"when the poet quotes from ""The Oresteia"": This choice of excerpt again relates to Alcibiades, still stirring his memory in the audience. Sheppard concludes by referencing the direct mention of Alcibiades' name, which occurs in the course of Dionysus' final test of the poets, seeking advice about Alcibiades himself and a strategy for victory. Though Euripides first blasts Alcibiades, Aeschylus responds with the advice to bring him back, bringing the subtle allusions to a clearly stated head and concluding Aristophanes' point. According to Kenneth Dover, the structure of ""The Frogs"" is as follows: In the first section Dionysus' has the"
"""a hair-splitting master of niceties, a ""Euripidaristophanist"""". According to another comic poet, Teleclides, the plays of Euripides were co-authored by the philosopher Socrates. According to Aristophanes, the alleged co-author was a celebrated actor, Cephisophon, who also shared the tragedian's house and his wife, while Socrates taught an entire school of quibblers like Euripides: In ""The Frogs"", composed after Euripides and Aeschylus were both dead, Aristophanes imagines the god Dionysus venturing down to Hades in search of a good poet to bring back to Athens. After a debate between the two deceased bards, the god brings Aeschylus back to life as"
"two giants of Athenian tragedy: Aeschylus and Euripides. When it was performed for the first time at the Lenaia Festival in 405 BC, just one year after the death of Euripides, the Athenians awarded it first prize. It was the only Greek play that was ever given an encore performance, which took place two months later at the City Dionysia. Even today, ""The Frogs"" still appeals to modern audiences. A commercially successful modern musical adaptation of it was performed on Broadway in 2004. The third dramatic genre was the satyr play. Although the genre was popular, only one complete example"
"with tendencies to obscurity. Athenaeus also claimed that Euripides took a line from Achaeus, while Aristophanes quotes him twice, in ""The Frogs"" and ""The Wasps"". Achaeus of Eretria Achaeus of Eretria (; born 484 BC in Euboea) was a Greek playwright author of tragedies and satyr plays, variously said to have written 24, 30, or 44 plays, of which 19 titles are known: ""Adrastus"", ""Aethon"", ""Alcmeon"", ""Alphesiboea"", ""Athla"", ""Azanes"", ""Cycnus"", ""Eumenides"", ""Hephaestus"", ""Iris"", ""Linus"", ""Moirai"" (Fates), ""Momus"", ""Oedipus"", ""Omphale"", ""Philoctetes"", ""Phrixus"", ""Pirithous"", and ""Theseus"". Achaeus of Eretria was regarded in antiquity as being the 2nd greatest writer of satyr plays,"
"Cinesias (poet) Cinesias (; c. 450 – 390 BC) was an innovative dithyrambic poet (an exponent of the ""new music"") in classical Athens whose work has survived only in a few fragments. An inscription indicates that he was awarded a victory at the Dionysia in the early 4th century (IG 2/3.3028). His contemporary, the comic poet Aristophanes, ridiculed him in his play ""The Birds"", in which Cinesias attempts to borrow wings from the birds as an aid to poetic inspiration. Aristophanes refers to him also in ""The Frogs"" (lines 153, 1437), ""Ecclesiazusae"" (line 330), ""Lysistrata"" (line 860), and in a"
"For Aristophanes' contemporaries the works of Homer and Hesiod formed the cornerstones of Hellenic history and culture. Thus poetry had a moral and social significance that made it an inevitable topic of comic satire. Aristophanes was very conscious of literary fashions and traditions and his plays feature numerous references to other poets. These include not only rival comic dramatists such as Eupolis and Hermippus and predecessors such as Magnes, Crates and Cratinus, but also tragedians, notably Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, all three of whom are mentioned in e.g. ""The Frogs"". Aristophanes was the equal of these great tragedians in his"
"Tereus (play) Tereus (, ""Tēreus"") is a Greek play by the Athenian poet Sophocles. Although the play has been lost, several fragments have been recovered. Although the date that the play was first produced is not known, it is known that it was produced before 414 BCE, because the Greek comedic playwright Aristophanes referenced ""Tereus"" in his play ""The Birds"", which was first performed in 414. Thomas B. L. Webster dates the play to near but before 431 BCE, based on circumstantial evidence from a comment Thucydides made in 431 about the need to distinguish between Tereus and the King"
"Ameipsias Ameipsias (, fl. late 5th century BC) of Athens was an Ancient Greek comic poet, a contemporary of Aristophanes, whom he twice bested in the dramatic contests. His ""Konnos"" () gained a second prize at the City Dionysia in 423, when Aristophanes won the third prize with ""The Clouds"". ""Konnos"" appears to have had the same subject and aim as ""Clouds"". It is at least certain that Socrates appeared in the play, and that the Chorus consisted of . Aristophanes alludes to Ameipsias in ""The Frogs"", and we are told in the anonymous life of Aristophanes, that when Aristophanes"
