Review (PDF) Frogs And Other Plays (Penguin Classics)
Three plays from Aristophanes, the master of Ancient Greek comedyMarrying deft social commentary to a rich, earthy comedy, the three comedies collected in Aristophanes' The Frogs and Other Plays offers a unique insight into one of the most turbulent periods in Ancient Greek history. 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 Wasps, in which an old-fashioned father and his loose-living son come to blows and end up in court. And in Women at the Thesmophoria, the famous Greek tragedian Euripides, accused of misogyny, persuades a relative to infiltrate an all-women festival to find out whether revenge is being plotted against him. Shomit Dutta's introduction discusses Aristophanes' life, the cultural context of his work and conventions of Greek comedy. This updated version of David Barrett's translation also includes extensive notes and a preface for each play. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Series: Penguin Classics
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics; Revised edition (April 6, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0140449698
ISBN-13: 978-0140449693
Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.6 x 7.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #231,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #143 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Dramas & Plays > Ancient & Classical #5812 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics
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.
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.
Frogs is an ancient Greek play as as they all are, not simple straightforward, girl gets guy kind of plot. It is highly amusing but to understand the humor, some knowledge of ancient greek playwrights and gods is necessary.
It's Aristophanes. Of course it's a classic.
Frogs and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) Four Plays by Aristophanes: Lysistrata, The Frogs, A Parliament of Women, Plutus (Wealth) The Penguin Arthur Miller: Collected Plays (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Lysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) Medea and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) The Bacchae and Other Plays Publisher: Penguin Classics; Revised edition A Doll's House and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) The Misanthrope and Other Plays: "Such Foolish Affected Ladies", "Tartuffe", "The M (Penguin Classics) The Miser and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) The Master Builder and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) Hedda Gabler and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) Brecht Collected Plays: 1: Baal; Drums in the Night; In the Jungle of Cities; Life of Edward II of England; & 5 One Act Plays (World Classics) (Vol 1) Ostrovsky: Plays Two: Plays 2 (Absolute Classics) We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! And Other Works: The Collected Plays of Dario Fo, Volume One (Collected Plays of Dario Fo (Paperback)) We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! And Other Plays: The Collected Plays of Dario Fo, Volume 1 Watching the Moon and Other Plays (Renaissance & Modern Plays) Frogs and Toads (A Golden Guide from St. Martin's Press) The Theban Plays: King Oedipus; Oedipus at Colonus; Antigone (Penguin Classics) Plays (Penguin Classics) Six Yuan Plays (Penguin Classics)
