The Birds And Other Plays Av Aristophanes

<p>Offering a window into the world of ordinary Athenians, Aristophanes'' <i>The Birds and Other Plays </i>is a timeless set of comedies, combining witty satire and raucous slapstick to wonderful effect. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Greek by David Barrett and Alan H. Sommerstein.<br><br>The plays in this volume all contain Aristophanes'' trademark bawdy comedy and dazzling verbal agility. In <i>The Birds</i>, two cunning Athenians persuade the birds to build the utopian city of ''Much Cuckoo in the Clouds'' in the sky, blockading the Olympian gods and installing themselves as new deities. <i>The Knights</i> is a venomous satire on Cleon, a prominent Athenian demagogue, who vies with a humble sausage-seller for the approval of the people; while <i>The Assembly-Women </i>deals with the battle of the sexes as the women of Athens infiltrate the all-male Assembly in disguise. The lengthy conflict with Sparta is the subject of <i>Peace</i>, inspired by the hope of a s