The Political Theory of Aristophanes

Download The Political Theory of Aristophanes PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 1438450036
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Political Theory of Aristophanes by : Jeremy J. Mhire

Download or read book The Political Theory of Aristophanes written by Jeremy J. Mhire and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the political dimensions of Aristophanes’ comic poetry. This original and wide-ranging collection of essays offers, for the first time, a comprehensive examination of the political dimensions of that madcap comic poet Aristophanes. Rejecting the claim that Aristophanes is little more than a mere comedian, the contributors to this fascinating volume demonstrate that Aristophanes deserves to be placed in the ranks of the greatest Greek political thinkers. As these essays reveal, all of Aristophanes’ plays treat issues of fundamental political importance, from war and peace, poverty and wealth, the relation between the sexes, demagoguery and democracy to the role of philosophy and poetry in political society. Accessible to students as well as scholars, The Political Theory of Aristophanes can be utilized easily in the classroom, but at the same time serve as a valuable source for those conducting more advanced research. Whether the field is political philosophy, classical studies, history, or literary criticism, this work will make it necessary to reconceptualize how we understand this great Athenian poet and force us to recognize the political ramifications and underpinnings of his uproarious comedies.

Eros and Polis

Download Eros and Polis PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139434179
Total Pages : 416 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Eros and Polis by : Paul W. Ludwig

Download or read book Eros and Polis written by Paul W. Ludwig and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-10-21 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eros and Polis examines how and why Greek theorists treated political passions as erotic. Because of the tiny size of ancient Greek cities, contemporary theory and ideology could conceive of entire communities based on desire. A recurrent aspiration was to transform the polity into one great household that would bind the citizens together through ties of mutual affection. In this study, Paul Ludwig evaluates sexuality, love and civic friendship as sources of political attachment and as bonds of political association. Studying the ancient view of eros recovers a way of looking at political phenomena that provides a bridge, missing in modern thought, between the private and public spheres, between erotic love and civic commitment. Ludwig's study thus has important implications for the theoretical foundations of community.

Socrates and the Political Community

Download Socrates and the Political Community PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : State University of New York Press
ISBN 13 : 1438414676
Total Pages : 252 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (384 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Socrates and the Political Community by : Mary P. Nichols

Download or read book Socrates and the Political Community written by Mary P. Nichols and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 1987-07-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book takes a fresh look at Socrates as he appeared to three ancient writers: Aristophanes, who attacked him for his theoretical studies; Plato, who immortalized him in his dialogues; and Aristotle, who criticized his political views. It addresses the questions of the interrelation of politics and philosophy by looking at Aristophanes' Clouds, Plato's Republic, and Book II of Aristotle's Politics—three sides of a debate on the value of Socrates' philosophic life. Mary Nichols first discusses the relation between Aristophanes and Plato, showing that the city as Socrates' place of activity in the Republic resembles the philosophic thinktank mocked in Aristophanes' Clouds. By representing the extremes of the Republic's city, Plato shows that the dangers attributed by Aristophanes to the city are actually inherent in political life itself. They were to be moderated by Socratic political philosophy rather than Aristophanean comedy. Nichols concludes by showing how Aristotle addressed the question at issue between Plato and Aristophanes when he founded his political science. Judging Plato's and Aristophanes' positions as partial, Nichols argues that Aristotle based his political science on the necessity to philosophy of political involvement and the necessity to politics of philosophical thought.

Socrates and Aristophanes

Download Socrates and Aristophanes PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226777197
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Socrates and Aristophanes by : Leo Strauss

Download or read book Socrates and Aristophanes written by Leo Strauss and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1980 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In one of his last books, Socrates and Aristophanes, Leo Strauss's examines the confrontation between Socrates and Aristophanes in Aristophanes' comedies. Looking at eleven plays, Strauss shows that this confrontation is essentially one between poetry and philosophy, and that poetry emerges as an autonomous wisdom capable of rivaling philosophy. "Strauss gives us an impressive addition to his life's work—the recovery of the Great Tradition in political philosophy. The problem the book proposes centers formally upon Socrates. As is typical of Strauss, he raises profound issues with great courage. . . . [He addresses] a problem that has been inherent in Western life ever since [Socrates'] execution: the tension between reason and religion. . . . Thus, we come to Aristophanes, the great comic poet, and his attack on Socrates in the play The Clouds. . . [Strauss] translates it into the basic problem of the relation between poetry and philosophy, and resolves this by an analysis of the function of comedy in the life of the city." —Stanley Parry, National Review

"Women's Work" as Political Art

Download

Author :
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 9780739110638
Total Pages : 198 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (16 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis "Women's Work" as Political Art by : Lisa Pace Vetter

Download or read book "Women's Work" as Political Art written by Lisa Pace Vetter and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows that the metaphor of the quintessentially feminine art of weaving in Homer's Odyssey, Aristophanes' Lysistrata, and Plato's Statesman and Phaedo conveys complex and inclusive teachings about human nature and political life that address the concerns of women mor...

