Ancient Greek Plays by Aristophanes and Euripides
By Kate Yang, student of Literary Studies at Qs School.
Euripides: The Complete Works
Aristophanes was a poet of Old Attic Comedy and a comedic playwright or comedy-writer in ancient Athens. Eleven of his fourty plays have been preserved in their entirety. These, together with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries, offer the most significant examples of a type of comedic theatre known as Old Comedy and are used to define it.
Euripides was an ancient Athenian tragedian. He is one of only three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived in their entirety, together with those of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient academics credited him with ninety-five plays, while the Suda claims he only wrote ninety-two.
Aristophanes: The Complete Plays
I believe when we compare Aristophanes and Euripides, it is more likely that we are contrasting comedies and tragedies. Indeed, they are the two most typical genres of writing and they both engage the readers in different ways. We associate the word comedy with humour, but it was also used to describe a narrative in which the protagonist ends up in a better situation than when they began, similar to what was the case in Shakespeare's time. A tragedy, on the other hand, was the polar opposite of this. To achieve this, the characters are often the mirror opposites of one another. This reminds me of the question of whether an optimist or a pessimist has a better view. Is it preferable to see a comedy or a tragedy? The answer is straightforward: both.
Euripides, who often used a tragedy to inform the danger of the era, could be persuasive and effective. An example could be found in the ‘Trojan Woman’, which was written by Euripides, and produced in 415 BC during the Peloponnesian War. Although women ended up in tragic situations, the way the play designates women as weak and men as strong staunchly promotes the idea that women were suffering from the play’s major and primary concern, feminism. At the end of the play, Hecuba, the principal wife of the Trojan king Priam, has to watch the burning of Troy, the death of her husband, her children, and her grandchildren before she is taken as a slave to Odysseus. The fact that nothing changes throughout the entire play could also evidently show that none of the men realise their wrongdoings, thus indicating and emphasizing the unfair way in which women are treated. Euripides used a tragedy to indicate the importance of feminism, thus Euripides’ plays were more effective.
The Trojan Women: A Comic
Here is a new comic-book version of Euripides's classic The Trojan Women, which follows the fates of Hekabe, Andromache, and Kassandra after Troy has been sacked and all its men killed. This collaboration between the visual artist Rosanna Bruno and the poet and classicist Anne Carson attempts to give a genuine representation of how human beings are affected by warfare. Therefore, all the characters take the form of animals (except Kassandra, whose mind is in another world).
On the other hand, Aristophanes was convincing as he used comedy to inform the readers. He made a case, in Frogs, for bringing back a great tragic poet to save Athens, but he achieved this by using humour. Weighty issues are handled quite effectively in this vulgar, sometimes stupid, drama. Aristophanes argued that humour may be used to convey truth and moral values, and that it did not have to be frivolous amusement. For instance, Xanthias claims to Dionysus, ‘You're the very worst coward on heaven and earth!’. Even though it seems as if Xanthias only has humorous things to say about Dionysus, it actually reveals the character of Dionysus and Xanthias. Of course, Dionysus is a god, but he possesses all the characteristics of a selfish human being, plagued by hubris. He does whatever makes him happy and avoids everything that is dangerous, tough, or boring. As with every hero, he does have a major flaw: timidity. Xanthias points out his master's flaws to the audience. This characterises Xanthias as frank and forthright. Therefore, Aristophanes uses comedies to give a better understanding to the readers and the audience.
To reiterate, the way in which Euripides used tragedy while Aristophanes used comedies were equally effective. I believe that ancient Greek playwrights such as Euripides and Aristophanes, contributed massively to more modern literature works. There would be no Shakespeare, no Oscar Wilde, no us, without them.
