Clouds. Wasps. Peace by Aristophanes

Clouds. Wasps. Peace by Aristophanes

The master of Old Comedy.

Aristophanes of Athens, one of the world’s greatest comic dramatists, has been admired since antiquity for his iridescent wit and beguiling fantasy, exuberant language, and brilliant satire of the social, intellectual, and political life of Athens at its height. The Loeb Classical Library edition of his plays is in four volumes.

The Introduction to the edition is in Volume I. Also in the first volume is Acharnians, in which a small landowner, tired of the Peloponnesian War, magically arranges a personal peace treaty; and Knights, perhaps the most biting satire of a political figure (Cleon) ever written.

Three plays are in Volume II. Socrates’ “Thinkery” is at the center of Clouds, which spoofs untraditional techniques for educating young men. Wasps satirizes Athenian enthusiasm for jury service. In Peace, a rollicking attack on war-makers, the hero travels to heaven on a dung beetle to discuss the issues with Zeus.

The enterprising protagonists of Birds create a utopian counter-Athens ruled by birds. Also in Volume III is Lysistrata, in which our first comic heroine organizes a conjugal strike of young wives until their husbands end the war between Athens and Sparta. Women again take center stage in Women at the Thesmophoria, this time to punish Euripides for portraying them as wicked.

Frogs, in Volume IV, features a contest between the traditional Aeschylus and the modern Euripides, yielding both sparkling comedy and insight on ancient literary taste. In Assemblywomen Athenian women plot to save Athens from male misgovernance—with raucously comical results. Here too is Wealth, whose gentle humor and straightforward morality made it the most popular of Aristophanes’ plays from classical times to the Renaissance.

Jeffrey Henderson, who may fairly be considered the leading Aristophanic scholar in North America, has… provided us with both a useful text and idiomatic… translationIt is certainly a work that scholars may use with confidence and may recommend to their students for consultation and, yes, for help with translation… [I] found it more accurate for translation purposes than Henderson’s Focus translation or Sommerstein’s Penguin… I found Henderson’s notes uniformly admirable, alerting us with all sorts of necessary information… Henderson has done a very great service in bringing both the text and the antique translations of Rogers up to date. This second volume in the Loeb lives up to the high standards of its predecessor, and we look forward to those to come. -- Ian C. Storey * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *

Jeffrey Henderson is William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Greek Language and Literature, Emeritus, at Boston University.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780674995376
ISBN 10	0674995376
Title	Clouds. Wasps. Peace
Author	Aristophanes
Series	Loeb Classical Library
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Harvard University Press
Year published	1998-12-15
Number of pages	624
Prizes	Winner of Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit 2001
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.