Bringing Ancient Greek Comedy into the Public Eye
Submitting Institution
University of NottinghamUnit of Assessment
ClassicsSummary Impact Type
CulturalResearch Subject Area(s)
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies
Summary of the impact
Alan Sommerstein's research on the comedies of Aristophanes, published in
the form of authoritative translations, together with articles and book
chapters on Aristophanes, have
- enabled large numbers of readers (including new audiences
with little prior knowledge of ancient drama) to appreciate better
both the comic and social/political aspects of the plays
- helped theatre directors and performers to adapt the plays for
productions which brought out for audiences how "accessible,
funny and relevant" they could be
- assisted the National Theatre to create a rounded presentation
of Greek theatre for a wide-ranging online audience
- enabled schools and colleges to teach and study Aristophanes
in versions that combine scholarship and approachability
- increasingly informed the content of university courses in Greek
comedy and enriched students' learning experience.
Underpinning research
Prof. Alan Sommerstein's research on Aristophanes since 1993 (throughout
which period he has been Professor of Greek at Nottingham) has been
embodied (inter alia) in the studies referenced in section 3 below,
which have offered numerous new insights on various aspects of all
Aristophanes' eleven surviving comedies and in particular of the three
plays — Acharnians, Clouds and Lysistrata — of which he
had published translations in the Penguin Classics series in 1973. The key
insights can be grouped as follows:
- Greater precision in establishing the stage action in many
passages of the plays from the implications of the bare script (3a and
3g, with detailed stage directons inserted throughout the translations,
and many discussions in the commentary to 3a; 3c, chapter 8, on the
debate scene in Clouds; 3c, chapter 12, on undressing and re-
dressing in Lysistrata; these publications between them cover
seven of the eleven plays, the remainder having been dealt with in
earlier work)
- Definition of the limits on comedy's freedom of speech in
Aristophanes' time, establishing through an analysis of types of
utterance known to have been restrained by law (3d) and of ancient
accounts of attempted prosecutions of Aristophanes or his producers (3e)
that comedy was bound by the same legal constraints as all other forms
of public speech, neither more nor less
- Evidence and arguments supporting the much contested view that
Aristophanic comedy reflects a definite (and distinctly "right-wing") political
orientation, and identifying the main features of this
orientation: opposing public pay for non-military activities,
"malicious" prosecutions of the rich, and war against Sparta (but not
other wars) (3c, chapters 10 and 11), and singling out for satirical
attack those politicians who were perceived as cultivating the support
of the poor, while sometimes referring favourably to their opponents
(3b; also 3c, chapter 13)
- Studies of gender-related features of the comedies, in
detailed commentaries on the female-dominated plays Thesmophoriazusae
and Ecclesiazusae (3a) and in articles on particular linguistic
usages exclusive to women or to men (3c, chapter 1), on the use by women
of nudity and obscenity as symbols of defiant assertiveness (3c, chapter
12), on the far from pacifistic attitudes of the celebrated Lysistrata
(3c, chapter 11), and on the fantasy of a city ruled by women (3f).
References to the research
(a) A.H. Sommerstein, The Comedies of Aristophanes. Vols. 8-11:
Thesmophoriazusae, Frogs, Ecclesiazusae, Wealth (editions with
translation and commentary; Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1994, 1996,
1998, 2001) (available on request).
(b) A.H. Sommerstein, "How to avoid being a komodoumenos"
(journal article, 1996), Classical Quarterly (peer-reviewed
journal) 46: 327-356 (available on request).
(c) A.H. Sommerstein, Talking about Laughter and Other Studies in
Greek Comedy (book; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) (14
collected papers, either new or updated, all but two originally published
since 1993), especially chapters 1 ("The language of Athenian women",
1995), 8 ("The silence of Strepsiades and the agon of the first Clouds",
1997), 10 ("An alternative democracy and an alternative to democracy in
Aristophanic comedy", 2005), 11 ("Lysistrata the warrior", new), 12
("Nudity, obscenity, and power: modes of female assertiveness in
Aristophanes", 2000), and 13 ("Kleophon and the restaging of Frogs",
1993) (available on request).
(d) A.H. Sommerstein, "Harassing the satirist: the alleged attempts to
prosecute Aristophanes" (book chapter, 2004), in I. Sluiter and R.M. Rosen
ed. Free Speech in Classical Antiquity (Leiden: Brill) 145-174
(available on request).
(e) A.H. Sommerstein, "Comedy and the unspeakable" (book chapter, 2004),
in D.L. Cairns and R.A. Knox eds. Law, Rhetoric and Comedy in
Classical Athens: Studies Presented to Douglas M. MacDowell
(Swansea: Classical Press of Wales) 205-222 (available on request);
previously published in German as "Die Komödie und das `Unsagbare'" in A.
