Title Aristophanes in Britain : old comedy in the nineteenth century / Peter Swallow

Published Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2023

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Description 1 online resource : illustrations (black and white) Series Classical presences Classical presences. Contents Intro -- Series page -- Series page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Dedication page -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- 1. Introduction -- What Is Reception, What Is Aristophanes, What Is Britain? -- Aristophanes So Far -- Aristophanes in the Empire? -- The Early-Modern Aristophanes in Britain -- Nineteenth-Century Politics: Reform, Reaction, and Radicalism -- Theatre Reform -- The British Historians' Aristophanes, from Gillies to Grote -- The German Aristophanes -- 2. Out of Exile: Thomas Mitchell and John Hookham Frere -- Thomas Mitchell -- John Hookham Frere -- 3. Swine before Pearls: Aristophanes at Play in Percy Shelley's Swellfoot the Tyrant -- 4. Aristophanes Burlesqued: J.R. Planché's Birds and Victorian Popular Theatre -- The Genre of Burlesque -- James Robinson Planché (1796-1880) -- 'From Aristophanes She Takes Her Birth' -- Re-interpreting The Birds -- Spectacle -- Mixed Reviews -- 5. W.S. Gilbert, The English Aristophanes -- Gilbert and the Classics -- Thespis (1871) -- The Happy Land (1873) -- Utopia Limited (1893) -- The Princess and Princess Ida -- 6. The Glory and the Shame: Debating the Aesthetics of Old Comedy -- John Addington Symonds -- Wilde's Clouds and Swinburne's Birds -- George Meredith -- Robert Browning -- Aubrey Beardsley -- 7. Aristophanes in the Phrontisterion: Performances of Old Comedy at Schools and Universities -- Aristophanes at University before the Nineteenth Century -- The Victorian Aristophanes in Schools -- Aristophanes at University -- 8. Women's Aristophanes: Old Comedy and the Fight for Gender Equality -- The Birds (1899) and the Bees (1904) -- Lysistrata (1910) -- How the Vote Was Won (1909) -- 9. Towards a Modern Aristophanes -- Gilbert Murray (1866-1957) -- Glasgow Critical Texts (1893) -- The 1914 Oxford Acharnians -- Gilbert Murray's Aristophanes after the War George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) and Major Barbara (1905) -- 10. Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index Summary This lively and wide-ranging study explores the reception of Aristophanes in the long-nineteenth century. It examines both political and aesthetic strands of this reception, and argues that Aristophanic reception in the period was always a process of speaking to contemporary issues - making Old Comedy new This book explores the reception of Aristophanes in Britain over the course of the long-nineteenth century, setting it firmly in the context of Victorian classicism more broadly and in the context of the reception of Greek tragedy in the same period. It proves the surprising extent to which Aristophanes was received, across a wide array of mediums, in Victorian Britain, and demonstrates that, over the course of the long-nineteenth century, Aristophanic reception was always a process of speaking to contemporary issues, whether political or aesthetic. A number of case studies are explored, including Wilde, Swinburne, W.S. Gilbert, Shelley, Gilbert Murray, Bernard Shaw, and Aubrey Beardsley. From the start of the long-nineteenth century, the British reception of Aristophanes was tied up in contemporary political debate, as writers activated Aristophanes in support of their own political positions. The second strand of Aristophanic reception, developed around the middle of the nineteenth century, actively de-politicized Old Comedy and instead received it through an aesthetic lens. The aesthetics of Aristophanes - with an emphasis on the beautiful and the archaeological - also lay behind school and university productions of Old Comedy during this period, so that only at the turn of the century was the political and artistic potential of Aristophanes able to find synthesis Notes Also issued in print: 2023 Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Audience Specialized Notes Description based on online resource and publisher information; title from PDF title page (viewed on August 9, 2023) Subject Aristophanes -- Stage history -- Great Britain Aristophanes -- Appreciation -- Great Britain SUBJECT Aristophanes fast Subject Art appreciation Literature: history & criticism. Literature. Great Britain Form Electronic book ISBN 9780191964640 0191964646

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