Aristophanes the Democrat: The Politics of Satirical Comedy during the Peloponnesian War

by Keith Sidwell

Overview

This book provides a new interpretation of the nature of Old Comedy and its place at the heart of Athenian democratic politics. Professor Sidwell argues that Aristophanes and his rivals belonged to opposing political groups, each with their own political agenda. Through disguised caricature and parody of their rivals' work, the poets expressed and fuelled the political conflict between their factions. Professor Sidwell rereads the principal texts of Aristophanes and the fragmented remains of the work of his rivals in the light of these arguments for the political foundations of the genre.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521519984
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/22/2009
Pages:	424
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Keith Sidwell is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Studies, University of Calgary. He has written on Greek drama, later Greek literature - including most recently Lucian: Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches (2004) - and on Neo-Latin writing and is a co-author of the Reading Greek and Reading Latin series, and author of Reading Medieval Latin (1995).

Table of Contents

Part I. Setting the Stage: 1. Getting to grips with the politics of Old Comedy; 2. Metacomedy and politics; 3. Metacomedy and caricature; Part II. The Poets' War: 4. Acharnians; 5. Metacomedy, caricature and politics from Knights to Peace; 6. Metacomedy, caricature and politics from Autolycus to Frogs; Conclusions and consequences: Appendix 1. The view from the Theatron; Appendix 2. Metacomedy and caricature in the surviving fourth century plays of Aristophanes; Appendix 3. Timeline and proposed relationships between comedies; Bibliography.