The  knights ; Peace ; Wealth ; The birds ; The assemblywomen
By: Aristophanes ; translated by Alan H. Sommerstein, David Barrett.
Contributors: Barrett, David, 1914-; Sommerstein, Alan H.
Series: Penguin classics
Publisher: Penguin Books; Viking Penguin; Penguin
Published: 1986
Place of publication: Harmondsworth, Middlesex; New York, N.Y
Language: eng; grc
Number of pages: 335
Subjects: Aristophanes -- Translations into English.
Genres: Translations into English.
Other titles: Knights.; Peace.; Wealth.; Birds.; Assemblywomen.
Work titles: Selections.
Description: Aristophanes is the only surviving representative of Greek Old Comedy, the exuberant, satirical form of festival drama which flourished during the heyday of classical Athenian culture in the fifth century BC. His plays are characterized by extraordinary combinations of fantasy and satire, sophistication and vulgarity, formality and freedom. Birds is an escapist fantasy in which two dissatisfied Athenians, in defiance of men and gods, bring about a city of birds, the eponymous Cloudcuckooland. In Lysistrata the heroine of the play organizes a sex-strike and the wives of Athens occupy the Akropolis in an attempt to restore peace to the city. The main source of comedy in the Assembly-Women is a similar usurpation of male power as the women attempt to reform Athenian society along utopian-communist lines. Finally, Wealth is Aristophanes' last surviving comedy, in which Ploutos, the god of wealth is cured of his blindness and the remarkable social consequences of his new discrimination are exemplified.
Notes: Cover title: The knights, Peace, The birds, The assemblywomen, Wealth.

This translation first published 1978.