Also read this for my ancient Greek history class, and it's surprising what bawdy humor there was for such an old playwright. Puts Shakespeare to shame in terms of the sexual innuendo. I actually laughed out loud several times reading these plays and expected them to be a snooze.

The Frogs is good; the rest are mediocre.

I found the comedies harder to follow than the tragedies. Some of the humor is timeless, but some requires considerable historical context to understand. And, as we all know, when you have to explain a joke, it tends to fall somewhat flat. Still, there are some timeless themes to be found in Aristophanes and I'd recommend reading an edition that provides footnotes with the required additional context.

hilarious and ribald. truly a comedic master.

Aristophanes is the great comic playwright of Ancient Greece, and set the standard and form of comedy in the Western World. Moreover, his plays are often cited in discussions of what ordinary life was like in the city of Athens in the times of Socrates. No less a figure than Plato accused Aristophanes' play The Clouds of contributing to the prosecution and death of Socrates. Aristophanes even appears in Plato's The Symposium as one of the guests. From The Birds we get the concept of Cloudcuckooland. His play Lysistrata was assigned me in high school (and I loved it by the way) but it was that Aristophanes was listed on 100 Significant books on Good Reading that gave me incentive to read the rest. In other words, yes, Aristophanes plays are one of those fundamental works any educated person should know--reason alone to become acquainted. But they're also fun--painless to read. Not stodgy--in fact often bawdy and inventive. In Peace his hero rides to Heaven--on a dung beetle. Lysistrata and Ecclesiazusae are both anti-war and feminist--yes, really.

Or so it strikes me, although I'm sure there are scholars of the period who in a close analysis might find the misogyny of Ancient Greece peeking through--in say pointing out how women use sex and deception in Lysistrata to get their way. But what we have here is arguably Aristophanes greatest (certainly his most famous) play, with a strong female title protagonist, who leads women from warring states to form a sex strike to stop a war. What's not to love?

Well, yes, these plays feature topical satire that often does depend on the context of Athenian politics during the Peloponnesian War, so loads of annotations, footnotes is a good. So is a natural, flowing translation. (The first time I read Lysistrata, I found the way the translator gave the Spartan women a Scottish dialect rather bizarre.) But those two requirements aside, these are still capable of inspiring laughter.

I have this anthology 5 stars mainly for the plays Lysistrata and Frogs, where Aristophanes gives women the power over men. Where Lysistrata is more of a comedic romp, Frogs is a little on the darker side. If you want to read some early comedic plays, this is the book to read.

My favorites were the Acharnians, the Frogs, and Lysistrata.

Aristophanes was the master of ancient Greek comedy writing between 427 BC and 388 BC. The first thing that struck me was the bawdy humor. I was also surprised at some of the radical ideas in his plays (even if he is ultimately warning against some of these trends). There are the anti-war sentiments of "Acharnians", "Peace" and "Lysistrata". (Aristophanes like his heir Swift was a conservative arguing against war because it disrupted traditional society and trade. Quite the opposite of our modern day neo-con chicken hawks). In both "Lysistrata" and "Ecclesiazusae" (my 2 favorites), woman take over the government of Athens in a coup. And "The Clouds" airs the concerns of sophists and skeptics, with Socrates ironically playing the Sophist, in order to argue for a return to traditional religion. Most of the plays contain cross-dressing and scatalogical humor worthy of Monty Python. My favorite though is "Lysistrata". While the men are away at war, the woman of Athens take over the treasury and declare that they are withholding all sex until their husbands cease their stupid and costly war. Phallus jokes abound throughout the play like today's Kevin Smith or Judd Apatow movie! Can you really go wrong with a feminist anti-war play from 411 BC with non-stop penis puns? No, you can not.

The Complete Plays of Aristophanes by Aristophanes (1968)

I do not like jokes about farts, so a lot of Aristophanes's work does not appeal to me. However, in the midst of crudity, these plays examine issues of war, politics, poverty, and education in a sophisticated manner, and with deep understanding. The plays still have resonance today, as there are still the corrupt politicians, stupid masses, and needlessly suffering people.

In regard to this edition, there are some errors in the explanatory notes:

On page 261, the play "Wasps" refers to a certain Theophrastus. The corresponding footnote identifies this Theophrastus as a pupil of Plato and Aristotle. This does not make sense, as Aristophanes' play must have been written well before this Theophrastus was an adult.

On page 273, in the introduction to the play "Peace", there is the statement that "[a]fter a twenty-seven-year war between Athens and Sparta there seems to be a hope of peace..." Yet the play was produced in 421 B.C., which by my reckoning means that the Peloponnesian War was only 10 years old at that point.

There may be other errors--these are just two that were obvious to someone with only a passing knowledge of Ancient Greek history.

Goodreads has got to stop crashing when I’m in the middle of a review

Very enjouyable reading, funny