Essay | Aristophanes and Menander Preoccupations

The different preoccupations of Aristophanes and Menander may be found through exploring the plays. Aristophanes' main preoccupation was to entertain the people, and then to try to educate them about the politics of Athens at the time. Menander's main preoccupation was, like Aristophanes, to entertain the people, but also to try to teach them some sort of moral that they could hang on to at the end.

The fact that Aristophanes set `Frogs' in `real time' in Athens in 405 BC shows that the play is a political comment on life in the city at that time. In 405 BC Athens was in a sorry state. Athens and her allies have been at war with Sparta and her allies, and in 411 there was in Athens a brief Oligarchic coup, during which the Oligarchs, led by Antiphon, had replaced the Council with a new Council of 400. Theramenes...
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