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Frogs and Other Plays Paperback – April 6, 2007

by Aristophanes (Author), Shomit Dutta (Editor, Introduction)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 126 ratings
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Three plays from Aristophanes, the master of Ancient Greek comedy

Marrying deft social commentary to a rich, earthy comedy, the three comedies collected in Aristophanes' The Frogs and Other Plays offers a unique insight into one of the most turbulent periods in Ancient Greek history. The master of ancient Greek comic drama, Aristophanes combined slapstick, humour and cheerful vulgarity with acute political observations. In The Frogs, written during the Peloponnesian War, Dionysus descends to the Underworld to bring back a poet who can help Athens in its darkest hour, and stages a great debate to help him decide between the traditional wisdom of Aeschylus and the brilliant modernity of Euripides. The clash of generations and values is also the object of Aristophanes' satire in Wasps, in which an old-fashioned father and his loose-living son come to blows and end up in court. And in Women at the Thesmophoria, the famous Greek tragedian Euripides, accused of misogyny, persuades a relative to infiltrate an all-women festival to find out whether revenge is being plotted against him.

Shomit Dutta's introduction discusses Aristophanes' life, the cultural context of his work and conventions of Greek comedy. This updated version of David Barrett's translation also includes extensive notes and a preface for each play. 

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    256 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Classics
  4. Publication date
    April 6, 2007
  5. Dimensions
    8.5 x 5.43 x 0.69 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780140449693
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0140449693
  8. See all details
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  1. The Birds and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)
  2. Electra and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)
  3. Medea and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)
  4. Aristophanes: Four Plays: Clouds, Birds, Lysistrata, Women of the Assembly
  5. Birds and Other Plays (Oxford World's Classics)
  6. The Three Theban Plays: Antigone; Oedipus the King; Oedipus at Colonus
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Aristophanes was born, probably in Athens, c. 449 BC and died between 386 and 380 BC. Little is known about his life, but there is a portrait of him in Plato's Symposium. He was twice threatened with prosecution in the 420s for his outspoken attacks on the prominent politician Cleon, but in 405 he was publicly honored and crowned for promoting Athenian civic unity in The Frogs. Aristophanes had his first comedy produced when he was about twenty-one, and wrote forty plays in all. The eleven surviving plays of Aristophanes are published in the Penguin Classics series as The Birds and Other Plays, Lysistrata and Other Plays, and The Wasps/The Poet and the Women/The Frogs.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0140449698
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Classics; revised translation edition (April 6, 2007)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780140449693
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140449693
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 5.43 x 0.69 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 126 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
126 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Camille Crocker
5.0 out of 5 stars Purchased for a class
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2020
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This was purchased for a class. It was in excellent condition.
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Mary Rossi
5.0 out of 5 stars Frogs is an ancient Greek play as as they all ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2015
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Frogs is an ancient Greek play as as they all are, not simple straightforward, girl gets guy kind of plot. It is highly amusing but to understand the humor, some knowledge of ancient greek playwrights and gods is necessary.
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Tuncer
5.0 out of 5 stars good work
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2019
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thanks
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jorod
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on June 5, 2015
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Good introduction and interesting notes make for a good read.
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Dr. Michael A. Rinella
5.0 out of 5 stars Aristophanes the Timeless
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2015
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It's Aristophanes. Of course it's a classic.
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Razvan Viteazu
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2015
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Great!
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THX1138
2.0 out of 5 stars Machine translation?
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2021
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It's not that you can't read and enjoy this translation. But you can do better.

No translator is named, it is given as "The Athenian Society" which was once a distinguished club of Helonophiles but now seems to be a sort of ghost. The translation is fairly literal, if sanatized, readable and safe for young adults. It sometimes looks like a revised machine translation.

There is no textual formatting. That matters in a play, especially one with choral odes. There is no indication of strophe or antistrophe, the parts that would be sung. These and the choral songs are given in relentless block paragraphs. That may not be important to some readers, but a translation that would give these parts in at least blank verse would do justice to the work, after all it is an Attic play not a dialog. And of course there is no stage direction, no indication what the characters are doing or an indication of scene changes.

There are a surprising number of typos, a typical bonus of text scanned for digital printing.

There are no line numbers. So if you're looking for a quote or trying to compare translations, good luck.

At least the notes are useful and appear at the bottom of the page.
3 people found this helpful
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Jordan M. Poss
5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious collection of plays
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2007
Comedy is notoriously difficult to translate--not only do some cultures have entirely different senses of humor, the word-play and deft cultural allusions that make good comedy are often untranslatable. Against these odds, translator David Barrett has successfully brought Aristophanes into modern English with all his wit, sarcasm, and sly digs at well-known Greeks.

The plays collected here--Frogs, Wasps, and Women at the Thesmophoria--are rendered so well that I was laughing all the way through. The translations are remarkably true to the originals and well foot-noted where the translator has diverged from the text, usually to make a joke an English-speaking reader would understand.

Frogs and Other Plays is a fast, easy, and very funny read, well worth the time for anyone interested in ancient Greece, drama, or good old-fashioned comedy.

Recommended.
15 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Angie Fung
5.0 out of 5 stars Good condition
Reviewed in Australia on March 19, 2024
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Book came in good condition
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Tyler
3.0 out of 5 stars I do not like the formatting of the book
Reviewed in Canada on December 29, 2014
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It is a book with a few of Aristophanes' plays in English translation. I do not like the formatting of the book; the lines are not always properly formatted and it is frequently difficult to cite specific lines because there are too many lines in each block of ten.

I bought a different edition for the class and was much happier with it for it was much better formatted.
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Brijesh
4.0 out of 5 stars Ok buy
Reviewed in India on September 16, 2014
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Book is bit beaten up on the cover or-else all good.
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William Axtell
5.0 out of 5 stars Might have been written today!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 9, 2013
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I love Aristophanes. He is so funny and yet, through all the crudity, is a sharp ability to puncture human pretentiousness and bring to light all everyone's instinctive weaknesses. In this book are three of his plays and the most astonishing thing is how much the characters feel like people today. Considering the vast gulf that, in truth, exists between us in so many regards, it is fascinating to see the same mix of sons who think they know best, cowards and inveterate conservatives as today.
This is edition is also very good. Bar my minor annoyance that a couple of the cruder passages were toned down (I know I'm not dealing with Last of the Summer Wine!)the notes were very full and explained a lot of fascinating detail, which helped contributed to that other advantage of reading Aristophanes, apart from enjoyment, that of getting a real perspective on Classical Athenian society.
3 people found this helpful
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Jeremy S
5.0 out of 5 stars SO funny
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 1, 2012
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We do this for AS level Classical Civilisation, and i'ts so funny. They are however very rude, so dont read it if you don't like obscene things. There really is no shame, it's very crude. It is remarkable how developed the humour and the stories are as a whole. Some parts might require background understanding but there is an introduction to the play and the characters before each book to help you understand more. If you want an interesting read then certainly go for it!
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