Lysistrata Essay

In the Aftermath of the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta, Pericles, Athens’ general and statesmen, delivered a powerfully comforting eulogy to the polis of Athens, assuring the people that their city state is in good hands, and easing the pain of all the families and relatives of the deceased. He uses several rhetorical devices throughout his speech to gain a positive emotional appeal by his audience and makes assertions in the attempt to enhance and transform the perception of him by the audience.

Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian war served as a window into Athenian societal culture. Carrying the reader from Pericles' moving speech to the assembly, through Cleon and Diodotus' oratory battle over the fate of Mytilene, and finally to the Athenian proposal to the Melians, Thucydides detailed the transformation of Athens from a state based on justice and freedom to a empire with a corrupted soul. This corruption did not occur over night, but was the result of increasing tyrannical behavior by the part of Athens in its interactions with other Greek city states. The stages of this development can be analyzed into three parts: Pericles' war speech, the dialogue on Mytilene, and the Melian debate.

A reading of Thucydides’, Pericles’ Funeral Oration and The Melian Dialogue uncovers both contrasting and comparable viewpoints on Athenian politics, power, aims of war, and empire. Thucydides presents two differing characteristics of Athens, one as the civilizer in Pericles’ funeral oration and the other as an tyrant in the Melian dialogue. In the funeral oration delivered by Pericles during the first year of the war, the Athenian leader emphasizes the idealized personal image of the Athenians in regard to their constitution and good character. Pericles goes on to praise the Athenian democratic institution of Athens that contributes to their cities greatness; in Pericles’s own words, “The Athenian administration favors the many instead of few… they afford equal justice to all of their differences” (112, 2.37). This quote emphasizes the good character of the Athens’ to coax and encourage the Athenians to preserve and better their great empire into the future. On the other hand, in the Melian dialogue, this notion of justice and equality is irrelevant; one, because Athens compared to Melos, is the stronger of the two and thus, is more powerful. Further, Athens, will continue to acquire absolute power and build its empire by conquering Melos and whomever else stands in its way. Through Pericles’ funeral oration and the Melian dialogue, the following conclusions/themes will demonstrate both the changing and somewhat stable nature of Athenian policy with regards to empire,

One of the basic themes of the book is that the thought and the art of classical Athens is full of meaning for people of later generations. It is the full of meaning for nations, cultures and societies beset by broad-scale and profound social and political change and the accompanying confusion and fear produced in the minds and souls of human beings.

Another way that transformation is shown in the trilogy is the way that it goes from chaos to harmony. In the beginning of the story, everything is hectic and does not settle down until the very end of the play. Not only is the country of Greece in turmoil because of the civil war, but also the family of King Agamemnon is full of chaos and disorder. Although in the beginning it looks like the chaos will not settle down, by the end, there is peace. Because in the end, Orestes is set free and acquitted of the crime, the reader is left with a feeling of calmness. Everything is settled and there is a sense of harmony, both in the city of Athens and in within the characters.

Aristophanes wrote The Acharnians at a time where the world he saw around him was changing. Athens had been at war for six years with no end in sight, the leader who started the war has been killed by a plague, and just three years prior Athens almost voted to kill off one of its allies for trying to leave the Delian League. He was seeing a whole new side of Athens. A side in which the concept of an independent polis has been lost and Athens is at war with its former allies. These are the things that inspire Aristophanes’ Greek comedy to be born. He uses the theater to address the questions he has about what is

Athenian society was very dynamic in many areas while it was strict in regard to the treatment of women. Although Athenian women were protected by the state and did not know a different way of living, they were very stifled and restricted. The only exception was slaves, and heteria, prostitutes, and this was due to the fact that they had no male guardians. Since these women were on there own they had to take care of themselves, and therefore were independent. In a more recent and modern way of viewing the role of a woman, independence and freedom to do as one likes is one of the most important aspects of living. In Athens the wives had none of this freedom and the prostitutes did. Who then really had a “better”

The mini-painting, Cover Girl, reflects both the blindness of society to cruel biases and the stereotype of the role of women in society. The flowers covering the girl’s eyes represent how people only see what they want to see, and cushion the harsh daily reality of unequal treatment of many different people, including racial differences, differences in sexuality, etc. The flowers float in front of the girl’s eyes to show that she is not voluntarily numbing reality, but the flowers are held in place in front of her for her own good and happiness. It shows that ignorance does mean bliss in society, and that’s how a system of oppression being held in place. This connects to Kindred because the system of oppression is continued by blindness and acceptance, just like the girl in the painting is blinded for her own sake and happiness.

