Talk:Aristophanes

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List of non-extant plays from Douglas MacDowell's "Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays" Oxford 1995.

Let me get this straight: Aristophanes' play "The Birds" is about two guys trying to form a Utopia; and Hitchcock's movie "The Birds" features Melanie Griffith's mother getting almost pecked to death by birds. So if both of these things had actually come to pass, we could've been living in Utopia *AND* not have a Melanie Griffith? :D

Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Not.

On a more serious note, why is there no information about the man? JPO

-Mostly because we don't have any concrete information to go on. thomaschina03

Contents 1 question for a project 2 this needs a new image 3 Aristophanes and Plato 4 "Can't live with them" saying 5 "Standard Edition" 6 Aristophanes the Asteroid: Dramatist from Space! 7 The sketch

[edit] question for a project

so do we know where he performed?

Richard Williams is rumored to be doing an animation film based on one of his plays.

[edit] this needs a new image

Okay - looks like we need to find a new Aristophanes image, and I don't see anything on wiki commons. It'd be best if we had the current image or another old bust like this, if someone can provide a public domain one. Failing that, there is this 2-d image: http://www.crystalinks.com/aristophanes.jpg - I don't know the source though, who created it and is it sufficiently old?

[edit] Aristophanes and Plato

I strongly question whether the author of this article has ever read The Symposium. Aristophanes is portrayed as an absolutely incontinent and intemperant fool. His "humorous" account of the origin of love is bitter sarcasm from Plato who could only be pointing out and attacking the rampant hedonism of Aristophanes. If this is considered reconciliation then Palto must really have hated his friends. Plato never forgives Aristophanes and frequently will make statements that imply he blames no one else more for Socrates' death.

If the article is flawed please go ahead and fix it. Don't just complain. ;-) --Michalis Famelis (talk) 09:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Can't live with them" saying

I removed the following:

The well-known saying "can't live with them, can't live without them" comes from one of Aristophanes' plays. Aristophanes' words in Lysistrata (411 B.C.), line 1038 as translated by Dudley Fitts was: "These impossible women! How they do get around us! / The poet was right: can't live with them, or without them!"

The claim is dubious on a number of levels: the well-known saying is an English saying, which suggests that if Lysistrata is where it comes from, then it probably comes from Fitts' translation, not Aristophanes. The quote that is given also implies that the saying isn't originally Aristophanes' but an unnamed poet. The Sommerstein translation also implies that the saying (in Greek) was already well-known before Aristophanes: "...Still, the saying's true - / We can't live with you, we can't live without you!" (Lines 1038-1039). If other editors object, I think this claim at least needs a source. Schi 02:11, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Standard Edition"

How is a standard edition determined? My university did not consider any one translation authoritative, and I think that listing a standard edition clutters up the article and may be misleading. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by AprilEns (talk • contribs) 14:57, October 21, 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Aristophanes the Asteroid: Dramatist from Space!

What's the point of a link to an article about an asteroid? The average person viewing this page is here on the topics of famous Greeks or dramatists in general and is unlikely to find the small asteroid stub of any interest, even if it is named for Aristophanes. I do not believe it has any place in the "See Also" section of this article, but I'll let someone else decide whether to keep it or leave it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.235.177.74 (talk • contribs) 08:58, December 2, 2006 (UTC).

[edit] The sketch

Now, I think the picture is a good one and I think pictures generally enhance an article and I support keeping it, but it is highly inaccurate and based on the equally inaccurate Roman sculptures of Aristophanes. In his various plays he makes references to the fact that he was a short, plump and bald man. While he may exaggerate some things for comic effect, it is commonly accepted that the Roman busts are not representative of how Artisophanes looked Gegen 09:47, 20 January 2007 (UTC)