Aristophanes: Four Plays - Clouds, Birds, Lysistrata, Women of the Assembly

Aristophanes's satirical masterpieces, immensely popular with the Athenian public, were frequently crude, even obscene. His plays revealed to his contemporaries, and now teach us today, that when those in power act obscenely, patriotic obscenity is a fitting response. Until now English translations have failed to capture Aristophanes's poetic genius. Aaron Poochigian, the first poet-classicist to tackle these plays in a generation, offers "effortlessly readable and genuinely theatrical" (Simon Armitage) versions of four of Aristophanes's most entertaining, provocative and lyrically ingenious comedies, finally giving twenty-first-century readers a sense of the subversive pleasure audiences felt when these works were first performed on the Athenian stage.

About the author

Aristophanes was the most celebrated comic playwright in fifth-century BCE Athens.Aaron Poochigian has published four books of poetry and several translations, including Aristophanes: Four Plays (2021) and Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments by Sappho (2009). He lives in New York City.

Summary

A “zany [and] inventive” (Emily Wilson) translation that for the first time captures both the antic outrageousness and lyrical brilliance of antiquity’s greatest comedies.

Product details

• Authors: Aristophanes
• Assisted by: Aaron Poochigian (Translation), Poochigian Aaron (Translation)
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 13.05.2022
• EAN: 9781324091561
• ISBN: 978-1-324-09156-1
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 211 mm x 28 mm
• Weight: 334 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), FICTION / Classics, Classic fiction (pre c 1945), FICTION / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology, DRAMA / General, FICTION / Satire, Myth & legend told as fiction, Satirical fiction and parodies, Plays, Playscripts, Classic and pre-20th century plays, Fiction: Traditional stories, myths and fairy tales, Classic fiction: general and literary