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The Relevance of Aristophanes: a New Look at Clouds
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
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My aim in this paper is to discover in what sense, if any, Aristophanes can be considered relevant to our society in the 1980s. If we call a classical author relevant to contemporary society, we may mean that he or she presents issues and problems for which we can find modern parallels and from which we may gain a deeper insight into our own current affairs. Aristophanes deals with a wide range of social and political problems of the kind which recur in all cultures, as well as with the practicalities of everyday life, so that when dealing with these problems he is ostensibly as relevant now as he was in his own day. But is there anything in the nature of Aristophanic comedy which constrains us from making the kind of modern connections which we might wish to make? L. Spatz says ‘Aristophanes speaks directly to us through such topical themes as the battle of the sexes, the scandals of power politics, and the underdog's need to strike back at his oppressors. But sometimes this relevance results in a misunderstanding of his original intention.’
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- Copyright © The Classical Association 1988
References
Notes
1. Spatz, L., Aristophanes (Boston, 1978), p. 149Google Scholar.
2. Among recent discussions of his aims are: Macdowell, D. M., ‘The nature of Aristophanes’ Akharnians', G & R 30 (1983), 143–62Google Scholar; Wilson, N., ‘Two observations on Aristophanes' Lysistrata: 1, The aim of the play’, GRBS 23 (1982), 157–61Google Scholar.
3. Fisher, R. K., Aristophanes' Clouds.1 purpose and technique (Amsterdam, 1984)Google Scholar.
4. Rankin, H. D., Sophists, Socrates and Cynics (London, 1983), p. 147Google Scholar.
5. On this topic see, for example, Charney, M., Comedy high and low: an introduction to the experience of comedy (New York, 1978)Google Scholar (esp. chapter 2), and Howarth, W. D., ed., Comic drama: the European heritage (London, 1978)Google Scholar, chapter 1.
6. Halliwell, S., ‘Aristophanic satire’ (in The Yearbook of English Studies, 14 (1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar [= Rawson, C., ed., English satire and the satiric tradition] (Oxford, 1984), 6–20), p. 10Google Scholar.
7. Department of Education and Science, The development of higher education into the 1990s (Cmnd. 9524) (London: HMSO, 1985), p. 3Google Scholar.