Aristophanes was not a proponent of the majority of Athenian culture, as well as other aspects of Greek life as whole. He despised the political, educational, and societal views that remained persistent throughout Athens. While his plays may be comedies, he uses them in an assortment of ways. His plays are used to demonstrate a purpose far beyond that of entertainment. He uses his writing for voicing the problems that lie in Ancient culture.
Aristophanes uses each play to reveal certain issues that he felt should have been dealt with. His plays featured satire, farces, and even comical dialogue. His plays were written with clarity and were quite lyrical. Using plays as vessels for opinion is defined best by saying that “The remarkable freedom of Athenian comedy allowed frank, even brutal, commentary in current issues and personalities,” (Hunt.et.al., pg. 101). The Clouds, Lysistrata, and The Acharnians were all used to attack problems that were prevalent during the time of Aristophanes.
In The Acharnians, we see how Aristophanes uses this play to demonstrate his request for peace. Using this comedy, his ideas against war and battle are visibly displayed. This play reflects Aristophanes’ passion for rejecting all notions and reasons for fighting. This play was written on the basis that continuing the Peloponnesian War was unnecessary and ridiculous. The idea of anti-war justification is prominent through the character of Dikaiopolis.
Dikaiopolis is used to depict Aristophanes in the play. Dikaiopolis is the main character and the play’s protagonist. He is used to establish that war is far beyond needed.
In the play, Dikaiopolis is tired of war. He says “I’m done with trouble, I’m done with war,...
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...out of ignorance, and when they stop to think, they begin to fear,” (Perry, pg. 64). Maybe the Athenians should have feared. Then maybe they would have reconsidered continuing fighting. This was Aristophanes’ approach, but Pericles would have refuted it.
The reaction by Pericles to these criticisms would have possibly included the punishment of Aristophanes. It could have been worse if he found out that Aristophanes was trying to mock his people in his plays. Pericles’ response would not have been pleasant because they differed completely. It all comes down to the fact that Pericles wanted to continue Athenian dominance by keeping the political power the same, controlling the societal control of the people, and continuing attempts to defeat the Spartans. Aristophanes had other plans and ideas. These ideas were simply denunciations of what Athenian life stood for.
In her essay on, “Athenian Women,” Sarah Ruden points out that Aristophanes in Lysistrata portray women as supportive of Athenian institutions and eager to save them. But she cautions, “To do this now they must flout law, religion, and every notion of public decency – and this is definitely no reflection on women’s attitudes, but mere satirical farce and fantasy” (Ruden 107). An important element of “satirical farce” in this spirit would be a heavy use of repetition to make people laugh at the weakness being satirized. One example would not be enough, and the audience might not be amused by less than three or four examples. So in important episodes that fill out the action of the play, we have 4 examples of women beating guards,
Throughout Aristophanes’ “Clouds” there is a constant battle between old and new. It makes itself apparent in the Just and Unjust speech as well as between father and son. Ultimately, Pheidippides, whom would be considered ‘new’, triumphs over the old Strepsiades, his father. This is analogous to the Just and Unjust speech. In this debate, Just speech represents the old traditions and mores of Greece while the contrasting Unjust speech is considered to be newfangled and cynical towards the old. While the defeat of Just speech by Unjust speech does not render Pheidippides the ability to overcome Strepsiades, it is a parallel that may be compared with many other instances in Mythology and real life.
The debate between Unjust and Just Speech in Aristophanes’ Clouds draws the reader’s attention to the theme of natural pleasure versus lawful justice. The debate begins with the two Speeches representing
Aristophanes denounces the importance of the gods' influence on the actions of mortals. In the usual tragedy, the gods play an extremely important role towards the actions of the mortal characters. Through fear of the alternative and examples of the past, Athenians carried out their everyday lives under the guidance of the gods' wishes. Aristophanes challenges the audience, and Greek culture as a whole, by offering a different view on the answers and directions of life, than that of the gods. He denounces the parables and explanations to answers in life that involve the gods. Instead he explains that such things as the aerial whirlwind, and especially the clouds, are the reasoning behind all of natures actions. On the surface these comments were seen as a mockery and very humorous. Underlying this humor is a scary truth, most likely ignored by the congregations witnessing this play. How many times has a character in a tragedy been so willing to contradict the gods? Dominant characters like Creon and Prometheus have blatantly disobeyed the gods. The alternative explanations serve a hidden truth in the hearts of many of the Athenian people. This truth is always again repressed by the end of each play, tragedy or comedy; because their was too great of a fear to upset the higher beings.