Satire is a literary manner built on wit and humor with a critical attitude directed to human institutions and humanity.  A successful satiric play will show certain truths about society and then try to improve upon them.  Satire is meant to be constructive rather than destructive.  Aristophanes uses satire in Lysistrata to convey many different themes such as war and peace, the struggles of power and class, and the life and death issues that are seen in war.  Satire is successfully used and seen in Lysistrata by stereotyping women in general and then the different classes of women as well.  Double entendres are seen throughout the play to help add humor to the play.  Sex is

1. During the Mycenaean civilization, who was the great poet and what were his two important literary works that influenced the Greeks and formed part of Western literature? Homer, The Iliad, The Odyssey

In the play Oedipus the King, took place around 429 BC in a place called the royal house of Thebes. However, “many years have passed by since Oedipus solved the riddle of the sphinx and now a plague has struck the city.” it’s Oedipus fate that encourage him to make bad decisions. In the play Lysistrata, was introduced around 411 BC, during a war comedy by the ancient Greeks in a city called Athens. The annual theatre festivals started in Athens, which gave birth to democracy. Over a period of time, Athens was known as a city-state that was divided among four different tribes. Both plays were a part of the festivals, which were produced by the people and citizens. It was a gift for the entire city and they enjoyed it.

The last Olympic swimmer just touched the wall and the race has ended. Cameras are replaying every single movement from the race and a winner has been clearly decided. Just as these Olympic swimmers will gain a medal for placing, ancient Athens had numerous accomplishments of its own. Athens “prosperity … was due in large part to its stable and effective government” (SOURCE 1). When analyzing the history of ancient Athens, is easy to see how the accomplishments of a democracy, Greek philosophy, and Greek literature all shape Athens.

Aristophanes’ ‘The Frogs’ was first performed at the festival of Dionysus in 504BC, a year before the end of the Peloponnesian war, and was so well received it not only won the competition for comedy, but was also given an encore taking the form of a second performance in that same year. At the time of the plays performance Athens was run by an assembly of its citizens, in some ways comparable to a modern democracy, where any man who had completed two years of military service was able to vote. Politics therefore was an important part of Athenian life, with many young men studying the art of debating, something reflected in ‘The Frogs’ by its many references and illusions to political figures. It is hard to doubt that in his play Aristophanes intended to educate or inform his audience, especially considering the plays many allusions to the advisory role of poets. The objective of this essay therefore is not to answer the question ‘does Aristophanes inform, educate and entertain his audience in the frogs’ but to identify both where and how he does so, both linguistically and structurally. The problem with this however is that any talk about the

Though both genres of theatre are closely tied to religion, Greek theatre and medieval drama have different religious motivations that impact the ways in which the theatrical event is utilized. In Greece, theatre was used to entertain or please the Gods, more specifically the God Dionysus, during the most important of the four Athenian festivals: the Great Dionysia. The first known Greek playwrights, such as Thespis and Euripides, were chosen to compete in the festival and submit three tragedies and one satyr play to be performed in front of approximately 15,000 spectators. In classical Greece, theatre was the center of citizenship and society; religious ideologies towards Dionysus were not only realized by performances, but strongly encouraged by the state. For example, if a citizen could not afford to attend the

The Master and Margarita and Lamia are the vastly different works of two men from far flung times and places. Though the histories and plots of these works diverge, their thematic elements resonate. Each text invokes a dualism of worlds: the world of the imagination and the world of reality. The imaginative realm is a mythic space of love, creativity and magic. Paradoxically, the characters that speak for the realm of imagination are those aligned with the devil (Lamia and Woland). Reason control and mortality characterize the realm of reality and its representatives are Appollonius and the Muscovites. The source of conflict and distress in these works arises from the seemingly unbridgeable schism between these two