Study Guide For Aristophanes' Lysistrata To help with the usual barrage of people, places and things, use the Glossary which begins on page 599. The plot is about as simple as it gets: Athenian women, fed up with the Peloponnesian War, barricade themselves in the Acropolis and go on a sex strike to force their husbands to vote for peace with Sparta. This plot demonstrates that the overriding mode of Aristophanic comedy is fantasy. In the Congresswomen women take over the assembly to save Athens from corrupt politicians. So consider that, while in tragedy assertive women cause catastrophe, in comedy they bring joy and harmony. But Aristophanes is not content to turn the tables and present purely virtuous women and venal men; consider why, exactly, they are so upset about the duration of the war. To paraphrase Freud, what do these women really want? Note in the first scene how difficult Lysistrata finds it to interest other women in her plan. Part of the original humorous effect derives from Greek staging practice. Remember that all the actors are male. Also, a prominent part of the comic costume was a large leather phallus. The male characters in this play would walk around the stage with huge erections. This is not a comedy that for prudes. Most of the sexual innuendo that you see in virtually every line is actually there. The name of the play's heroine, Lysistrata, means "releaser of war," which typifies the Aristophanic tendency for an "outsider" hero whose indicates his or her function. Interestingly, there was an important priestess in Athens at that time whose name, Lysimache, meant "releaser of the battle." However, it is impossible to say this significance of this possible coincidence. Think about the character of Lysistrata and how the audience might have viewed her. What figure in mythology or tragedy does she most resemble? page 356: If you have trouble understanding the Spartan woman Lampito, read her lines aloud, using a hillbilly accent. The translator is trying to imitate how the Athenians regarded the Spartans as hicks. p382ff. Note how Aristophanes blends the slapstick scene of the women chasing of old men with weapons like weaving spindles and the intellectual humor of the commissioner's attempt to argue with Lysistrata's exposition of the incompetence of the men's pursuit of the war. There are several references to Sicily in the play. Recently Athens had added to its problems by deciding to invade Sicily as well, an expedition that ended in disaster. p408. Lysistrata and the women stage a parody of a typical tragic scene: does it look familiar to you? p436: the koryphaios is the leader of the chorus. The leaders of the two male and female choruses attempt to make amends. Note that the play seems to hoping not just for an end to the Peloponnesian War, but to the proverbial war between the sexes. p.444: note how Aristophanes undercuts the lofty sentiments of Lysistrata's speech to the men. What are the men doing while she is talking about peace? The final pages are taken up with a revel (a typical comic ending) celebrating the new peace. For an audience still at war, this is the ultimate form of escapist entertainment. =========================== Lysistrata Note: In earlier times Sparta and Athens had been allies: Sparta had helped Athens oust her tyrant Hippias in the late sixth century, and in the early fifth the two had fought together to repel the Persian invasion of Greece. In 411, however, the date of this play, Athens was fighting a major war against most of the important states in mainland Greece, including Sparta and her allies in the Peloponnesus (the southern part of Greece) and in Boeotia (on Athens' northern border). Two years earlier (413) a vast Athenian expeditionary force sent off to conquer Sicily had been crushingly defeated. Despite the defeat Athens maintained her resolve to carry on the war. Lysistrata's name, incidentally, means "she who disbands the army." a. According to this play, what, if anything, is wrong with war in general? what, if anything, is wrong with this war in particular? b. In terms of this play, what is Aristophanes' view of women and their proper place in society? How can you tell? c. What is Lysistrata like? How is she like the other women in the play? How is she different? d. What is Lysistrata’s/the women's view of the political process in Athens? What is Aristophanes' view? e. Are the women traitors? f. In what sense is the Lysistrata escapist literature? g. In what way(s) is the Lysistrata funny? h. Beneath the humor does Aristophanes have a serious purpose in this play? If so, what is it? i. More specifically, does Aristophanes offer in this play an alternative to Athens' current policy? If so, what is it? ======================== The Oresteia was first produced in 458 B.C. Medea was first produced 27 years later. Lysistrata was first produced 20 more years after that. Is there a progression in this series of