Aristophanes' Comedies

Aristophanes’ comedies are plays of ancient Athenian Old Comedy that combine fantastic plots, choral performance, and pointed satire. The Acharnians imagines a citizen’s private peace during war; The Birds builds a city in the sky; and The Frogs sends the god Dionysus to the underworld in search of a poet. Other plays turn the household or the school into an arena for arguments about public life. Their jokes, verbal contests, and improbable schemes belong to the competitive theatre of classical Athens. Beneath the exuberance lie disagreements about judgment, responsibility, and what a community expects from its leaders and teachers.