Aristophanes - The Frogs

Aristophanes – The Frogs (1963) by W. B. Stanford – Macmillan

ISBN: None
Condition: Good
Published: 1963
Offered by: Crappy Old Books

There was a time when the theatre was in crisis, great playwrights were dying, audiences were losing their appreciation of proper literature, and everybody agreed that the quality of contemporary entertainment had deteriorated beyond all reasonable hope of recovery.

Welcome to ancient Athens, approximately 2,400 years before the invention of reality television.

The Frogs, by Aristophanes, is one of the most gloriously irreverent comedies of classical antiquity, presented here in W. B. Stanford’s scholarly 1963 Macmillan edition. It concerns nothing less than the future of Greek tragedy, the decline of civilisation and the extraordinary lengths to which one might go to rescue a decent playwright.

The god Dionysus, thoroughly dissatisfied with the state of Athenian theatre, decides that the only sensible solution is to descend into the Underworld and retrieve the deceased tragedian Euripides.

Unfortunately, Dionysus is not exactly the heroic adventurer one might expect from a member of the divine establishment. Cowardly, vain, confused and frequently ridiculous, he approaches his supernatural expedition with approximately the competence of a government minister attempting to operate a photocopier.

Accompanied by his long-suffering slave Xanthias, he encounters a succession of mythological obstacles, embarrassing misunderstandings and increasingly absurd situations, including the celebrated chorus of frogs whose enthusiastic croaking gives the play its title.

Eventually, the proceedings develop into a magnificent literary contest between Euripides and Aeschylus, two giants of Greek tragedy whose professional rivalry becomes an opportunity for Aristophanes to ridicule artistic pretension, intellectual fashion and the peculiar vanity of celebrated authors.

It is essentially an ancient literary awards ceremony, except considerably funnier and with rather more dead people.

Beneath the outrageous comedy lies a surprisingly serious debate about the purpose of literature, the responsibilities of artists and the relationship between cultural achievement and political decline.

This 1963 Macmillan edition, edited by the distinguished classical scholar W. B. Stanford, provides a scholarly presentation of one of the great surviving works of Greek Old Comedy. It belongs to an age when students were expected to approach ancient Greek texts with dictionaries, grammatical determination and a willingness to spend an entire afternoon deciphering three lines.

Condition: Good. A respectable vintage academic edition showing the ordinary signs of age, handling and previous ownership. A survivor from the days when classical scholarship involved considerable intellectual effort and remarkably little assistance from electronic devices.

Naturally, there is no ISBN. Aristophanes managed perfectly well without one, although Dionysus might have found a reliable catalogue of deceased playwrights rather useful.

Offered by Crappy Old Books, where literary standards are vigorously defended, ancient insults are enthusiastically appreciated, and customers need not visit the Underworld to obtain a decent classical text.

An entertaining and intellectually rewarding addition to any collection of Greek drama, classical literature or ancient comedy.

Proof that arguments about artistic decline, cultural mediocrity and the incompetence of public figures were already flourishing long before anyone thought to invent the internet.

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