{"product_id":"2940012444905","title":"LYSISTRATA","description":"FOREWORD\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e_Lysistrata_ is the greatest work by Aristophanes. This blank and rash\u003cbr\u003estatement is made that it may be rejected. But first let it be\u003cbr\u003eunderstood that I do not mean it is a better written work than the\u003cbr\u003e_Birds_ or the _Frogs_, or that (to descend to the scale of values that\u003cbr\u003ewill be naturally imputed to me) it has any more appeal to the\u003cbr\u003ecollectors of \"curious literature\" than the _Ecclesiazusae_ or the\u003cbr\u003e_Thesmophoriazusae_. On the mere grounds of taste I can see an at least\u003cbr\u003eequally good case made out for the _Birds_. That brightly plumaged\u003cbr\u003efantasy has an aerial wit and colour all its own. But there are certain\u003cbr\u003eworks in which a man finds himself at an angle of vision where there is\u003cbr\u003ean especially felicitous union of the aesthetic and emotional elements\u003cbr\u003ewhich constitute the basic qualities of his uniqueness. We recognize\u003cbr\u003ethese works as being welded into a strange unity, as having a\u003cbr\u003ehomogeneous texture of ecstasy over them that surpasses any aesthetic\u003cbr\u003esurface of harmonic colour, though that harmony also is understood by\u003cbr\u003ethe deeper welling of imagery from the core of creative exaltation. And\u003cbr\u003eI think that this occurs in _Lysistrata_. The intellectual and spiritual\u003cbr\u003etendrils of the poem are more truly interwoven, the operation of their\u003cbr\u003ecentres more nearly unified; and so the work goes deeper into life. It\u003cbr\u003eis his greatest play because of this, because it holds an intimate\u003cbr\u003eperfume of femininity and gives the finest sense of the charm of a\u003cbr\u003ecluster of girls, the sweet sense of their chatter, and the contact of\u003cbr\u003etheir bodies, that is to be found before Shakespeare, because that\u003cbr\u003emocking gaiety we call Aristophanies reaches here its most positive\u003cbr\u003eacclamation of life, vitalizing sex with a deep delight, a rare\u003cbr\u003ehappiness of the spirit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIndeed it is precisely for these reasons that it is _not_ considered\u003cbr\u003eAristophanes' greatest play.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo take a case which is sufficiently near to the point in question, to\u003cbr\u003emake clear what I mean: the supremacy of _Antony and Cleopatra_ in the\u003cbr\u003eShakespearean aesthetic is yet jealously disputed, and it seems silly to\u003cbr\u003ethe academic to put it up against a work like _Hamlet_. But it is the\u003cbr\u003ecomparatively more obvious achievement of _Hamlet_, its surface\u003cbr\u003eintellectuality, which made it the favourite of actors and critics. It\u003cbr\u003eis much more difficult to realize the complex and delicately passionate\u003cbr\u003eedge of the former play's rhythm, its tides of hugely wandering emotion,\u003cbr\u003ethe restless, proud, gay, and agonized reaction from life, of the blood,\u003cbr\u003eof the mind, of the heart, which is its unity, than to follow the\u003cbr\u003erelatively straightforward definition of Hamlet's nerves. Not that\u003cbr\u003eanything derogatory to _Hamlet_ or the _Birds_ is intended; but the\u003cbr\u003evalue of such works is not enhanced by forcing them into contrast with\u003cbr\u003eother works which cover deeper and wider nexus of aesthetic and\u003cbr\u003espiritual material. It is the very subtlety of the vitality of such\u003cbr\u003eworks as _Antony and Cleopatra_ and _Lysistrata_ that makes it so easy\u003cbr\u003eto undervalue them, to see only a phallic play and political pamphlet in\u003cbr\u003eone, only a chronicle play in a grandiose method in the other. For we\u003cbr\u003ehave to be in a highly sensitized condition before we can get to that\u003cbr\u003esubtle point where life and the image mix, and so really perceive the\u003cbr\u003ework at all; whereas we can command the response to a lesser work which\u003cbr\u003edoes not call so finely on the full breadth and depth of our spiritual\u003cbr\u003eresources.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI amuse myself at times with the fancy that Homer, Sappho, and\u003cbr\u003eAristophanes are the inviolable Trinity of poetry, even to the extent of\u003cbr\u003ebeing reducible to One. For the fiery and lucid directness of Sappho, if\u003cbr\u003eher note of personal lyricism is abstracted, is seen to be an element of\u003cbr\u003eHomer, as is the profoundly balanced humour of Aristophanes, at once\u003cbr\u003etenderly human and cruelly hard, as of a god to whom all sympathies and\u003cbr\u003etolerances are known, but who is invulnerable somewhere, who sees from a\u003cbr\u003epoint in space where the pressure of earth's fear and pain, and so its\u003cbr\u003epity, is lifted. It is here that the Shakespearean and Homeric worlds\u003cbr\u003eimpinge and merge, not to be separated by any academic classifications.\u003cbr\u003eThey meet in this sensitivity equally involved and aloof, sympathetic\u003cbr\u003eand arrogant, suffering and joyous; and in this relation we see\u003cbr\u003eAristophanes as the forerunner of Shakespeare, his only one. We see also\u003cbr\u003ethat the whole present aesthetic of earth is based in Homer. We live and\u003cbr\u003egrow in the world of consciousness bequeathed to us by him; and if we\u003cbr\u003egrow beyond it through deeper Shakespearean ardours, it is because those\u003cbr\u003ebeyond are rooted in the broad basis of the Homeric imagination.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47081349546224,"sku":"2940012444905","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012444905_p0.jpg?v=1763568971","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012444905","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}