Aristophanes the Democrat

This book argues that writers of Old Comedy belonged to recognisable political circles and used their comedy to disparage their political enemies.

Challenging the current view that Old Comedy is politically neutral, Keith Sidwell argues that poets belonged to recognisable political circles and used their comedy to disparage their political enemies, including rival poets who belonged to different groups. He rereads the principal works of Aristophanes and his rivals in this light.This book provides a new interpretation of the nature of Old Comedy and its place at the heart of Athenian democratic politics. Professor Sidwell argues that Aristophanes and his rivals belonged to opposing political groups, each with their own political agenda. Through disguised caricature and parody of their rivals' work, the poets expressed and fuelled the political conflict between their factions. Professor Sidwell rereads the principal texts of Aristophanes and the fragmented remains of the work of his rivals in the light of these arguments for the political foundations of the genre.