The Birds and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)

i purchased this book for a university class & i loved it’s standard size as it was so light & easy to carry around.

There may have been other playwrights in 400b.c. but their works can't hold a candle to Aristothanes. Having performed in 2 out of the 3 plays in this volume, I may be a bit biased. Lysistrata is the main play and Aristophanes's cure for war. All the women of Hellas meet and lock themselves on the Acropolis and refuse the men 'pleasure' until they stop fighting. This 3000 year old play is often banned. Some of us haven't grown up yet.

A fun read.

I call this volume the "first" in a series of three by Penguin classics, because it presents the most extensive introduction, and is described as the first volume within this introduction. The two subsequent volumes, one with translations by Sommerstein, the other with translations by Barrett, can be arranged in any order.The best part of these translations is that they are actually funny. Many of the jokes are political, and requre more than a passing knowledge of Greek culture, but when the protagonist's husband in the 'Assemblywomen' talks about "pushing out a cucumber" (speaking about bowel movements), one can't help but chuckle. He's also wearing his wife's dress at the time, and doing his business by squating on the streetside.Another excellent feature is the great efforts to putting the verse translations in rhyme. These are very well done, however liberal the translation.From personal perspective, I found Sommerstein's translations superior to those of Barrett, having better end notes and more use of rhyming verse.I have two qualms with this (these) book(s)...The first is occasional 'British' humor. I can't recall specific examples, but, as an American, there were times where I'd feel I had to put the joke under a second translation to make it funny.The second is the lack of FOOTnotes, which I find far superior to endnotes.

***This is not a review of Aristophanes (he is a genius, and you will love these plays).*** This is a call on Penguin to fix the Kindle version for this book (and for many others). The thing is, I do not want to use other editions -- I think the scholarship and the translations that go into the Penguin Classics versions are unbeatable. In 2018, however, there is no excuse to sell electronic versions that are so riddled with typos, from misspellings to random capitalization errors, to punctuation issues, to formatting problems. It looks awful, it interferes with reading, and it is unbecoming of an otherwise excellent publisher. Fix it, Penguin, or have Amazon do it for you. Otherwise, you are selling what is essentially a defective product.

thanks

With all the dirty humour, backhanded comments against politicians (especially Cleon). Simple to understand as it is in modern day English for the most part. It is definitely worth the read.

An excellent translation with a very useful Introduction and Notes. I thoroughly recommend this book for any student of Greek Drama.

Good quality, love Aristophanes. Very accessible translation - without censoring it too much!

Good book but could do with a slightly better cover and could be better laid out inside in terms of page numbering etc...

Just what was needed for studies