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Aristophanes' Knights was a sensation in its time, famous for its assault on the Athenian politician and demagogue Cleon in the first comic drama devoted to a sustained, open satire of an individual political figure. It is also the first play Aristophanes produced in his own name, and the one that solidified his reputation as a leading comic dramatist. This is the first full-scale commentary on Knights in over a century. The Greek text is based on a fresh analysis of the manuscripts, papyri and other ancient sources. The extensive commentary situates the play in its linguistic, literary and intellectual context and allows full appreciation of its original performance context. Particular attention is paid to the poet's language and to the social and literary traditions of his time, and abundant citations and quotations of parallel passages ranging far beyond the comic poets are offered, with all Greek translated.
List of contents
Abbreviations and Bibliography; Introduction; Sigla; Text and Critical Apparatus; Commentary; Indexes.
About the author
ZACHARY P. BILES is a Professor in the Department of Classics at Franklin and Marshall College. He is the author of numerous articles and books on Aristophanes, including Aristophanes and the Poetics of Competition (Cambridge, 2011) and (with S. D. Olson) Aristophanes: Wasps (2015). A former fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies, he has been awarded other fellowships, including from the Loeb Classical Library Foundation.S. DOUGLAS OLSON is Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Religions and Cultures at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of many commentaries on and editions of ancient Greek authors, including most recently (with Zachary Biles) Aristophanes: Wasps (2015), the fragments of the comic poets Eupolis (2014, 2016, 2017) and Antiphanes (2021, 2022, 2023), Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023) and (with Eric Cullhed) the first two of a projected six volumes of Eustathius' Commentary on the Odyssey (2022, 2023). He is also the General Editor of the Basel Homer Commentary English Translation and the lead scientist on a Russian Academy of the Sciences Mega-grant 'Commenting Ancient Comedy' (2021–2024).
