aristophanes plautus and euripides

A detailed Summary of aristophanes plautus and euripides

In times of struggle and hardship, people are constantly looking for ways to escape their reality. They have found release from their stress in practices such as exercise, therapy, and meditation. In the ancient times of Greece and Rome, life for the citizens was strict and sometimes harsh. During these times of struggle, people searched for ways to vacation from the laws that bore down upon them. One of the ways they accomplished this was through art. Art was a way to express true feeling and emotion and unite a sometimes-divided population. Drama served as one escape for the citizens in Greece and Rome. Attending the plays written by Euripides, Aristophanes and Plautus, gave the people time to get away from their worries and chores and drift into a world of drama. A world where laws can be broken, women can have intelligence and slaves outwit their masters. One of the reasons the plays written by the authors of this time were so popular was because people were able to leave reality behind and slip into a world where none of the truths they held proved to be true.

A famous playwright during ancient Greece was Aristophanes. During his lifetime there was extreme political turbulence. Many of his plays

Drama in ancient civilizations was a favorite pastime. Aristophanes, Plautus and Euripides were quite popular and well appreciated among the citizens of Greece and Rome. Their works were embraced and enjoyed not only for their literary purposes, but also for the fact that they helped the audience escape their worries and stress. By creating these surreal worlds, the people were able to escape their harsh reality and connect with the characters. These characters who break the rules and norms, and question authority give the audience a liberating feeling as if they participated in the actions themselves. Since theses times, many new concepts of stress releasing and enjoying oneself have come along, but art remains one of the most popular.

Another playwright of ancient literature was Plautus. He came about many years later, but his works did the same for his audiences as Aristophanes did for his. His plays

a bad situation and make it humorous for the audience. "It has often been said, especially in recent years, that in Aristophanes political and social thought is purely incidental and always subordinated to the desire to amuse his audience and win the prize"(Cambridge, 38). In many of his plays he mimics political situations and figures and the outcome is very humorous. The audience is able to relax and laugh about the problems facing Greece Many elements in his plays are not real and could not have even been conceived of at that time. In Aristophanes' play, Lysistrata, the women of Athens and Sparta formulate a ridiculous plot to end the war by abstaining from sexual intercourse with their husbands. Aristophanes takes a difficult and pressing subject, the Peloponnesian War, and develops it into an illusive story of how a woman ends the war. The thought that a woman would have enough intelligence to end the war was a very impractical thought and the idea that Aristophanes would create suc

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Approximate Word count = 1293
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Arts