Aristophanes: The Complete Plays Paperback – February 1, 2005

I have attempted to read Aristophanes by various translators and have simply set the volume aside without finishing any of his plays. This translation, for me, is very readable, well footnotes, and quite enjoyable.

No issues at all.

This is the only translation of Aristophanes’ plays I’ve read so I don’t have too much to compare it with. Overall I enjoyed all of the works and found the footnotes very informative and useful. The process and translation choices are thoroughly explained when useful or justified.Sometimes the use of different English dialects such as cockney to represent differing dialects of Greek characters felt a little weird, but I understand the choice in keeping with the “spirit” of the original text.Overall I would recommend it to anyone interested in Aristophanes’ plays. The book is well written and very accessible.

In a nutshell: footnotes aren't funny. To me, this was like reading your first Shakespeare play in junior high: so loaded with explanations of who people were, puns, double-entendres, 400 BC political gags and barbs, etc. that whatever humor there was is long gone. Perhaps I should've had classical Greek in college. In any case, Paul Roche was one of Edith Hamilton's favorite translators, but here his effort is marred by using English Cockney for the humorous relief characters. Great for those living in London, not so great for others. Also his efforts to be "modern" in word choice sound awkward at best, embarrassing at worst. I'd stick with his translations of Greek tragedies.

The author does a great job of translating the cultural idioms of the aristophanes day in a contemporary account that the reader can understand without losing too much of the unique style from the greek original. that being said it is hard to translate someone as unique as aristophanes but the author does a great job at translating the greek words aristophanescreated (combined from 2 words usually) to comic effect and explains such in the context notes. Good read

I bought this for a friend who loves ancient literature. He's interested in philosophy, and expressed interest in the Greek tragic playwright Sophocles. Aristophanes is Sophocles' comedic counterpart. I'm sure that I will hear from my friend about the philosophy within these plays.

A good printing of Aristophanes' plays. The explanatory footnotes are very helpful for those of us who are not yet experts on ancient Greek history and culture.

Great collection of work. Good size print. Overall very happy.

Great book, complete with all plays, very fresh translation and very insightful annotations. However, the paper quality is not very great. I guess this is what you get at this price point.

There isn't any line numbers.

Bought for my daughter who is studying classical civilisation at university. She is very happy with this book. It was a prescribed book but she would read this for pleasure. It’s been great for her uni course.

The paper is cheap, the cover is made of such flimsy material it comes looking like creased cereal box cardboard by the time you get it, and the ink is a light grey making reading extremely unpleasant. The translation is fine, but the quality of the book itself is atrocious.