Ancient Comedies (with an article)

Ancient comedies are something that will surprise and even amuse the modern reader. Comedy writers generously seasoned their plays with jokes, absurdity, obscenities, grotesque elements, and buffoonery. All of this became a weapon of criticism directed at politicians, military leaders, and orators. Despite the seeming lightness of form, serious questions could be raised in comedies. For example, in Aristophanes' play "Lysistrata," the heroine organizes a conspiracy among Athenian women—they will not fulfill their marital duties until their husbands stop fighting. The collection features the most significant comedies that influenced the works of William Shakespeare, Jean-Baptiste Molière, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, and other servitors of the lyre. These plays are included in the curricula of philological and theatrical universities. The introductory article for this edition was written by Associate Professor of the Foreign Literature Department of the A.M. Gorky Literary Institute, Tatyana Borisovna Gvozdyeva, Candidate of Historical Sciences.