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Pericles on stage : political comedy in Aristophanes' early plays

Author: Michael J Vickers
Publisher: Austin : University of Texas Press, 1997.
Edition/Format:   Book : State or province government publication : English : 1st edView all editions and formats
Summary:
Since the eighteenth century, classical scholars have generally agreed that the Greek playwright Aristophanes did not as a matter of course write "political" plays. Yet, according to an anonymous Life of Aristophanes, when Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse wanted to know about the government of Athens, Plato sent him a copy of Aristophanes' Clouds. In this boldly revisionist work, Michael Vickers convincingly argues
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Additional Physical Format: Online version:
Vickers, Michael J.
Pericles on stage.
Austin : University of Texas Press, 1997
(OCoLC)653412278
Named Person: Pericles; Aristophane; Périclès; Aristophanes; Perikles; Aristophane <0445?-0386? av. J.-C.> - Critique et interprétation.; Périclès <0495?-0429 av. J.-C.> - Critique et interprétation.
Material Type: Government publication, State or province government publication
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Michael J Vickers
ISBN: 0292787278 9780292787278
OCLC Number: 34545065
Description: xxxiv, 255 p. ; 24 cm.
Contents: Introduction: Nicias, Lamachus, Alcibiades: Political Allegory in Aristophanes --
Ch. 1. Pericles and Alcibiades on Stage --
Ch. 2. Pericles and Alcibiades at the Phrontistery: Aristophanes' Clouds I --
Ch. 3. Pericles, Alcibiades, and the Generation Gap: Aristophanes' Clouds II --
Ch. 4. Pericles on the Pnyx: Aristophanes' Acharnians I --
Ch. 5. Pericles in the Agora: Aristophanes' Acharnians II --
Ch. 6. Pericles, the Typhoon, and the Hurricane: Aristophanes' Knights --
Ch. 7. Pericles, Alcibiades, the Law Courts, and the Symposium: Aristophanes' Wasps --
Ch. 8. Alcibiades and Pericles on Olympus: Aristophanes' Peace --
Ch. 9. Alcibiades at Sparta: Aristophanes' Birds I --
Ch. 10. Pericles at Sparta: Aristophanes' Birds II --
App. A. Posthumous Parody in Cratinus' Dionysalexandros --
App. B. The Athenian Plague of 430-428 B.C.
Responsibility: Michael Vickers.
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Abstract:

Since the eighteenth century, classical scholars have generally agreed that the Greek playwright Aristophanes did not as a matter of course write "political" plays. Yet, according to an anonymous Life of Aristophanes, when Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse wanted to know about the government of Athens, Plato sent him a copy of Aristophanes' Clouds. In this boldly revisionist work, Michael Vickers convincingly argues that in his earlier plays, Aristophanes in fact used allegory to comment on the day-to-day political concerns of Athenians. Vickers reads the first six of Aristophanes' eleven extant plays in a way that reveals the principal characters to be based in large part on Pericles, the Athenian statesman of the fifth century B.C., and his extended family - particularly his ward Alcibiades.

According to Vickers, the plays of Aristophanes - far from being nonpolitical - actually allow us to gauge the reaction of the Athenian public to the events which occured in the years following Pericles' death in 429 B.C., to the struggle for the political succession, and to the problems presented by Alcibiades' gradual emergence as one of the most powerful figures in the state. This view of Aristophanes reaffirms the central role of allegory in his work and challenges all students of ancient Greece to rethink long-held assumptions about this important playwright.

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