Аристофан — библиография

Der Bauer Strepsiades versucht, sich um die Abzahlung von Schulden zu dr?cken, die sein missratener Sohn gemacht hat. Er sucht Hilfe bei Sokrates, dem Meister des Argumentierens. Bei ihm gibt er seinen Sohn in die Lehre, damit er die Kunst der Rechtsverdrehung studiere und den Vater vor dem Ruin rette. Doch der Plan schl?gt fehl: Sein Sohn verpr?gelt Strepsiades, der daraufhin w?tend Sokrates' Haus in Brand steckt.

Die beiden Athener Peisetairos und Euelpides haben die vielen Gerichtsverfahren in ihrer Heimat satt. Zusammen mit den V?geln wollen sie einen neuen Staat zwischen Himmel und Erde gr?nden. Doch der Plan eines freien, demokratischen «Wolkenkuckucksheims» scheitert, da Peisetairos die Alleinherrschaft an sich rei?t.

The story of ‘Plutus’ concerns Chremylus, a poor but just man, who accompanied by his body-servant Cario, consults the Delphic Oracle concerning his son, whether he ought not to be instructed in injustice and knavery and the other arts whereby worldly men acquire riches. By way of answer the god only tells him that he is to follow whomsoever he first meets upon leaving the temple, who proves to be a blind and ragged old man.

This Comedy, which was produced by its author the year after the performance of 'The Clouds,' may be taken as in some sort a companion picture to that piece. Here the satire is directed against the passion of the Athenians for the excitement of the law-courts, as in the former its object was the new philosophy. And as the younger generation—the modern school of thought—were there the subjects of the caricature, so here the older citizens, who took their seats in court as jurymen day by day, to the neglect of their private affairs and the encouragement of a litigious disposition, appear in their turn in the mirror which the satirist holds up.—From the introduction to ‘The Wasps’ by Aristophanes.

This is the first of the series of three Comedies—'The Acharnians,' 'Peace' and 'Lysistrata'—produced at intervals of years, the sixth, tenth and twenty-first of the Peloponnesian War, and impressing on the Athenian people the miseries and disasters due to it and to the scoundrels who by their selfish and reckless policy had provoked it, the consequent ruin of industry and, above all, agriculture, and the urgency of asking Peace.—From the introduction to 'The Acharnians’ by Aristophanes.

In many respects 'The Knights' may be reckoned the great Comedian's masterpiece, the direct personal attack on the then all-powerful Cleon, with its scathing satire and tremendous invective, being one of the most vigorous and startling things in literature. Already in 'The Acharnians' he had threatened to «cut up Cleon the Tanner into shoe-leather for the Knights,» and he now proceeds to carry his menace into execution, «concentrating the whole force of his wit in the most unscrupulous and merciless fashion against his personal enemy.»—From the introduction to ‘The Knights’ of Aristophanes.