophanes' 'Lysistrata'") » Read Now
by Oliver M. Sayler. 240 pgs.

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...THE IMMORTAL GREEKS Aristophanes "Lysistrata" 91 IX SPANISH PASSION...COLOR Aristophanes "Lysistrata." A painting by Andrei Hudiakoff after...Pierre Kontchalovsky 86 "...