Pericles tells the Athenians that the Spartans do not have proper courage. They “bring all their allies with them, whereas [Athens], when [the Athenians] launch an attack abroad, do the job by [themselves]”. Pericles tells them they should rely on loyalty and real courage rather than secret weapons while fighting. He also encourages them by saying their strength comes from the thought of losing Athens, where Sparta’s strength comes from their strict military training and use of outside sources. Pericles is not expressing the entire truth. He says that Athens did not use allies to fight, even when they did in the Battle of Thermopylae. In the Battle of Thermopylae, all of the Greek forces joined together to hold the Persians off. Pericles tells everyone this because it makes it seem like they have more courage than the Spartans because they are not based on the state. In a way, Pericles is offending Athens as well as Sparta because they have some fighting strategies in
Athenians didn't show the signs Pericles had said they were well known of. Thucydides was trying to justify his view that when people are put in times of chaos and hardship, they're true evil human nature comes out. They become not people of honor and strength but people interested in themselves and shameful in their actions. An example of one of the greatest tragedies shows just the opposite, sometimes extreme situations can bring out the actual good courageous and honorable side in people. Thucydides showed Athenians as people who didn't live up to what they were known for, but really weren't as great, strong, as they boasted they were.
On the other hand, there are others, such as Platias and Koliopoulos that say Pericles’s strategy could have worked. Both state that "the Athenians lost the war only when they dramatically reversed the Periclean grand strategy that explicitly disdained further conquests". The Athens could have Although his countrymen engaged in several aggressive actions soon after his death, the Athenians remained true to the larger Periclean strategy of seeking to preserve, not expand, the empire, and did not depart from it until the Sicilian Expedition. 33%
The great Sophoclean play, Oedipus Rex is an amazing play, and one of the first of its time to accurately portray the common tragic hero. Written in the time of ancient Greece, Sophocles perfected the use of character flaws in Greek drama with Oedipus Rex. Using Oedipus as his tragic hero, Sophocles’ plays forced the audience to experience a catharsis of emotions. Sophocles showed the play-watchers Oedipus’s life in the beginning as a “privileged, exalted [person] who [earned his] high repute and status by…intelligence.” Then, the great playwright reached in and violently pulled out the audience’s most sorrowful emotions, pity and fear, in showing Oedipus’s “crushing fall” from greatness.
Aristophane’s Lysistrata is a flawed classic filled with the power struggle between man vs. woman. It is entirely focused and written from the male perspective, in which male-privilege dominated and disregarded the women’s outlook entirely. This “classic” is full of misogynistic perspectives, and should be disregarded as a great piece in Athenian literature.
“Lysistrata” is a tale which is centered around an Athenian woman named Lysistrata and her comrades who have taken control of the Acropolis in Athens. Lysistrata explains to the old men how the women have seized the Acropolis to keep men from using the money to make war and to keep dishonest officials from stealing the money. The opening scene of “Lysistrata” enacts the stereotypical and traditional characterization of women in Greece and also distances Lysistrata from this overused expression, housewife character. The audience is met with a woman, Lysistrata, who is furious with the other women from her country because they have not come to discuss war with her. The basic premise of the play is, Lysistrata coming up with a plan to put an end to the Peloponnesian War which is currently being fought by the men. After rounding up the women, she encourages them to withhold sex until the men agree to stop fighting. The women are difficult to convince, although eventually they agree to the plan. Lysistrata also tells the women if they are beaten, they may give in, since sex which results from violence will not please the men. Finally, all the women join Lysistrata in taking an oath to withhold sex from their mates. As a result of the women refraining from pleasing their husbands until they stop fighting the war, the play revolves around a battle of the sexes. The battle between the women and men is the literal conflict of the play. The war being fought between the men is a figurative used to lure the reader to the actual conflict of the play which is the battle between men and women.
...ericles had lived, he may have actually hindered Athenian attempts to find some way out of the stalemated war." (http://www.warhorsesim.com/epw_hist.html). Pericles' death was significant. The Athenians had lost one of their greatest leaders. But even if the policies of Pericles had not been abandoned by the feeble Athenian democracy, the cost of the war would have proved too great and thus Athenian defeat was inevitable.
The strengths and weaknesses of the Athenian character traits laid out in the “Funeral Oration” are exemplified by the character of Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone, and suggest that Athenians held certain concerns in the Golden Age of their empire.
No one would deny that Pericles was the most prominent Greek statesman and spokesperson during the Golden Age. His contribution was largely felt during the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars having obtained power from his family link to the Alcmaeonid family. He commanded a lot of respect to from the Athenian citizens with Thucydides describing him as "the first citizen of Athens” . He was born at around 495 BC north of Athens in the ...
This paper aims to study two significant playwrights, Sophocles and Euripides, and compare their respective attitudes by examining their plays in respect to plot and character structures. To achieve this goal, the paper is organized into two main sections. In the first section, we provide a brief biography of both Sophocles and Euripides. The second and last section includes summaries of Sophocles’ Electra and Euripides’ Electra which were based on same essentials and give an opportunity to observe the differences of the playwrights. This section also includes the comparisons that are made by our observations about the plays.
... convey deeper themes of life and death, the struggles between power and class structure and also the societal differences between men and women. Aristophanes uses humor to hook his audience into his play, and then undermines the surface humor with much bigger thematic issues. If this play had simply been about women withholding sex for other reasons such as wanting more money for shopping or other frivolous ideas it would not then be considered a satiric comedy. Satire requires more than physical humor. An issue must be raised such as the life and death theme that is seen in the war in Lysistrata, and a solution must then be made. Aristophanes created the women in the beginning to be bickering, unintelligent, and self-centered people. But in the end it was their idea and compromise that ended the war.