Aristophanes

Athenian comic dramatist who wrote plays which were produced from 427-382 BCE.

Aristophanes was prolific, popular and sometimes offensive; his extant plays include: Clouds, Frogs, and Lysistrata among others.

Little is known of his personal life except that he was the son of Philippos and the father of Araros.

His acid-like ridicule of Sokrates (Socrates) in Clouds (423 BCE) might have set the stage for the tragic and callous trial of Sokrates in 399 BCE; Aristophanes portrayed Sokrates as a blithering intellectual with little or no concern for the consequences of his thoughts or actions and very probably caused the death of a brilliant man for the sake of a few laughs.

At least thirty two titles are credited to him but only eleven survive, they are (in chronological order of their production dates):

1. The Akharnians (Acharnians), 425 BCE;
2. The Knights, 424;
3. The Clouds, originally produced in 423 BCE but the existing, revised version is circa 420 and incomplete;
4. The Wasps, 422;
5. Peace, 421;
6. The Birds, 414;
7. Lysistrata, 411;
8. The Poet and the Woman, i.e. Thesmophoriazusae, 411;
9. The Frogs, 405;
10. The Woman’s Assembly, i.e. Ekklesiazusae, 392; and
11. Plutus, 388 BCE.

Aristophanes’ plays are sometimes difficult to appreciate because he was a very contemporary poet, i.e. he was writing for the Athenian audience of his day; he would use puns, parody regional accents and speak directly to the audience in ways that force modern translators to seek out the contextual meaning rather than the literal meaning of the poet’s words; for that reason, I suggest that if you find a translation that is difficult to enjoy, please don’t blame Aristophanes, simply look for a translation that you can enjoy.

When trying to find a readable translator, I suggest Patric Dickinson; you may find his books at your local library in the 882 section but his books are out of print and sometimes difficult to find.