Athenian plays, each produced about a generation after the other? What do these plays have in common? What themes do they share? What common issues do they explore? How are they related to one another? Can we come to any conclusions about the development of ancient Greek culture in the 47 years between 458 B.C. and 411 B.C.? One could argue that the conflict between the men and women in Lysistrata is just another version of the conflict between Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra in the Agamemnon or between Jason and Medea in Medea. Does it seem to be the same conflict to you? If so, does Aristophanes come to the same conclusions and resolution as Aeschylus? as Euripides? as neither of his predecessors? If the conflict doesn't seem the same to you, what about the conflict is different? Lysistrata is a very funny, shocking, sexually explicit comedy. But under its humorous surface, there lurks some pretty serious and important issues. The Greeks had been fighting the Persians for generations. At the battle of Marathon (in which Aeschylus and Socrates fought as young men), the Greeks finally defeated the Persians so soundly (in a heroic battle in which the Greeks were grossly outnumbered and still won) that the Persians never tried to conquer Greece again (and, in fact, they were themselves later conquered by the Greeks and Macedonians under Alexander the Great). But once the foreign enemy (the Persians) had been defeated, the Greeks began to fall out amongst themselves. Athens and Sparta, the two most important and powerful Greek cities, began to compete with one another for colonies and allies. Eventually (in 431 B.C.), they went to war with one another in what has come to be called the Peloponnesian War, a war that devastated Greece to the point that she never really recovered (being subsequently conquered first by the Macedonians of Alexander the Great and then by the Romans). Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes are writing during the throes of this terrible war between Athens and Sparta. They're also writing at a time when people like Epicurus, Socrates, and Plato are going around questioning all the foundations of Greek culture and society (the existence of the gods, the authority of Athenian law, etc.). In many respects, the Peloponnesian War was ancient Greece's equivalent of the Vietnam War for us. So, when Aristophanes writes Lysistrata, a play about a bunch of women who hatch a plot to end the Peloponnesian War, he's engaging a great many touchy social and political issues of his day. So, where does Aristophanes seem to stand on the issues that we've been exploring in relation to the Oresteia and Medea? In order to answer that question, I recommend that we focus on Lysistrata herself. Why is she doing what she's doing? Are her motives admirable or ludicrous? What about her methods? What methods does she use to accomplish her goals? Are those methods particularly feminine? Are they admirable or ludicrous? How do they compare to the methods of Clytaemnestra and Medea? What does Lysistrata believe in? What does she value? Why do her values come into conflict with the men's values? Why is she opposed to the war (and why are the men for it)? Does Aristophanes mean for us to side with Lysistrata or to ridicule her (or a little of both)? What is Aristophanes trying to tell us about the social and political issues raging in his day? Why should we care about issues surrounding a war that has been over for more than 2,000 years? ================= While reading Lysistrata consider the following questions: Why are the women reluctant to go along with Lysistrata’s plan? What is the significance of the women’s takeover of the Acropolis? In the dialogue between Myrrhine and Kinesias, he tells her all the things he misses about her. What does this passage tell us about the role of women in 5th century B.C. Athens? What other passages in the play reveal something about women’s roles in classical Greece? What characters in the play do you think are typical of 5th century Athens and which are not? What was Aristophanes’ message in the play and do you think it was effective? Try to determine if women’s roles as, presented in Lysistrata, are more important in 5th century BC Athenian society than what Perikles has to say about the subject in his Funeral Oration (Thucydides 2.34-46, especially 46). ======================= Lysistrata 1. Could the solution proposed by Lysistrata ever really work? 2. How does Lysistrata convince the rest of the women in Athens to follow her plan of action? 3. How does Lysistrata end? What is the significance of the ending? 4. How is Lysistrata both a character and a symbol? 5. What elements in the Lysistrata make it a structural comedy? 6. What happens to Peace at the end of Lysistrata, and why is she female? 7. Why does the male chorus carry pots of fire in Lysistrata, and what does the female chorus carry? ===============