Comic poet (c.446 BC – c.386 BC)
Aristophanes was the greatest comic poet of antiquity, who distinguished for his innovative role in comedy and his ingenuity in satirical poetry. He is the only representative of comedy from whom complete parts of his works have survived. He belongs to the great poets of the Classical Greek era, along with Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, him being the youngest of the four.
For 40 years, Aristophanes dominated the comical stage of Athens and became perhaps the most widely-known Athenian of his time. Nevertheless, almost nothing is known about his life, let alone the place he was born. He was an aristocrat but lived a simple life, indulged in his spiritual work, in spite of the fact that he was involved with the commons and with political satire.
The total number of his works is estimated to have been around 44. His major influences were Aeschylus, the greatest tragic poet of mankind, Orpheus, the founder of Orphism and Hesiod, the author of the divine Theogony. Aristophanes would frequently put his plays on stage under a different name or would pay others so that his name would be hidden behind those who would accept to take the responsibility of his plays.
A total of 11 plays have survived in their full form. They are the following: Acharnians, the first in chronological order, takes place during the Peloponnesian War. The protagonist Dicaeopolis secures a private peace treaty with the Spartans but is confronted by his fellow citizens, the Acharnians, who wish for the war to continue. It is a play of war and justice. Hippeis (Knights) is a satire about a statesman named Cleon and about the people’s compliance on flattery. Both Acharnians and Hippeis won him the first prize in the Lenaian festival. Nephelae (Clouds) won him the 3rd prize on the Megala Dionysia and is a play where he criticizes the Sophists. Socrates is a key figure in this play. The Wasps satirizes the Athenian legal system and corruption while Peace, as its name suggests, conveys a message of peace. His two most renowned plays are The Birds and Lysistrata. The Birds is a play about two Athenians who decide to build their own imaginary city with the help of the bird king between Heaven and Earth. It satirizes the Athenian politics and its irresponsibility. It won him the 2nd prize in the Megala Dionysia. Lysistrata is a powerful play in which women from all over Greece go on a sex strike in order the men to make peace. Thesmophoriazusae is about a group of women who plot Euripides’ death for defemating them in his plays. In The Frogs, Dionysus descends to Hades to bring back to life one of the three great tragedians because the people on Earth are writing dumb plays. He eventually becomes a judge in a poetry competition between the three. This also won first prize in the Lenaian festival. The Ecclisiazousae is a play about women who, after disguising into men, they organize a coup to take over Athens and establish community-property for everything. Wealth, the final one to have survived, deals with the unjust distribution of goods to people.
Aristophanes draws themes from the political, social and spiritual life of Athens. He portrays the mentality of the peoples, their traditions and actions in a comical and philosophical way. His works were original, imaginative and very daring for their time. He was greatly admired by Plato because of his critical stance against aristocracy and his radical art.
He was highly critical of democracy and would often be a subject of denouncement and resentment in his plays. He struggled against the demagogues of Athens whom he accused of philopolemy, and the sophists, whom he satirized greatly in his play Clouds (Nephelae). Through his plays, he fought for righteousness (Wealth), peace (Lysistrata, Peace, Acharnians) and the search for the ideal republic (Clouds), as his friend Plato did. His works were extensively studied by the philologists of the Byzantine Empire and the Renaissance, particularly by Erasmus, who considered them very important. To this day, his plays continue to educate the peoples of the 21st century worldwide.
Bibliography:
- “Aristophanes”. Helios New Encyclopaedic Dictionary. Passas, I. Athens, 1946. Print.
- Platnauer Maurice, Taplin Oliver. Aristophanes Greek Dramatist. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Britannica.com. Web. September 24, 2015. Retrieved on March 27, 2017.
- Stefos, Stergioulis, Charitidou. History of the Ancient Greek Literature. Οργανισμός Εκδόσεως Διδακτικών Βιβλίων: Athens, 1999. Print.