Aristophanic Comedy and the Challenge of Democratic Citizenship

Download Aristophanic Comedy and the Challenge of Democratic Citizenship PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University Rochester Press
ISBN 13 : 9781580464178
Total Pages : 165 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (641 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Aristophanic Comedy and the Challenge of Democratic Citizenship by : John Zumbrunnen

Download or read book Aristophanic Comedy and the Challenge of Democratic Citizenship written by John Zumbrunnen and published by University Rochester Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Locates in Aristophanes' comedies a complex comic disposition appropriate to the fundamental challenge of ordinary citizenship in a democracy.

Philosophy, Poetry, and Power in Aristophanes's Birds

Download Philosophy, Poetry, and Power in Aristophanes's Birds PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498590772
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Philosophy, Poetry, and Power in Aristophanes's Birds by : Daniel Holmes

Download or read book Philosophy, Poetry, and Power in Aristophanes's Birds written by Daniel Holmes and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-11-23 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristophanes was clearly anxious about the role of the sophists and the “new” education in Athens. After the perceived failure of Clouds in 423 and its subsequent, unperformed revision, Aristophanes, this book argues, returned in 414 with Birds, a continuation and deepening of his critique found in Clouds. Peisetaerus or “persuader of his comrades,” the protagonist of Birds, though an old man, is clearly a student of Socrates’ phrontisterion. Unlike Socrates, however, he is political and ambitious and he understands the whole of human nature, both rational and irrational. Peisetaerus employs the various deconstructive techniques of Socrates and his allies (which is summed up on the comic sage in the image of “father-beating”) to overturn not just human society, but, with the help of his new allies, the divine and musical birds, the cosmos. After his new gods and bird city, Cloudcuckooland, are actually established, however, the hero re-introduces the “old” ways - justice, moderation, and obedience to law – but now under his personal authority, and thereby becomes “the highest of the gods.” Thus, the author postulates, in 414 Aristophanes has come to acknowledge the potency of the apparent civic-minded turn (or element) of the sophists, while aware of the self-aggrandizing nature of their ambition. Peisetaerus, unlike Socrates, is successful: he is establishing a just polis and cosmos and, therefore, must be victorious. But the consequence or cost of this success is illustrated through the Bird Chorus. After the polis is founded, the birds never again sing of their musical reciprocity with the Muses, the source of melodies for men. The birds are now political and the policemen of human beings. The sophist-run cosmos has lost its music. The new Zeus is an ugly bird-mutant. The gods and all nomoi have lost their beauty, honor, and reverential nature. Birds, in its finale, hilariously, but boldlyilluminates the inherent tension between philosophy (reason) and poetry (divinely-inspired tradition).

Aristophanes the Democrat

Download Aristophanes the Democrat PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521519985
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (215 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Aristophanes the Democrat by : Keith Sidwell

Download or read book Aristophanes the Democrat written by Keith Sidwell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-22 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that writers of Old Comedy belonged to recognisable political circles and used their comedy to disparage their political enemies.

Aristophanes and Politics

Download Aristophanes and Politics PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004424466
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Aristophanes and Politics by : Ralph M. Rosen

Download or read book Aristophanes and Politics written by Ralph M. Rosen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this volume explore the many aspects of the “political” in the plays of Greek comic dramatist Aristophanes (5th century BCE), posing a variety of questions and approaching them through diverse methodological lenses. They demonstrate that “politics” as reflected in Aristophanes’ plays remains a fertile, and even urgent, area of inquiry, as political developments in our own time distinctly color the ways in which we articulate questions about classical Athens. As this volume shows, the earlier scholarship on politics in (or “and”) Aristophanes, which tended to focus on determining Aristophanes’ “actual” political views, has by now given way to approaches far more sensitive to how comic literary texts work and more attentive to the complexities of Athenian political structures and social dynamics. All the studies in this volume grapple to varying degrees with such methodological tensions, and show, that the richer and more diverse our political readings of Aristophanes can become, the less stable and consistent, as befits a comic work, they appear to be.