"Iophon Iophon (, fl. 428 BC – 405 BC) was a Greek tragic poet and son of Sophocles. Iophon gained the second prize in tragic competition in 428 BC, Euripides being first, and Ion third. He must have been alive in 405 BC, the date of the production of ""The Frogs"" of Aristophanes, in which he is spoken of as the only good Athenian tragic poet, although it is hinted that he owed much to his fathers' assistance. He wrote fifty plays, of which only a few fragments and the following eight titles remain: ""Achilles"", ""Actaeon"", ""Aulodoi"" (""The Flute-Singers""), ""Bacchae"","
"have used these same directors in many later plays as well (Philoneides for example later directed ""The Frogs"" and he was also credited, perhaps wrongly, with directing ""The Wasps"".) Aristophanes's use of directors complicates our reliance on the plays as sources of biographical information because apparent self-references might have been made with reference to his directors instead. Thus for example a statement by the chorus in ""The Acharnians"" seems to indicate that the 'poet' had a close, personal association with the island of Aegina, yet the terms 'poet' (""poietes"") and 'director' (""didaskalos"") are often interchangeable as dramatic poets usually directed"
"Cambridge Greek Play The Cambridge Greek Play is a play performed in Ancient Greek by students and alumni of the University of Cambridge, England. The event is held once every three years and is a tradition which started in 1882 with the ""Ajax"" of Sophocles. The history of the early years may be found in P. E. Easterling's ""The Early Years of the Cambridge Greek Play: 1883–1912"". Among famous names involved in those early days were Rupert Brooke as the Herald in Aeschylus' ""Eumenides"" (1906), Sir Hubert Parry as the composer of incidental music to Aristophanes' ""The Birds"" (1883) –"
"of Thrace, Teres, which Webster believes was made necessary by the popularity of Sophocles play around this time causing confusion between the two names. Based on references in ""The Birds"" it is also known that another Greek playwright, Philocles, had also written a play on the subject of Tereus, and there is evidence both from ""The Birds"" and from a scholiast that Sophocles' play came first. Some scholars believe that Sophocles' ""Tereus"" was influenced by Euripides' ""Medea"", and thus must have been produced after 431. However, this is not certain and any influence may well have been in the opposite"
"declared that the ancient dramatist would have a permanent place in proletarian theatre and yet conservative, Prussian intellectuals interpreted Aristophanes as a satirical opponent of social reform. The avant-gardist stage-director Karolos Koun directed a version of ""The Birds"" under the Acropolis in 1959 that established a trend in modern Greek history of breaking taboos through the voice of Aristophanes. The plays have a significance that goes beyond their artistic function, as historical documents that open the window on life and politics in classical Athens, in which respect they are perhaps as important as the writings of Thucydides. The artistic influence"
"Dionysus, during his multiple hallowed citations, may have had something to do with it, too. Xanthias Xanthias refers to several characters, notably all slaves, who appear in plays by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. In ""The Frogs"", Xanthias is the slave of Dionysus. He delivers the opening line of the play, riding on Dionysus' donkey and debating with Dionysus about what jokes Xanthias can make. He and Dionysus trade barbs throughout the play, with Xanthias generally coming out on top. When they cross the Acheron, Xanthias is forced to carry the luggage around the lake because he was unable to"
"frog characters. ""The Frogs"" is a comic play by Aristophanes. The chorus of frogs sings the famous croaking onomatopoeic refrain: (Greek: ). This greatly annoys Dionysus, who engages in a mocking debate with the frogs. In ""The Frog Prince"", a spoilt princess reluctantly befriends the Frog Prince, who is magically transformed into a handsome prince when (in the Brothers Grimm version) she throws the frog against a wall. However, in modern versions, she effects the transformation by kissing it instead. Toads are often not distinguishable from frogs in popular culture, but Kenneth Grahame's Mr Toad in his 1908 novel ""The"
"Theodore Stephanides Theodore Stephanides (21 January 1896 – 13 April 1983) was a Greek poet, author, doctor and naturalist. He is best remembered as the friend and mentor of the famous naturalist Gerald Durrell, featuring in Durrell's ""My Family and Other Animals"", ""Birds, Beasts and Relatives"", ""The Garden of the Gods"" and ""Fillets of Plaice"", Durrell's brother Lawrence's ""Prospero's Cell"", and Henry Miller's ""The Colossus of Maroussi"". A polymath, Stephanides was respected as a scientist and doctor, and acclaimed as a poet in both Greek and English, and translated a sizeable body of Greek poetry to English — notably a"
"be the judge”, and Dionysus is, though Alcibiades performs as surrogate for the god. So the character, Alcibiades, who was the deciding factor in the debate in ""The Frogs"", becomes the judge in the ""Symposium"", and he now rules in favor of Socrates, who had been attacked by Aristophanes in ""The Clouds"". The Symposium is a response to ""The Frogs"", and shows Socrates winning not only over Aristophanes, who was the author of both ""The Frogs"", and ""The Clouds,"" but also over the tragic poet who was portrayed in that comedy as the victor. It is considered that the work"
