Lysistrata/The Acharnians/The Clouds [Paperback]

Aristophanes (Author), Alan H. Sommerstein (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 1974

Writing at the time of political and social crisis in Athens Aristophanes was an eloquent yet bawdy challenger to the demagogue and the sophist. The Achanians is a plea for peace set against the background of the long war with Sparta. In Lysistrata a band of women tap into the awesome power of sex in order to end a war. The darker comedy of The Clouds satirizes Athenian philosophers, Socrates in particular, and reflects the uncertainties of a generation in which all traditional religious and ethical beliefs were being challenged.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Greek

About the Author

Aristophanes (c. 447-c. 385 bc), a contemporary of Socrates, was the last and greatest of the Old Attic comedians. Eleven of his forty plays survive.

Alan H. Sommerstein is head of the classics department at Nottingham. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (March 30, 1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140442871
• ISBN-13: 978-0140442878
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #800,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Translation with wit but without true character of original, September 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Lysistrata/The Acharnians/The Clouds (Paperback)

Alan Sommerstein went to some length to translate the puns and plays on words (as further explained in the endnotes), which results in a very active play, and, for the careful reader, wit in nearly every line. He also uses the endnotes to explain further the Greek personalities mentioned in the plays, which adds to the understanding; my recommendation would be to read the play straight, then read the associated endnotes, then reread the play in question.

This translation captures the humor of the original, which ranges from low-brow slapstick to witty one-liners to political asides--a union of vaudeville, Oscar Wilde, and Mark Russell. However, what Sommerstein utterly misses is the form of ancient Greek comedy. The lyric choruses are rendered in choppy iambic lines, with many of them set to tunes from Gilbert & Sullivan. Aristophanes meant to use vulgarity in the acting, not in the lines of the Chorus.

Two stars for verbal wit, two stars for completeness of endnotes, and one star for my love of "Lysistrata", minus one star for excessive use of campy tunes.

(For those of you who do like his translations, or those just looking for the other eight plays, they are contained in two more volumes. Sommerstein collaborated with David Barrett in the volume Knights/Peace/Birds/Women's Assembly/Wealth, while Barrett translated Wasps/Women's Assembly/Frogs. Barrett takes less care with the translation of humor, but does not destroy the credibility of the choral lines.)

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the father of western comedy..., November 13, 2004

By 

Jeremy Davies (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

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

Brilliantly written and translated (quite a feat considering the many word-plays in ancient Greek...), this book (or any of Arsitophanes' plays for that matter) is a 'must read' for the humourist and the classisist combined. When the King of Syracuse asked Plato what he should read to understand how the average Athenian thought, he was instructed to read Aristophanes. You will be fascinated to see just how 'modern' the humour is, or, as the introduction explains, how 'ancient' our modern comedy is.

'The Clouds', inlcuded in this volume, is the imfamous play that Plato criticised Aristophanes over after the death of Socrates: he claimed that the parody of his teacher helped those who secured Socrates' death. I'd like to think Socrates did not concur. It has been reported that he bowed in good humour after witnessing the performance. Also, 'Lysistrata' is often used as a proto-feminist story - although it is much more interesting than that. Ancient Greeks have, as one of their chief virtues and downfalls a drive to be self examining and critical. It gives todays social relativists plenty of ammunition. Those that use it as an anti-war/peace-at-any-cost story, when it is actually against civil war, have not studied Aristophanes enough, or are prepared to ignore what doesn't work for their cause...

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Aristophanes with Tact, November 11, 2007

By 

F. S. L'hoir (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

I have used this book repeatedly for my classes on women in antiquity, mostly out of habit. Professor Sommerstein's translation is extremely readable, but he is such a gentleman that the really flagrant double entendres of the Greek in "Lysistrata" and the "Acharnians" often pass unnoticed, or must be teased out of the text; and because they have often been rendered into a Scottish dialect, they must be explained. And when humor has to be explained--especially Aristophanic humor--it loses something of its ribaldry in the process of explanation. Nevertheless, the book makes for reading that is painless, pleasant, and usually terribly polite.