Aristophanes II

Here is the second Aristophanes essay. It's just a quick look at what the playwright was trying to accomplish with Lysistrata. Tonight we will begin rehearsal with a discussion comparing and contrasting these goals with our own. 

Aristophanes’ Agenda

    Before Lysistrata, women onstage were only personifications of gods, characters from Greek mythology, wives, daughters, or musicians (Taaffe 105). Why, then, apart from comedic effect, did Aristophanes choose women to incite necessary change? He felt that a sense of distance was important for his audience.

     Similar to what Bertolt Brecht or Friedrich Schiller achieved with their theories of estrangement, Aristophanes wanted his audience to take a step back and view the current political situation from a new angle. The performance of this play coincided perfectly with Athens lying at rock bottom (Newiger 99). The war effort had never been worse. With women as the heroes, the Athenian citizens in the audience would have no reason to become defensive or upset with their own failures. The women were merely symbolic. They were anonymous figures that stood for peace (Spatz 92).

     Aside from removing the audience from the full reality, Lysistrata indulged a “desire for cohesiveness and clarity: its sustained plot has a beginning, middle, and an end” (Taaffe 105). Its singular plot and clear characterizations made it a crowd-pleaser. Lysistrata was successful because Aristophanes mastered the art of giving the audience what it wanted while tending to his own political agenda.