"comedies of Aristophanes are filled with fantastic elements, particularly his play ""The Birds"", in which an Athenian man builds a city in the clouds with the birds and challenges Zeus's authority. Ovid's ""Metamorphoses"" and Apuleius's ""The Golden Ass"" are both works that influenced the development of the fantasy genre by taking mythic elements and weaving them into personal accounts. Both works involve complex narratives in which humans beings are transformed into animals or inanimate objects. Platonic teachings and early Christian theology are major influences on the modern fantasy genre. Plato used allegories to convey many of his teachings, and early"
"Knights"", ""The Wasps"", and ""Peace"", slaves fulfill two functions - they introduce the situation at the beginning of the play and they provide comedic relief by being threatened or frightened. However, in ""The Frogs"", Xanthias begins by debating with his master about what kind of joke he can tell to initiate the play. Aristophanes uses their banter to blast the low level of humor used by contemporaries, referencing Phrynichus, Lykis, and Ameipsias. Aristophanes represents Xanthias as braver and cleverer than Dionysus. Xanthias pretends to see Empousa, frightening the bumbling, slouching Dionysus. Then Xanthias tricks Aeacus into whipping both of them"
"have been reinterpretations of the meaning of fables and changes in emphasis over time. Apollonius of Tyana, a 1st-century CE philosopher, is recorded as having said about Aesop: The Greek historian Herodotus mentioned in passing that ""Aesop the fable writer"" was a slave who lived in Ancient Greece during the 5th century BCE. Among references in other writers, Aristophanes, in his comedy ""The Wasps"", represented the protagonist Philocleon as having learnt the ""absurdities"" of Aesop from conversation at banquets; Plato wrote in ""Phaedo ""that Socrates whiled away his time in prison turning some of Aesop's fables ""which he knew"" into"
"argues for a link between ""The Birds"" and the New Testament, pointing out significant examples of correspondence: He believes that the New Testament was influenced by a literary tradition that began with Aristophanes. The major difference is that Aristophanes presents these ideas as comic fantasy, while the New Testament treats them as profoundly serious revelation. ""The Birds"" resembles all the early plays of Aristophanes in key aspects of its dramatic structure. Such resemblances are evidence of a genre of ancient drama known as Old Comedy. Variations from these 'conventions' are significant since they demonstrate either a trend away from Old"
"Die Vögel (opera) Die Vögel (""The Birds""), Op. 30 is an opera in a prologue and two acts by Walter Braunfels. The libretto, written by the composer, is a free adaptation of Aristophanes' comedy ""The Birds"" which was performed at the Dionysos Theatre in Athens in 414 BC. Composition of the opera started in 1913 and was finished in 1919. The score was published by Universal Edition Vienna in 1920. The opera was first performed on 30 November 1920 at the National Theatre Munich, with Bruno Walter conducting and Maria Ivogün (the Nightingale) and Karl Erb (Good Hope) in the"
"The Clouds The Clouds ( ""Nephelai"") is a Greek comedy play written by the playwright Aristophanes. A lampooning of intellectual fashions in classical Athens, it was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423BC and was not as well received as the author had hoped, coming last of the three plays competing at the festival that year. It was revised between 420 and 417BC and was thereafter circulated in manuscript form. No copy of the original production survives, and scholarly analysis indicates that the revised version is an incomplete form of Old Comedy. This incompleteness, however, is not obvious in"
"for example, the ears of a character with selective hearing are represented as parasols that open and close. In ""The Frogs"", Aeschylus is said to compose verses in the manner of a horse rolling in a sandpit. Some plays feature revelations of human perfectibility that are poetic rather than religious in character, such as the marriage of the hero Pisthetairos to Zeus's paramour in ""The Birds"" and the 'recreation' of old Athens, crowned with roses, at the end of ""The Knights"". It is widely believed that Aristophanes condemned rhetoric on both moral and political grounds. He states, “a speaker trained"
"Bird in Aristophanes' comedy ""The Birds"", directed once more by George Lazanis which was performed in almost every major ancient amphitheater of Greece, such as Epidaurus, Sparta, Filippoi and many more. In September 1997 he was offered the leading role of Danny Zouko in the musical ""Grease"", directed by David Gilmore. Once more, it was a great success with the Greek media and a great start of Frangoulis's popularity with the Greek public. The same season, he appeared in late night shows in the prestigious music hall ""Iera Odos"", alongside the Greek star George Dalaras, singing popular Greek, Italian and"
