HUAS48023 - Aristophanes, Lysistrata 

Course Description

Staged in the winter of 411 BCE, less than two years after the humiliating defeat in Sicily suffered by the Athenians, Aristophanes’ comedy imagines a resolution to the never-ending Peloponnesian War thru the intervention of the women of Athens (and Sparta). Led by Lysistrata (“breaker of the armies”), the women of Athens swear to withhold sex from their husbands and lovers until peace has been made, and occupy the Acropolis, cutting off the war’s funding. We’ll translate 120 lines per session of Aristophanes’ play, which endures as a seed for modern-day activism and a source of modern adaptations – most recently Spike Lee’s Chiraq. “No peace…” Prerequisite: At least two years of introductory ancient Greek, preferably Homeric, but  Attic or koine Greek are also fine.

HUAS48023 Classical Greek Studies