Posted by Jess(op) on April 12, 19100 at 11:01:48:
In Reply to: Re: 'the knights'and 'the wasps' posted by kit on March 04, 19100 at 20:17:24:
: : can any one help me answer this essay question
: : from your reading of the 'knights' and the 'wasps'how highly do you reguard the opinion that aristophanes wanted to instruct and change the athenian people in his plays.
: I once answered a similar question by getting all emotive about Aristophanes' situation when writing these two plays.
: It was based on - quote aeschylus - 'the birth-pang of the seer who tells the truth'
: He was in some ways a prophet, he knew his beloved Athens would fall; Knights rails against the war-mongering politicians who will let this happen, even encourage it; the Wasps is a plea for sanity and the return to an older (in his view, more valid) moral system
: I wound up saying he was trying, not only to change the people, but to change the future, stem the tide of history - and comedy was the only weapon in his armory.
: Or maybe you could say, he wasn't so much trying to change things, as to express another point of view, play devil's advocate to the majority view..? That just occured to me...
: Hope that gave you some kind of inspiration...
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wow, emotion! :) I think he **was** BUT, at the same time he realised he was writing comedy - look at embly women, for example - the whole Hags/Young girl/Young Man scene is purely comical? BUT, also, he was writing for the general public, and so to a certain extent may have been forced into a sort of conservatism at times - for example, in Knights, the portrayal of Demos as easily swayed is mollified - perhaps because that would involve too serious a criticism of the audience? But at the same time, he was constantly insulting the audience? Just throwing out ideas here!
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