Introduction: Aristophanes and the comic competition

I'm James Robson,

and I'm a senior lecturer in classical studies at the Open University,

and I'm here today to talk to you about Aristophanes Clouds.

Now I'm going to begin with to bold statements about to play.

The first is that I think clouds is a weird play,

and I hope to communicate a bit to you about why I think clouds is weird

and the second is something of an admission,

which is that Clouds is not a play that I used to get on with,

but it's one that I've grown to love.

And again, I hope to communicate something of why I now like the play

before I go on to talk about why Clouds is an unusual play.

I want to fill you in a bit on the background of Aristotle, his life and career,

so as to give an impression of how clouds fits into the broader picture.

Aristotle was born sometime between 4 64 50 BC,

and he died sometime in the mid eighties.

So whose about 70 years old when he died?

He hit the big time in the four twenties BC

just after the beginning of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta.

The first play we know about by him is a play called Bang Quitters,

which was produced in Athens in 4 to 7 BC Now, this play doesn't survive,

but what's interesting about it is it's theme.

So they were evidently two sons, and one was educated in a traditional way,

and one was educated in a modern way,

so not so dissimilar to clouds.

Almost half of Aristotle's 11 surviving plays were produced in the four twenties,

but he continued working long after that, clocking up over 40 plays in total.

The last two surviving plays of his were produced

in the late three nineties and early three eighties,

so Aristophanes was still writing and staging plays long

after the end of the Peloponnesian War and even

long after the trial and death of Socrates in

399 BC and we'll come back to Socrates later

Now, comedies and tragedies were always staged in Athens as part of a competition.

Aristotle News early earliest surviving play is called The Canyons.

This was produced in 4 to 5 BC,

and this won first prize at the Linear Festival.

So he had some early notable successes in his career.

Clouds was produced two years after that in 4 to 3 B. C at Athens.

Other big dramatic festival, the Great Diane Asia,

and it came third in the competition.

Now we we don't know for sure how many plays there were in the competition that year.

But there is a school of thought that there were, in fact, only three plays,

in which case aristo Fannies clouds came last.

At this point,

it's worth saying a few words about the production

conditions of Aristotle's plays to Just like Greek tragedies.

Comedies were written for a single performance only

and were produced in open air settings to

thousands of Spectators who could evidently be pretty

rowdy in their feedback that they gave to.

As for the comic competition,

the prize for best play was awarded by 10 judges who

were all Athenian citizens chosen by lot For this one occasion,

there was no sense of these judges being expert then,

just very engaged Spectators who may plausibly have been swayed by the

audience that they saw and heard around them in the theatre.

So we kind of think,

read what we want to into the fact that clouds came last in the competition that year.

After all,

just because the movie fails to win the Oscar

for best picture doesn't mean it's a bad film.

But Aristotle's failure in the comic competition

may still perhaps be seen as an indication

that somehow the play didn't quite gel with his audience and with the judges.

It's also worth adding at this point that apart from Aristotle's plays,

no complete comedy survive from the period when Aristophanes was writing.

And so, while we do have fragments of other comic playwrights work,

it's not always easy to judge what was distinctive about Aristotle's work.

And nor is it easy to decide how much truth there is an aristo Fannies,

constant claims to be innovative and more intelligent than his rivals,

and we'll come back to this last point about innovation. Later on