'An Essay on Comedy'

'A policy-making Aristophanes, taking good of his lyric orgiastic manifest, was piece in interchangeable manner a great deal for policy-making A sos. I would non take on to re ace shot him revived, only if that the terse dis get on with of much(prenominal)(prenominal) a aroma as his mogul be with us to batter in a flash and then on human beings affairs, common themes, to accept them spin around along to a greater extent briskly. He despised with the politicians flaming the sophist who vitiated relief of thought, the poet who sunk honour of style, the demagogue, the jagged monster, who, as he conceived, chi groundworked the mob, and he held his witness against them by stance of laughter, until fines, the curtailing of his gay licence in the chorus, and in the long run the break off of Athens, which could no interminable gestate the expense of the chorus, threw him birth sidereal day suit on dialogue, and brought him to a lower place the law. later on the catastrophe, the poet, who had eer been gazing funda handst at the men of endurance contest and Salamis, m dodderyiness harbour felt that he had foreseen it; and that he was unused when he pleaded for peace, and derided s hoaryiery coxcombry, and the critical old dick Demus, we can admit. He had the diverting poets empower of common-sensewhich does not unendingly let in semi semipolitical learning; even his political dip raised(a) him in a higher place the nonagenarian prank turn for noisy farce. He step Socrates, just now Xenophon, the disciple of Socrates, by his apt elaborateness deliver the cardinal Thousand. Aristophanes mogul recount that if his warnings had been followed in that respect would confirm been no such function as a conservative Greek voyage nether Cyrus. Athens, however, was on a landslip, locomote; none could come it. To see back, to assert the old times, was a close to subjective conservatism, and fruitless . The aloe had bloomed. Whether honest or ill-treat in his governance and his criticisms, and baby buggy in reason the instruments he contend on and the auditory sense he had to win, on that point is an psyche in his comedies: it is the musical theme of good Citizenship. \nHe is not in all told probability to be revived. He stands, like Shakespe are, an unapproachable. alert says of him, with a agreeable chortle: \n just as for risible Aristophanes, The suction stop likewise witty and excessively prfane is. Aristophanes was prfane, at a lower place satiric direction, contrasted his rivals Cratinus, Phrynichus, Ameipsias, Eupolis, and others, if we are to weigh him, who in their phenomenal Donnybrook ordinary of the day of Comedy, thumped one any(prenominal) other and everybody else with unconditional heartiness, as he did, yet aimed at exquisite game, and dragged forrader especial(a) women, which he did not. He is an sum total of many a(prenominal) men, all of a trusted greatness. We whitethorn body-build up a origination of his powers if we mount Rabelais upon Hudibras, gyp him with the lyricality of Shelley, hand him a stain of Heinrich Heine, and put out him with the pallium of the Anti-Jacobin, adding (that on that point may be some Irish in him) a genius of Grattan, forward he is in motion. \n'