Three Plays by Aristophanes: Staging Women by aristophanes

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 1,2025

Women strike: a beautiful theme, wonderfully and very realistically worked out, with particularly vile language. Quite amusing play, but with a weak ending.
Women's Party: dark, complex and inimitable piece full of references to the work of Euripides; not really enjoyable.
Women politics: fresh and funny play, strongly similar to Women Strike, but weakening towards the end. It's aotable satire on aspects of the democratic system: the chitchat-retoric, the people just attend the meetings to gather their fees, etc.
(rating 2.5 stars)

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Smelvin328

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 1,2025

I have to admit that I didn't just whip this off the shelf, thinking, "Boy, it's been a long time since I read any good Attic comedy... ooh, and here's a new translation."

No, this was assigned reading for one of my few college courses that had no equations. These three plays of Aristophanes all prominently feature women. "Lysistrata" deals with a sexual strike coordinated by the women of Athens and Sparta to make their men forge a peace treaty and end the war. "Women at the Thesmophoria" is about an all-female festival invaded by a man who wishes to convince the women of Athens that his kinsman, Euripedes, is not, in fact, a misogynist. And "Assemblywomen" is about a takeover of the Athenian democracy by women and the resulting communistic (except for slaves, women, and foreigners) state that arises.

Of the three, "Lysistrata" is the best. They're all *very* broad and vulgar comedies, but "Lysistrata" is the wittiest and most appealing to the modern reader. They're all very worth reading to get insight into the classical Greek (man's) mind, but they're really a bit silly otherwise.

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ChezAle

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 1,2025

There are so many sex jokes in Lysistrata. This is not only a significant part of the plot, but the play's defining characteristic. Each of these jokes was met with either winces or laughs, depending on the context and the originality. It got to a point when I rolled by eyes at the "on top" jokes, and the "hard" ones weren't funny to begin with. My personal favorite by far was the mention of "runway inflation", which actually made me laugh aloud.

So yes, the play was funny, and the lecture on Thursday will no doubt be hysterical, but it really isn't my cup of tea.

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Ayyana

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 1,2025

OK, I rated this for the translator (Jeffrey Henderson), not the plays. And I only read a little bit of Lysistrata before deciding that this version is not for me. I had previously read the play as translated by Benjamin Brinkley Rogers, and was looking forward to reading it again. But I'm not even going to finish the prologue, let alone the entire play. and never mind the other plays.

Now, maybe I'm just a grumpy old woman. And maybe this translation is true to the rowdy approach of the original Greek play. But I found the language horribly crude and verging on the obscene. If you don't mind that, I say more power to you and enjoy the book.

I will stick with the old one, in which the women ended the war by withholding "loving." That's clear enough for me.

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a-k-killer

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

April 1,2025

Done with this for now, although I plan to come back to it and read introductions and the closing fragments. Lysistrata, Assemblywomen, and Women at the Thesmophoria for a Woman in Antiquity class--Aristophanes is so much better than Lysistrata gives him credit for. I now have, at least, some blossoming interest in comedy.

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