"himself. Moreover, Themistius, a writer of the 4th century AD, reports that Thespis invented the prologue as well as the spoken part (). Other playwrights of the time were Choerilus, author of probably one hundred and sixty tragedies (with thirteen victories), and Pratinas of Phlius, author of fifty works, of which thirty-two are satyr plays. We have little record of these works except their titles. At this time, satyr plays were presented alongside tragedies. Pratinas definitely competed with Aeschylus and worked from 499 BC. Another playwright was Phrynichus. Aristophanes sings his praises in his plays: for example, ""The Wasps"" presents"
"Euripides in tragedy; Aristophanes in comedy). From Euripides, the ""Hippolytus"" and ""The Bacchae"" (together with ""The Frogs"" of Aristophanes; first edition, 1902); the ""Medea"", ""Trojan Women"", and ""Electra"" (1905–1907); ""Iphigenia in Tauris"" (1910); ""The Rhesus"" (1913) were presented at the Court Theatre, in London. In the United States Granville Barker and his wife Lillah McCarthy gave outdoor performances of ""The Trojan Women"" and ""Iphigenia in Tauris"" at various colleges (1915). The translation of ""Œdipus Rex"" was a commission from W. B. Yeats. Until 1912 this could not have been staged for a British audience. Murray was drawn into the public"
"Aristophanes gives him in ""The Frogs"", produced some half-century after Aeschylus's death. Appearing as a character in the play, Aeschylus claims at line 1022 that his ""Seven against Thebes"" ""made everyone watching it to love being warlike""; with his ""Persians"", Aeschylus claims at lines 1026–7 that he ""taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies."" Aeschylus goes on to say at lines 1039ff. that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous. Aeschylus's works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his ""Wagner"
"The Flies The Flies () is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, written in 1943. It is an adaptation of the Electra myth, previously used by the Greek playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides. The play recounts the story of Orestes and his sister Electra in their quest to avenge the death of their father Agamemnon, king of Argos, by killing their mother Clytemnestra and her husband Aegisthus, who had deposed and killed him. Sartre incorporates an existentialist theme into the play, having Electra and Orestes engaged in a battle with Zeus and his Furies, who are the gods of Argos and"
"writing. Around the same time that the Homeric epics were composed, the Greek alphabet was introduced; the earliest surviving inscriptions date from around 750 BC. European drama was invented in ancient Greece. Traditionally this was attributed to Thespis, around the middle of the sixth century BC, though the earliest surviving work of Greek drama is Aeschylus' tragedy ""The Persians"", which dates to 472 BC. Early Greek tragedy was performed by a chorus and two actors, but by the end of Aeschylus' life, a third actor had been introduced, either by him or by Sophocles. The last surviving Greek tragedies are"
"by a jury of ten. The 1968 Polish motion picture ""Matthew's Days"" by Witold Leszczyński was based on the novel. The Birds (novel) The Birds, original Nynorsk title Fuglane, is a novel by Norwegian author Tarjei Vesaas. It was first released in 1957, and has been translated into several languages, including English. The story revolves around the inner world of Matthew, who is mentally challenged and lives with his sister. Being regarded as one of Vesaas' most important novels, it was included in the major Norwegian publisher Gyldendal Norsk Forlag's 30 picks for ""Norway's national literature"" both in 1967 and"
"translations of the plays by Andreas Divus (Venice 1528) were circulated widely throughout Europe in the Renaissance and these were soon followed by translations and adaptations in modern languages. Racine, for example, drew ""Les Plaideurs"" (1668) from ""The Wasps"". Goethe (who turned to Aristophanes for a warmer and more vivid form of comedy than he could derive from readings of Terence and Plautus) adapted a short play ""Die Vögel"" from ""The Birds"" for performance in Weimar. Aristophanes has appealed to both conservatives and radicals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—Anatoly Lunacharsky, first Commissar of Enlightenment for the USSR in 1917,"
"Hesiod, the first didactic poet, put into epic verse his descriptions of pastoral life, including practical advice on farming, and allegorical myths. The poets Alcaeus of Mytilene, Sappho, Anacreon, and Bacchylides wrote of love, war, and death in lyrics of great feeling and beauty. Pindar celebrated the Panhellenic athletic festivals in vivid odes. The fables of the slave Aesop have been famous for more than 2,500 years. Three of the world's greatest dramatists were Aeschylus, author of the ""Oresteia"" trilogy; Sophocles, author of the Theban plays; and Euripides, author of ""Medea"", ""The Trojan Women"", and ""The Bacchae"". Aristophanes, the greatest"