"The world is full of foreigners you could fight, / but it's
Greek men and cities you destroy!" she cries, to inspire the Spartans and Athenians to fight the barbarians at the gate, not one another. (1112) Lysistrata also reminds both Athenians and Spartans how both sides have helped one another -- the Athenians from a slave rebellion, and the Athenians saved the Spartans although democrats were oppressed by the Persian tyranny until the Spartans helped them.
Thus, the play "Lysistrata" is not about the evils of war in general but the specific evils of Greeks fighting Greeks in civil wars, when they should be united against common enemies like the tyrannical Persians, as depicted by Herodotus when Spartans and Greeks fought against the tyrant Darius. This is blatantly stated in the words of the Spartan Ambassador, at the end of the play: "Holy Memory, reveal/the glories of yore:/how
Spartans and Athenians/won the Persian war./
Athens met them on/the sea,/and
Sparta held the land,/although the Persian forces were/more numerous than sand./All the gods that helped us then." (1247)
Unlike in the histories of Thucydides, the distinctions between the different Greek forms of governance, of military rule vs. democracy, are underplayed in "Lysistrata." The play text's thus not only lacks the sorrowful, elegiac tone of Thucydides "History of the Peloponnesian Wars," but also a sense of Athenian moral and political superiority.
The absurd pairing of male against female in a kind of a sexual war that hurts both groups becomes...
Lysistrata Of Aristophanes' 11 plays that are still extant, Lysistrata is perhaps his most famous. Certainly the play's contemporary popularity stems not a little from the fact that it resonates sympathetically with many of the scholarly concerns that have increased in importance since the rise of the feminist and post-feminist critical movements. The basic dramatic action of the play is quite simple. In response to the ongoing Peloponnesian war between Athens
Lysistrata, Oedipus Rex, And a Raisin in the Sun on the Issue of Social Influence This is an illustration of the role of social, family and individual influence in the three plays, focusing on how influence changed the lives of the protagonists of Aristophranes' Lysistrata, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. It uses 7 sources and is in MLA format. Every individual is at some point of his
Lysistrata stands in the foreground, guiding the men to peace, despite the fact that neither side wants to admit blame. She reminds the Spartans of Athenian assistance in the wake of the quake, and she likewise reminds the Athenians of Spartan assistance in overthrowing Hippias. "Why on fighting are your hearts so set? / For each of you is in the other's debt" (228). The Spartan and Athenian make
Magistrate The why do you turn aside and hold your cloak So far out from your body? Is your groin swollen The humor in this passage pertains to the fact that the Herald has an erection. The reason he has an erection, of course, is because Lysistrata's plan is working and the women in Sparta have not had sex with the men. This produces the hilarious effect of the men walking around
Lysistrata as an example of a pre-modern display of feminism in action, the foundations of the work demonstrate scheming and interfering women. War was serious business for men and women who had both the power and the desire to interfere with it would not have been thought of kindly. Though this work by Aristophanes is clearly thought of as a comedy, being compared to bawdy works of the burlesque
He will gain wisdom and eventually come home to his wife only after he went through ten years of experiences that contributed to his formation. Odysseus' crew on the ship and the women kept prisoners at the Akropolis are equally blinded by their own desires and ready to give up their sense of duty or responsibility to those they made a commitment. Another striking difference between the two plays when it
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