Essays - Birds

Option A

The use of fantasy. Birds uses the fantastic scenario of creating Cloudcuckooland and meeting messengers and legendary figures to comment on real issues of concern to Aristophanes.

How does this compare to other ancient Greek works that use elements of fantasy or the idea of utopia to discuss matters of contemporary concern?

Option B

Aristophanes’s agenda. The surviving plays of Aristophanes range over a long and turbulent period of Athenian history. Do Aristophanes’s opinions and technique change over time?

Discuss the consistency of Aristophanes’s approach to writing, and the evolution of his overall philosophy across this most troubled period. What themes and ideas are present in both plays? Is his approach, methodology, or agenda consistent? If not, how does it change?

Option C

Gods and mortals. Birds uses both gods and animals as a contrast to humans.

How do other plays contrast mortal humans with the gods? In what ways do the similarities or differences in Birds provide insight into what Aristophanes was trying to say?

Option A

For the “Use of fantasy” option, choose another work from ancient Greece that uses elements of fantasy to compare to Birds.

Popular options include:

• Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles, in which Oedipus seeks the sanctuary of a mystical sacred grove that helps him transform himself;
• Cyclops by Euripides, featuring the Cyclops from Homer’s Odyssey and a chorus of satyrs;
• Assemblywomen by Aristophanes, which involves the women taking to create an ideal Athens; and
• Republic by Plato, which outlines an ideal city-state according to Plato’s philosophy. (Use an outline like this one to focus on a few key sections that might be useful examples.)
• There are other possibilities as well.

Option B

For the “Aristophanes’s agenda” option, choose another play by Aristophanes to compare with Birds.

Popular options include:

• Frogs, mounted in 405 BCE, in which Dionysus, bored with contemporary Athenian plays, travels to Hades to bring back a dead playwright;
• Clouds, mounted in 423, in which a farnmer seks to learn false speech to rid himself of debts; and
• Wealth, mounted in 388, involving the god of wealth and hius inability to tell good men from bad.
• Any of the 11 surviving plays is fair game. Full texts in English are also available here or here.

Option C

For the “Gods and mortals” option, choose another work from ancient Greece that depicts the gods to compare to Birds.

Popular options include:

• Eumenides by Aeschylos, which involves the Furies harassing Orestes for killing his mother, and Athena and Apollo testifying on his behalf in an Athenian court;
• Bacchae by Euripides, which has Dionysus punishing Thebes for ignoring his honors by driving the women into a frenzy; and
• Hippolytus by Euripides, which has Aphrodite plotting against Theseus’s illegitimate son Hippolytus, a follower of Artemis.
• There are other possibilities as well.

Option A

For the “Use of fantasy” option, find three incidents from Birds that demonstrate Aristophanes’s use of fantasy and his reasons for doing so.

Compare each of these moments with a similar (or contrasting) moment in the other play.

Option B

For the “Aristophanes’s agenda” option, find three incidents from Birds that reflect either Aristophanes’s opinions or how he makes the play reflect them.

Compare each of these moments with a similar (or contrasting) moment in the other comedy.

Option C

For the “Gods and mortals” option, find three incidents from Birds that depict the gods and illistrate Aristophanes’s intent in doing so.

Compare each of these moments with a similar (or contrasting) moment in the other play.