Ercolani ed. Spoudaiogeloion (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 2002)
225-254.
(f) A.H. Sommerstein, "Nephelokokkygia and Gynaikopolis:
Aristophanes' dream cities" (book chapter, 2005), in M.H. Hansen ed. The
Imaginary Polis (Copenhagen: Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes
Selskab) 73-99 (available on request).
(g) A.H. Sommerstein, Aristophanes: Lysistrata and Other Plays
(revised edition) (translation with introduction and endnotes; London:
Penguin Books, 2002) (available on request)..
Evidence of research quality: The Aris & Phillips volumes (a)
have received favourable reviews in many journals; in particular, all four
of them were reviewed (one, unusually, was reviewed twice) in Bryn
Mawr Classical Review (1995.02.21, 1997.07.28, 2000.11.17,
2002.02.27, 2002.08.43) and three in the Classical Review (45
[1995] 431-2; 50 [2000] 272-3; 52 [2002] 245-6), while in Greece and
Rome 49 (2002) 242 Stephen Halliwell spoke of the series as "the
best complete set of commentaries on Aristophanes in any language" whose
"cumulative importance ... cannot now be doubted". Talking about
Laughter (c) has likewise received favourable reviews in (for
instance) CR 60 (2010) 357-9 and BMCR 2009.09.20; and (d,
e, f) were favourably noted in reviews of the books in which they appeared
— see, respectively, BMCR 2006.01.12; BMCR 2003.10.20 (on
the 2002 publication of the paper in German); and CR 58 (2008)
184-6.
Details of the impact
1. Bringing new audiences to Aristophanes through accessible
translations
The research described in (2) above was disseminated through a "revised
edition" (actually, an almost complete rewrite) of the 1973 Penguin
translation of Acharnians, Clouds and Lysistrata (3g).
This work was designed especially to provide a closer translation which,
together with the introduction and annotations, would incorporate advances
in scholarship since 1973, including Prof. Sommerstein's own
contributions, among them the ideas published previously or subsequently
in (3b-f). In the five years 2008-2012 this volume sold a total of
46,668 copies across all parts of the English-speaking world and
beyond (more than 85% of them outside the UK, including 3,646 in India:
see 5.1). On the book recommendation site www.goodreads.com, from 1.1.2008
to 16.7.2013, the 2002 Penguin has received an average rating of 3.81 out
of 5 (5.2), and most of the comments indicate that both the comic and
political aspects of the plays have been successfully conveyed, often
to readers who previously knew little or nothing about ancient drama.
For more advanced students, the Aris & Phillips editions of four other
plays (3a), completing a series covering all Aristophanes' eleven
surviving comedies, also provided a freshly constituted Greek text and
detailed commentaries.
2. Helping directors, performers and audiences
to "engage with history and the present day" through theatre productions
The Penguin translations have been selected as the basis of numerous theatre
productions (there were at least ten applications for permission to
perform them between January 2008 and July 2013), most notably a
production of Lysistrata at the University of Nottingham's
Lakeside Arts Centre Theatre in April 2013 to which Prof. Sommerstein
acted as consultant, providing important background information to the
director and offering "a useful sounding board [for his] initial
explorations into the text and concepts for it" (5.3). The director had
chosen Sommerstein's translation from ten he had read because its
"language was the most accessible to the modern actor and audience
...whilst all the time managing to stay faithful to the spirit of
Aristophanes[;... its] sense of fun and play and incredible
attention to period detail ... helped us to engage with history and
present day at the same time." (5.4)
The six performances drew an audience of 1,222 (over 50% above the
expected numbers: 5.3) from across the East and West Midlands, and
attracted significant media attention (e.g. from the Nottingham
Evening Post and the Guardian Online education section:
5.5). Feedback from the many school and college teachers and students who
attended was exceptionally enthusiastic: of 38 teachers who answered the
question "How would you rate tonight's theatre education experience?", 36
replied "excellent" (5.6), and their detailed comments showed that (as the
production team reported to the University afterwards) the production had
"proved ... that classical Greek drama most definitely could be
accessible, very funny, and extremely relevant to audiences of today"
and truly "fit[ted] well with Lakeside's core aims of presenting
access to excellence across the visual, performing and participatory
arts" (5.3).
