Aristophanes, Wasps

George Kovacs (Trent University)

Ed. by Jonathan Burgess, University of Toronto
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.1: Greek Writing and Culture: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial, -800--100.
Vol. editors: Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto), Anca Dan (École Practique de Hautes Études PSL), Martine Diepenbroek (University of Johannesburg), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Victoria Fendel (University of Oxford), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Mali Skotheim (Ashoka University), Laura Swift (The Open University), Guendalina Daniela Maria Taietti (University of Liverpool)

Dates

First circulation or publication -422

Places

Ancient Greece (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Comedy
Play

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Aristophanes had a strong start to his career:

Wasps

was at least his sixth production in his first five years. Produced in 422 BCE at the Lenaia festival, it came in second place—losing to

Proagon

(‘

Precontest

’), which sources suggest Aristophanes also wrote (but did not produce, and so presumably bent but did not break the usual rule of one comedy per poet in a competition).

Wasps is arguably the most overtly civic-minded of all Aristophanes’ plays, but like all the others it is predicated on a single “big idea”, a fantastic proposition conceived on stage and carried to a silly extreme. In this case: What if Athenian citizens began holding trials at home? This idea develops as the protagonist Philokleon (and the chorus with him) is convinced by his son Bdelykleon to reject

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2192 words

Citation: Kovacs, George. "Wasps". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 December 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13333, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Aristophanes, Wasps

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback