Frank Carlson Library

The Birds is a comedy by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was performed in 414 BC at the City Dionysia where it won second place. It has been acclaimed by modern critics as a perfectly realized fantasy remarkable for its mimicry of birds and for the gaiety of its songs. Unlike the author's other early plays, it includes no direct mention of the Peloponnesian War and there are few references to Athenian politics, and yet it was staged...

The play begins with a strange scene-a large net has been spread over a house, the entry is barricaded and two slaves are sleeping in the street outside. A third man is positioned at the top of an exterior wall with a view into the inner courtyard but he too is asleep. The two slaves wake and we learn from their banter that they are keeping guard over a 'monster'. The man asleep above them is their master and the monster is his father-he has an unusual...

The second in a series of three comedies, 'Peace', along with 'The Acharnians' and 'Lysistrata', called for an end to the Peloponnesian war. The 'Peace' was brought out four years after 'The Acharnians' (422 B.C.), when the war had already lasted ten years. The leading motive is the same as in the former play-the intense desire of the less excitable and more moderate-minded citizens for relief from the miseries of war.

A group of women, led by the wise and redoubtable Praxagora, has decided that the women of Athens must convince the men to give them control of the city, as they are convinced they can do a better job. Disguised as men, the women sneak into the assembly and command the majority of votes needed to carry their series of revolutionary proposals, even convincing some of the men to vote for it on the grounds that it is the only thing they have not tried....

The Clouds is a comedy written by the celebrated playwright Aristophanes lampooning intellectual fashions in classical Athens. It was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423 BC and it was not well received, coming last of the three plays competing at the festival that year. It was revised between 420-417 BC and thereafter it was circulated in manuscript form. No copy of the original production survives, and scholarly analysis indicates that...

A group of women, led by the wise and redoubtable Praxagora, has decided that the women of Athens must convince the men to give them control of the city, as they are convinced they can do a better job. Disguised as men, the women sneak into the assembly and command the majority of votes needed to carry their series of revolutionary proposals, even convincing some of the men to vote for it on the grounds that it is the only thing they have not tried....