Customer Reviews

Aristophanes: Four Comedies

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Whiiiine, I don't want to read old Greek plays...they're so booooring", you say? Well, you might think that is true, especially if one your teachers bludgeoned you with the horrible British translations of Aristophanes that were done in the nineteenth century. The Victorian prudes of the nineteenth century were deeply embarrassed by the content of the Greek comedies. They felt that penis jokes were not the sort of morally uplifting things that the ancients should have talked about. All that changes with the Dudley Fitts translation. Fitts bring life back to old Aristophanes. The pace is quick and the dialogue is hysterically funny. Aristophanes was the leading wit of his time. If you can imagine a mix of P.J. O'Rourke and Jim Carrey, then you'd be close to getting at Aristophanes. The humor is sharp and often over the top, often with very earthy overtones; essentially, Greek. You really haven't read Aristophanes until you've Fitts' "Aristophanes:F! our Comedies." This is a translation to be enjoyed by all and not to dreaded as a crime to assign and punishment to read.

Years (many years) ago when I was an English major at UMass, we were given two translations of Aristophanes "The Birds" to read in order to make a point about reading translations. One was by a translator whose name I forgot (and gladly so). The other was by Mr. Fitts. The first was as boring as the ininitiated would expect a Greek comedy to be. But Fitts version, far truer to the original according to our professor, was totally bizarre and remarkably funny. It is as vibrant and eye-opening as Fagles translations of Homer.

Aristophanes' The Frogs is not an easy read, and there are many poor translations available today which make it even worse. This translation was easy to follow and very well written. I am working on my MA in Theatre used this translation to write an adaptation of the play with a professor of mine. We found it to be the most modern adaptation that still maintained the integrity of the original piece.