I read "The Birds" and "The Clouds." These plays are well done, but as I continued through the second play, I found myself tiring of reading plays. The humor was great though and they were well translated.
Honestly, what I appreciated the most in this text was the fact that flatulent-based humor was alive and well in 350 BC!!

Read the birds in a module with @snailbusfield
don’t normally like reading plays but I enjoyed these

Super easy and fun quick reads. Really enjoyable, with humorous wit contrasted with philosophy and moral arguments

(Lysistrata) Required reading for Lit Hum.

I only read the plays Birds and Lysistrata but they were relatively funny considering they are from thousands of years ago. It was quick and a really cool glimpse into the comedies of Aristophanes Athens!

I'll just use this Book review to get something down for my future reference for all the Aristophanes plays I have so far read. At this stage, I've read most of the famous ones apart from the Clouds, Pace and the Thesmophoriozusae (both of which I think I might read in the Greek, cause i got a good copy of both Peace and the clouds with a commentary and Thesmophoriozousae is on my syllabus) and I've left the poorer, more transitional plays till last (Wealth, Eccleziazousae) as well as the Acharnians.

These plays, it seems, seem to rely on either a generally good series of slapstick scenarios or a particularly good agon. The fantasy element that seems to be present in all of them, the wild scenarios etc., don't really hold up on their own. In descending order:

5.The Knights. This is basically one long agon. It's quite boring because this agon is usually not much more than a shouting match with a few puns thrown in for good measure (two parabases as well...). I think as an attack on Cleon it must have been very successful and the expectation of an attack on Cleon ever since Aristophanes' trial for his representation of the Athenian Empire in the Banqueters, was probably part of the reason why this was also one of Aristophanes' most successful plays. Apparently Eupolis wrote part of it (scholia mention this? i can't remember) and that he might be behind the inclusion of a second parabasis. i noticed some stylistic differences (i can't remember where) but this might have been the result of it being an early play in Aristophanes' oeuvre.

4.The Birds. This one is all about this complex fantasy of two normal Athenians taking over the universe by blockading Olympus from the smell of sacrifice with a kingdom in the sky. A lot of the oneliners about Athenian public figures feel a little out of place and I was basically pretty disappointed. Apparently the chorus song is quite clever in this one and there's that commentary that picks up on all the different bird songs Aristophanes uses (apparently a prodigious number) and maybe i'll have to look into this, when i've got time to read the Greek.

3.Lysistrata. This is the first in the group i really enjoyed. The play has excellent slapstick scenes involving the naked elderly having shouting matches, uses the comic costumes' phallus to good measure and has an interesting central conceit of a sex strike. Lysistrata is a particularly admirable and adept comic protagonist but is harder in general to construe exactly what if anything Aristophanes is saying about gender relations. One area this play fails in is the continual use of the same cliched innuendoes (I've definitely seen the peeling ones elsewhere) but it seems to avoid cliched dramatic scenario (as Aristophanes tends to also point as in the beginning of the Frogs). The ending is also (as is common) slightly weak, just fairly tying everything together in a rather business like manner.

2.The Wasps. Excellent take on Athenian politics particularly with the bathetic allegory of cleon's prosecution of Lamis as a dog prosecuting another dog. This is where the fantastic elements of Aristophanic humor seem most funny, the way Philocleon tries to escape his house etc. The change in narrative direction following the second act does not feel like such a detriment to the play, it just moves the comedy in a natural direction into the antagonism of young versus old and the symposium jokes seem good for the stage.

1.The Frogs. Maybe my favourite of the plays (maybe just cause it references tragedians that I like)and the only one i've read in Greek. The agon is spectacular, probably Aristophanes' greatest achievement in his poetry and the use of Dionysus and the chorus as intermediaries was additionally clever. The earlier scenes on their katabasis to the underworld are pretty quality for their slapstick and the religious undertones of ecstatic mystery cult particularly in the second chorus provide a little extra interest. The Frog chorus is again probably aristophanes' greatest (at least of those i've read) even if it might not have had the frogs on stage and the ending puts a nice end to the agon.

Aristophanes is the original meme lord. He expanded a bit on the worldbuilding of Greek mythology (such as the discussion on the inheritance of Olympus in The Birds and the Literature Rap Battle in Hades in The Frogs) which I liked a lot. Didn't expect to laugh as much as I did but I was glad I picked this book up

Just read the Clouds and as a play written in Greek almost 2500 yeats ago, I found it surprisingly up to date, a bit raunchy, and filled with lots of folks who try to direct the Gods and escape the consequences of their actions. The characters include: the dad who wants to cancel the debts he is paying for his son's extravagance, the son who wants to learn enough to get out of trouble, but doesn't respsect his elders or their ways, Socrates who gives instruction in learning to think and argue, and the Clouds- a chorus who seem to reflect many different views and change direction or thought many times. The plot is nebulous, but seems to remind us all that there is a difficulty in trying new learning without relating your actions to the Godsand the world in whihc you reside. Thinking alone without actions is no good.

ну очень интересно было это читать. в отличие от трагедий которые в основном опираются на мифологические сюжеты древнегреческие комедии это прямо жесткая общественная сатира с кучей интереснейших отсылок (понять большинство шуток можно только читая комментарии). аристофан злющий чел который никого не щадит но как же это весело! я даже не буду снижать звезду за шутки ниже пояса которые то и дело мелькают в диалогах и немного раздражают

Definitely a must-read for any classical lit geeks, but the tragedies are much more my cup of tea.

Read The Frogs last semester for theater history, The Birds for dramatic structure comedy this semester. I prefer The Frogs (knowing the Sondheim musical helped), but The Birds had its moments. Unfortunately, the notes on Aristophanes' obscure references were presented as endnotes, instead of footnotes, which got annoying. Still, amusing.

Lysistrata is very funny. And very sexist. Not a book for the politically correct.
You will miss some of the best innuendo from this book if you do not find an accurate translation. Beware of translations that try to re-moralize a story that shouldn't be.