Against Demagogues

Download Against Demagogues PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520344103
Total Pages : 295 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (23 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Against Demagogues by : Robert C. Bartlett

Download or read book Against Demagogues written by Robert C. Bartlett and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against Demagogues presents Robert C. Bartlett's new translations of Aristophanes' most overtly political works, the Acharnians and the Knights. In these fantastically inventive, raucous, and raunchy comedies, the powerful politician Cleon proves to be democracy's greatest opponent. With unrivalled power, both plays make clear the dangers to which democracies are prone, especially the threats posed by external warfare, internal division, and class polarization. Combating the seductive allure of demagogues and the damage they cause, Against Demagogues disentangles Aristophanes' serious teachings from his many jokes and pratfalls, substantiating for modern readers his famous claim to "teach justice" while "making a comedy" of the city. The book features an interpretive essay for each play, expertly guiding readers through the most important plot points, explaining the significance of various characters, and shedding light on the meaning of the plays' often madcap episodes. Along with a contextualizing introduction, Bartlett offers extensive notes explaining the many political, literary, and religious references and allusions. Aristophanes' comedic skewering of the demagogue and his ruthless ambition—and of a community so ill-informed about the doings of its own government, so ready to believe in empty promises and idle flattery—cannot but resonate strongly with readers today around the world.

Athenian Political Thought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy

Download Athenian Political Thought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801481796
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (817 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Athenian Political Thought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy by : J. Peter Euben

Download or read book Athenian Political Thought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy written by J. Peter Euben and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays on Athenian democracy, organized in three sections on situating the Athenian democracy in relation to various regimes, exploring how discourse in democratic Athens displayed awareness of democracy's limitations, and creating direct dialogues between the discourse of Athenian democracy and that of contemporary thought. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Pericles on Stage

Download Pericles on Stage PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Pericles on Stage by : Michael Vickers

Download or read book Pericles on Stage written by Michael Vickers and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the eighteenth century, classical scholars have generally agreed that the Greek playwright Aristophanes did not as a matter of course write "political" plays. Yet, according to an anonymous Life of Aristophanes, when Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse wanted to know about the government of Athens, Plato sent him a copy of Aristophanes' Clouds. In this boldly revisionist work, Michael Vickers convincingly argues that in his earlier plays, Aristophanes in fact commented on the day-to-day political concerns of Athenians. Vickers reads the first six of Aristophanes' eleven extant plays in a way that reveals the principal characters to be based in large part on Pericles and his ward Alcibiades. According to Vickers, the plays of Aristophanes—far from being nonpolitical—actually allow us to gauge the reaction of the Athenian public to the events that followed Pericles' death in 429 B.C., to the struggle for the political succession, and to the problems presented by Alcibiades' emergence as one of the most powerful figures in the state. This view of Aristophanes reaffirms the central role of allegory in his work and challenges all students of ancient Greece to rethink long-held assumptions about this important playwright.

The Art of Veiled Speech

Download The Art of Veiled Speech PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812291638
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Art of Veiled Speech by : Han Baltussen

Download or read book The Art of Veiled Speech written by Han Baltussen and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-07-27 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout Western history, there have been those who felt compelled to share a dissenting opinion on public matters, while still hoping to avoid the social, political, and even criminal consequences for exercising free speech. In this collection of fourteen original essays, editors Han Baltussen and Peter J. Davis trace the roots of censorship far beyond its supposed origins in early modern history. Beginning with the ancient Greek concept of parrhêsia, and its Roman equivalent libertas, the contributors to The Art of Veiled Speech examine lesser-known texts from historical periods, some famous for setting the benchmark for free speech, such as fifth-century Athens and republican Rome, and others for censorship, such as early imperial and late antique Rome. Medieval attempts to suppress heresy, the Spanish Inquisition, and the writings of Thomas Hobbes during the Reformation are among the examples chosen to illustrate an explicit link of cultural censorship across time, casting new light on a range of issues: Which circumstances and limits on free speech were in play? What did it mean for someone to "speak up" or "speak truth to authority"? Drawing on poetry, history, drama, and moral and political philosophy the volume demonstrates the many ways that writers over the last 2500 years have used wordplay, innuendo, and other forms of veiled speech to conceal their subversive views, anticipating censorship and making efforts to get around it. The Art of Veiled Speech offers new insights into the ingenious methods of self-censorship to express controversial views, revealing that the human voice cannot be easily silenced. Contributors: Pauline Allen, Han Baltussen, Megan Cassidy-Welch, Peter J. Davis, Andrew Hartwig, Gesine Manuwald, Bronwen Neil, Lara O'Sullivan, Jon Parkin, John Penwill, François Soyer, Marcus Wilson, Ioannis Ziogas.

