Frogs and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

by Aristophanes (Author), Shomit Dutta (Editor, Introduction) "[The scene opens just before dawn..." (more)
Key Phrases: fourth actor, comic playwrights, little flask, Old Comedy

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The master of ancient Greek comic drama, Aristophanes combined slapstick, humour and cheerful vulgarity with acute political observations. In "The Frogs", written during the Peloponnesian War, Dionysus descends to the Underworld to bring back a poet who can help Athens in its darkest hour, and stages a great debate to help him decide between the traditional wisdom of Aeschylus and the brilliant modernity of Euripides. The clash of generations and values is also the object of Aristophanes' satire in "The Wasps", in which an old-fashioned father and his loose-living son come to blows and end up in court. And in "The Poet and the Women", Euripides, accused of misogyny, persuades a relative to infiltrate an all-women festival to find out whether revenge is being plotted against him.

About the Author
Aristophanes was born, probably in Athens, c. 449 BC and died between 386 and 380 BC. Little is known about his life, but there is a portrait of him in Plato's Symposium. He was twice threatened with prosecution in the 420s for his outspoken attacks on the prominent politician Cleon, but in 405 he was publicly honored and crowned for promoting Athenian civic unity in The Frogs. Aristophanes had his first comedy produced when he was about twenty-one, and wrote forty plays in all. The eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes are published in the Penguin Classics series as The Birds and Other Plays, Lysistrata and Other Plays, and The Wasps/The Poet and the Women/The Frogs. Translated by David Barrett Revised Translation with an Introduction and Notes by Shomit Dutta

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (April 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140449698
• ISBN-13: 978-0140449693
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #234,588 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious collection of plays, December 25, 2007

By	Jordan M. Poss (Georgia, United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Comedy is notoriously difficult to translate--not only do some cultures have entirely different senses of humor, the word-play and deft cultural allusions that make good comedy are often untranslatable. Against these odds, translator David Barrett has successfully brought Aristophanes into modern English with all his wit, sarcasm, and sly digs at well-known Greeks.

The plays collected here--Frogs, Wasps, and Women at the Thesmophoria--are rendered so well that I was laughing all the way through. The translations are remarkably true to the originals and well foot-noted where the translator has diverged from the text, usually to make a joke an English-speaking reader would understand.

Frogs and Other Plays is a fast, easy, and very funny read, well worth the time for anyone interested in ancient Greece, drama, or good old-fashioned comedy.

Recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of Penguin Classics Aristophanes' Frogs, et al., July 1, 2009

By	Ryan S. Mease "scott.godwin" (Green Bay, WI, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First of all, I was suprised to find tbat the introduction to this Aristophanes collection was more lucid and readable than that before the "Birds" Collection, which is really meant to be the original volume.

The editor, Shomit Dutta, did an excellent job of modernizing the Barrett translation and adding extensive end notes. Although, as usual, I find footnotes far more helpful, the work as a whole was so wonderful that I had to give it five stars.

As with the first volume, this Penguin Classics collections presents plays which are easy to read and genuinely funny, especially for one who has just recently read Greek drama.

1 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very easy read, April 12, 2007

By	P. M. Keating (Akron, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Frogs and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

More people should read the Greeks. It's not hard at all. How many of your friends can say they've read Aristophanes?