New Comedy: Women in Power; Wealth; The Malcontent; The Woman from Samos

Description

An essential book for students of Greek drama and literature: Aristophanes is widely regarded as one of Ancient Greece's foremost satirists - offering students of the period a unique insight into the world of Athens and its theatre Written in the century following the defeat of Athens by the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War, these four plays signal a change of emphasis in stage comedy more appropriate to the new world order of the fourth century BC. Women in Power and Wealth complete the cycle of Aristophanes' extant plays begun in Aristophanes Plays: One and Two, translated by Kenneth McLeish and J Michael Walton. These editions provide full introductions; discussing the plays and placing them in their political and social context. Aristophanes was a unique writer for the comic stage as well as one of the most revealing about the society for which he wrote.

Aristophanes (c. 446-386 BC) was Athens's greatest comic playwright, whose plays define the genre of Old Comedy. His was a precise, poetic vision articulated in pin-sharp images, his works being some of the most revealing about the society for which he wrote. Although only eleven of the some forty plays he wrote survive, his unique blend of slapstick, fantasy, bawdy and political satire provide us with a vivid picture of the ancient Athenians - their social mores, their beliefs and their exuberant sense of occasion. Menander (343-292 BC) was a Greek exponent of the New Comedy, and influenced the Roman writers Plautus and Terence, to Moliere, Congreve, Wilde, and other writers of the Comedy of Manners.