Venom in Verse

Download Venom in Verse PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400823757
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Venom in Verse by : Gonda A.H. Van Steen

Download or read book Venom in Verse written by Gonda A.H. Van Steen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2000-02-28 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Aristophanes has enjoyed a conspicuous revival in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Greece. Here, Gonda Van Steen provides the first critical analysis of the role of the classical Athenian playwright in modern Greek culture, explaining how the sociopolitical "venom" of Aristophanes' verses remains relevant and appealing to modern Greek audiences. Deriding or challenging well-known figures and conservative values, Aristophanes' comedies transgress authority and continue to speak to many social groups in Greece who have found in him a witty, pointed, and accessible champion from their "native" tradition. The book addresses the broader issues reflected in the poet's revival: political and linguistic nationalism, literary and cultural authenticity versus creativity, censorship, and social strife. Van Steen's discussion ranges from attitudes toward Aristophanes before and during Greece's War of Independence in the 1820s to those during the Cold War, from feminist debates to the significance of the popular music integrated into comic revival productions, from the havoc transvestite adaptations wreaked on gender roles to the political protest symbolized by Karolos Koun's directorial choices. Crossing boundaries of classical philology, critical theory, and performance studies, the book encourages us to reassess Aristophanes' comedies as both play-acts and modern methods of communication. Van Steen uses material never before accessible in English as she proves that Aristophanes remains Greece's immortal comic genius and political voice.

Spectator Politics

Download Spectator Politics PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 9780812236521
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (365 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Spectator Politics by : Niall W. Slater

Download or read book Spectator Politics written by Niall W. Slater and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2002-06-12 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spectator Politics is the first major study of metatheatre, or theatrically self-conscious performance, in Aristophanes. Using a reception-based performance criticism, Niall Slater elucidates the comic effectiveness of the earliest surviving comedies in the Western tradition. Slater demonstrates that Aristophanes employed metatheatre not simply to entertain but also to teach his audience how to read and interpret performance in other key public venues of the ancient democracy of Athens, such as performances in the political assembly and law courts. Aristophanes was, Slater contends, the first performance critic. Spectator Politics shows how Aristophanes' comedy served the Athenians by helping them to become active political participants, teaching them to see through deceptive performances, whether on stage or in the political sphere. His comedies use self-conscious performance to encourage the public to move out of the role of passive consumers of spectacle and to reengage the political process. Aristophanes' critique of performance prefigures much in the performance-dominated culture of the modern American political scene. Throughout, detailed readings of the original stagings illuminate the plays for today's audiences and performers, while Slater's cultural critique provides much for those interested in Athenian democracy and its lesson for the contemporary political scene. Spectator Politics offers a salutary demonstration of the power of art to expose and resist the performance powers of would-be demagogues.

Philosophy & Comedy

Download Philosophy & Comedy PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253351065
Total Pages : 504 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (533 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Philosophy & Comedy by : Bernard Freydberg

Download or read book Philosophy & Comedy written by Bernard Freydberg and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals comedy's contributions to the philosophical enterprise

Dangerous Counsel

Download Dangerous Counsel PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022665379X
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (266 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Dangerous Counsel by : Matthew Landauer

Download or read book Dangerous Counsel written by Matthew Landauer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We often talk loosely of the “tyranny of the majority” as a threat to the workings of democracy. But, in ancient Greece, the analogy of demos and tyrant was no mere metaphor, nor a simple reflection of elite prejudice. Instead, it highlighted an important structural feature of Athenian democracy. Like the tyrant, the Athenian demos was an unaccountable political actor with the power to hold its subordinates to account. And like the tyrant, the demos could be dangerous to counsel since the orator speaking before the assembled demos was accountable for the advice he gave. With Dangerous Counsel, Matthew Landauer analyzes the sometimes ferocious and unpredictable politics of accountability in ancient Greece and offers novel readings of ancient history, philosophy, rhetoric, and drama. In comparing the demos to a tyrant, thinkers such as Herodotus, Plato, Isocrates, and Aristophanes were attempting to work out a theory of the badness of unaccountable power; to understand the basic logic of accountability and why it is difficult to get right; and to explore the ways in which political discourse is profoundly shaped by institutions and power relationships. In the process they created strikingly portable theories of counsel and accountability that traveled across political regime types and remain relevant to our contemporary political dilemmas.