The Complete Plays of Aristophanes

The eleven surviving comedies of the only Old Comedy playwright whose work came down whole — Lysistrata, The Clouds, The Frogs, The Birds, The Wasps and the rest — here in Paul Roche’s single-hand verse translation. They are topical, obscene, and merciless: living Athenians are named and ridiculed on stage, Socrates is put in a basket, and the war policy of the city is attacked in front of the citizens prosecuting it.

That is the reason a comic playwright dead for 2,400 years sits on a list about citizenship. Aristophanes is the earliest surviving evidence of what a democracy that tolerates being mocked to its face actually looks like, Plato’s Apology has Socrates blame that comic caricature for part of the prejudice that convicted him.

Context: Listed under Drama at Lexile 1470, the highest reading level on the entire 468-title list.

Connections

• A Library to Build Great Americans — the list this came from.
• Aristophanes — the playwright.
• Free Speech — the practice the plays document by exercising it.
• Democracy — the Athenian version, satirised from inside.