Aristophanes

Plato’s Republic, Aristophanes’ The Assemblywomen, and Blundell’s chapter on Sparta women citizen, depicted many ideas of women’s value and participation in their societies. Blundell shows that the more radical lines of Spartan women ensured that female domestic power was accepted and maybe encouraged. In Plato’s and Aristophanes’ works can reflect a comparison to Blundell’s chapter on Sparta. Spartan women were raised in an all-female environment as their father or husbands were training for…

In Aristophanes’ comedy the Clouds, Socrates is charged with the corruption of the youth, by teaching them to disregard the traditional values of piety, and the authority of the laws of Athens. Plato, one of the primary advocates and followers of Socrates attempts to defend Socrates from these charges in his dialogues Euthyphro and the Apology by characterizing him as a martyr of justice against a city corrupted by fear in realizing its own fragility. Plato’s depiction of Socrates’ defense in…

Plato’s Symposium was written in the fourth century B.C.E. in Ancient Greece. Written in Greek, the Symposium reports a series of eulogies to love given by men to entertain themselves and others at the court of playwright Agathon, celebrating his recent victory. While each of the eulogies is about love, Plato uses this dialog to express political ideas. He describes the reasons why change hasn’t already occurred. These barriers include tendencies away from change, lack of awareness for the need…

Satire VS Ancient Greek Satire: Political Satire originated in the 4th century BCE in Greece, in what was known as the Aristophanic Comedy. Aristophanes was a playwright of ancient Athens who used comedy to mock and explicitly criticize the governmental system at the time. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by politicians of the time. Aristophanes’ comedy was peculiarly democratic in a period where democracy was in stages of instability in Ancient Greece. Also, his plays and…

It’s true that they didn’t know who they were looking for, but it is undeniable that many were groping in the dark for a savior, for one who would rescue them from this broken world and would defeat death. Consider for example, one of the plays of Aristophanes called “the Birds”. In that play we start out with two companions Pisthetaerus and Euelpides who are frustrated and tired of life in Athens. They are unsatisfied with the state of the world around them and they long for a new city, one…

In Sophocles’ Greek tragedy Antigone and Aristophanes’ Greek comedy Lysistrata, gender roles play an important part in understanding the motives of the characters. Traditionally in ancient civilizations, women’s roles were limited to the home, but both playwrights contradict this by having the lead roles in their play go to female characters, both of whom use their gender as a way to defy power and stand for their cause. Antigone and Lysistrata believe in their cause enough to go against male…

attempting to alter the circumstance for their favor or overcome adversity by modifying customs and laws, whether it is for a noble cause, such as the American Revolution; or for a selfish purpose, like Strepsides does to avoid the debts in the Clouds. Aristophanes depicts the bizarre logic of characters like Socrates and Strepsides in the Clouds, a satirical comedy, to convey his animosity toward the new education along with its “Inferior Argument”, furthermore advocating an elimination of the…

From reading The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, I would add a piece of technology that would help Jim Smiley win more bets with his frog. I would add a device that would be capable of measuring jumping height, force from takeoff, and the landing force. This way Mr. Smiley could go out and gather frogs and test them until he singled out the best frog for him to use in his bets. Mr. Smiley taught the frog that he caught in the story on how to jump higher, but if someone else were to…

Pheidippides and Strepsiades could have been prime examples, but unfortunately they are fictional and hold no actual evidence against Socrates. Pheidippides corruption may be thought as corruption of youth by Aristophanes, but is dismissed by Plato’s Socrates. This Socrates states that “I cannot justly be held responsible for the good or bad conduct of these people, as I never promised to teach them anything and have not done so” (Plato, 33a-33b). What Socrates…

After reading both Wasps by Aristophanes and Bacchae by Euripides, I realized that words can be just as powerful as a god. Athenian government officials, such as Cleon, in Wasps and Dionysus from Bacchae had total control over others. The people the Athenian government and Dionysus controlled were manipulated to believe that they had power. Within Wasps, readers are introduced to Procleon, a man who has an obsession with being a juror for the Athenian government. Procleon’s obsession is…