Aristophanes

Aristophanes (ca. 446 BC - 385 BC) was a Greek comic poet, famous for writing plays, especially comedies such as The Birds for the two Athenian festivals: the Dionisia and the Lenea. Many of his plays were political, and he is known to have been prosecuted for Athenian law's equivalent of libel more than once. A famous comedy, The Frogs, was given the unprecedented honor of a second perfomance.

He appears in Plato's Symposium, giving a humorous mythical account of the origin of Love. The Clouds pokes fun at famous figures, notably Socrates, and may have contributed to the common conception of the philosopher as a Sophist. Lysistrata was written during the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta and presents a pacifist theme in a comical manner: the women of the two states deprive their husbands of sex until they stop fighting. This play was later illustrated at length by Pablo Picasso.

Plays

• Assemblywomen
• The Birds
• The Clouds
• The Frogs[?]
• The Knights
• Lysistrata
• Peace
• Wealth

See also: Agathon, Greek Literature

External Links

e-texts of some of Aristophanes' works:

• The Acharnenses (http://www.abacci.com/books/book.asp?bookID=69)
• The Birds (http://www.abacci.com/books/book.asp?bookID=263)
• Clouds (http://www.abacci.com/books/book.asp?bookID=397)
• Peace (http://www.abacci.com/books/book.asp?bookID=1643)