In addition, Prof. Sommerstein recently assisted the National Theatre
(NT) to create a rounded presentation of Greek theatre for a
wide-ranging online audience by contributing, as one of three
speakers, to a short film on `Greek Comedy and Satyr Drama', published by
the NT in March 2013 on its YouTube Discover Theatre channel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-BvMbfkxcc)
and aimed especially at "students and teachers of English and Drama". As
of 16.7.2013, this video had been viewed 2,120 times by a wide audience of
teachers, school children, theatre audiences, undergraduate students and
lifelong learners, thereby fulfilling "the objective of the National
Theatre to create content that is rich with information and available to
all". According to the NT's digital content producer, "The contribution of
Alan Sommerstein was invaluable... as his particular knowledge on Greek
Comedy... illuminated that it was a vibrant, popular and important aspect
of Greek Theatre despite the greater prestige given to Greek Tragedy. It
was our objective to create a collection that presented Greek Theatre
fully and thanks to Alan's knowledge this objective was satisfactorily
met" (5.7-8).
3. Contributing defining texts to curricula in Classics and Theatre
Studies throughout the English-speaking world
Both the Aris & Phillips editions and the 2002 Penguin translations
are also now used as prescribed or recommended texts in several units of
the OCR and AQA AS and A-level Classics syllabi: OCR AS Unit AH1, A2 Unit
G3, & A2 Unit CC9 (cf. 5.9a); and AQA AS Unit 1 Civ 1 & A2 Unit 4
Civ 4: (cf. 5.9b). These texts give sixth-formers the opportunity of
studying versions of the plays which are much more accurate, and
reflect more up-to-date scholarship, than those previously in use
(including the same translator's 1973 Penguin), without sacrificing intelligibility
or approachability. A teacher at Loughborough Grammar School wrote
that the Aris & Phillips Thesmophoriazusae "proved invaluable
for the students ... [and] brought the comedy alive" (5.10). They have
also proved an inspiration to teachers and students of Drama and Theatre
Studies, for which the Penguin translation of Lysistrata has since
2009/10 been designated as a set text within sections A and B of the
"Theatre Text in Context" compulsory unit in the Edexcel A-level, A2
syllabus (5.9c). A teacher of Drama at Barking Abbey School wrote that
this translation had helped students to "come up with some really
excellent concepts about how they would realise their concept of the play"
(5.10).
In addition, the Aris & Phillips editions are now widely used as
course texts in HEIs throughout the English-speaking world (as evidenced
in 5.11 by statements and course descriptions from the UK, USA and New
Zealand), and they often inform course content along with the key articles
listed above (especially 3b) and with Sommerstein's Greek Drama and
Dramatists (London: Routledge, 2002) in the role of a reference
textbook. One course convener (Victoria University of Wellington) writes
that "it would be impossible to teach Aristophanes without
Sommerstein" and that in three different Greek literature courses
"reading any works [of his] significantly influences the students'
understanding of the plays they study". Another (University of Manchester)
requires students, in preparation for a seminar on Lysistrata, to
"look at one of the articles by Sommerstein listed in the bibliography and
consider how [his] views may have changed/developed since [1990]". These
details, together, reflect the degree to which Sommerstein's texts and
translations have become the authoritative version of Aristophanes for
educational purposes — the "gold standard" as a third course convener
(Loyola University of Chicago) puts it — and is benefiting students and
teachers alike through access to up-to-date scholarship.
Sources to corroborate the impact
- Penguin Books sales statements (available on file)
- Vox pop reviews of Penguin translation: Lysistrata and Other Plays
by Aristophanes, Goodreads, 2007-13 [viewed 16.07.13], available
from <http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1567.Lysistrata_and_Other_Plays>
(also on file)
- Grant feedback report by Director, Lakeside Arts Centre (available on
file)
- Factual statement from Director of Lysistrata production team,
April 2013 (available on file)
- Articles in Nottingham Evening Post and Guardian
education section (available on file)
-
Lysistrata, evaluations from schools and colleges, June 2013
(available on file)
- Factual statement from National Theatre filmmaker (available on file)
- Factual statement from Digital Content Producer, National Theatre
(available on file)
- A-level (AS & A2) syllabi:
a) OCR Classics specification, AS/A Level GCE Classics, OCR,
version 6 - January 2013, see pages 29, 30, 41 and 50 (document available
on request)
b) AQA GCE AS and A Level Specification, Classical Civilisation, AS
exams 2009 onwards, A2 exams 2010 onwards, AQA, 2007
(accessed 16.07.2013), available at <http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/subjects/AQA-2020-W-SP.PDF>,
see pages 8 and 22 (also available on file)
c) Edexcel Drama and Theatre Studies (Specification: GCE Drama and
Theatre Studies, Issue 5, Edexcel, 2010, see pages 47 and 84
(document available on request)
- Dossier of testimonies from UK schools (available on file)
- Dossier of testimonies, synopses and bibliographies from HEIs in UK,
USA and New Zealand (available on file)