Aristophanes: Clouds by Alan H Sommerstein )

Aristophanes: Clouds by Alan H Sommerstein )

The reality is that little is known of Aristophanes actual life but eleven of his forty plays survive intact and upon those rest his deserved reputation as the Father of Comedy or, The Prince of Ancient Comedy. Accounts agree that he was born sometime between 456BC and 446 BC. Many cities claim the honor of his birthplace and the most probable story makes him the son of Philippus of gina, and therefore only an adopted citizen of Athens, a distinction which, at times could be cruel, though he was raised and educated in Athens. His plays are said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more realistically than any other author could. Intellectually his powers of ridicule were feared by his influential contemporaries; Plato himself singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as a slander that contributed to the trial and condemning to death of Socrates and although other satirical playwrights had also caricatured the philosopher his carried the most weight. His now lost play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. Aristophanes seems to have taken this criticism to heart and thereafter caricatured Cleon mercilessly in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights. His life and playwriting years were undoubtedly long though again accounts as to the year of his death vary quite widely. What can be certain is that his legacy of surviving plays is in effect both a treasured legacy but also in itself the only surviving texts of Ancient Greek comedy.

‘For an overall series of the entire corpus, including critical text, commentary, translation, and full introduction, all subsumed to one man’s intelligent analysis and wide-ranging scholarship, Sommerstein stands triumphantly alone[...] Aristophanes is lucky to have so devoted, erudite, and witty a modern celebrant.’
Scholia
‘This work is a fine and unpretentious introduction to Aristophanic comedy.’
Journal of Hellenic Studies
'Sommerstein has exercised throughout the refreshing independence of judgement, backed by learning.’
JACT

Alan H. Sommerstein is Professor of Greek and Director for Ancient Drama and its Reception, University of Nottingham, and editor of a celebrated complete edition of Aristophanes volumes in the Aris & Phillips Classical Texts series. His many other publications include Aeschylean Tragedy (1996), an edition of Aeschylus Eumenides (1989), Greek Drama and Dramatists (2002) and Sophocles: Selected Fragmentary Plays Volumes 1 and 2 (2006, 2011) in this series.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780856682100
ISBN 10	0856682101
Title	Aristophanes: Clouds
Author	Alan H Sommerstein
Series	Aris And Phillips Classical Texts
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Liverpool University Press
Year published	1991-01-01
Number of pages	274
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.