This book provides a new interpretation of the nature of Old Comedy and its place at the heart of Athenian democratic politics. Professor Sidwell argues that Aristophanes and his rivals belonged to opposing political groups, each with their own political agenda.
Carlo Ferdinando Russo's classic work on Aristophanes examines his comedies as plays intended for the stage. The author considers the invention of printing as a cause of major changes in the nature of drama. The modern reader of Aristophanes is inclined to see him as an author of texts rather than of a fluid libretti which were intended to be performed, not simply read. Russo finds that deviations in the text can often be explained by their relevance to the specific theatrical competitions they were written for. In Aristophanes, the in-depth philological analysis of the plays is founded on an ever-present perception of the realities of Greek theatre.
Rhetoric, Comedy, and the Violence of Language in Aristophanes' Clouds
This is an intelligent and unusually thought-provoking reading of Aristophanes' Clouds. O'Regan focuses on logos, or the power of argument, and its effects, and on the self-awareness of the second Clouds as a comedy of logos directed toward an audience made resistant by devotion to the body. Within and without the play, logos meets defeat when confronted with human nature and desire. The argument conveys much insight into fifth-century thought and the play's workings, the more so because it balances rhetoric with comedy, and reminds the reader that this is a comic logos--explored in the comic mode, and connected with the intentions and vicissitudes of the first and second Clouds.
