Birds and frogs (illustrated collector's edition): a collection of thoughts after reading.

Birds and Frogs (Illustrated Collector's Edition) is a book written by [ancient Greece] aristophanes/[English] Austin John/[America] and published by Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House. The price of this book is 148.00 yuan, and the number of pages is 2022- 1, which is specially compiled from the Internet.

Reflection on Birds and Frogs (Illustrated Collection Edition) (1): Who can't help but say: How dare you at that time?

I can't help but sigh that millions of years of human development seem to have never grown up in human nature. What are you worried about? What are you annoyed about? Have you lived for hundreds of thousands of years in vain? Perhaps this is the basis of human nature that no one can escape.

The title of Bird Frog is simple and clear. This book contains two plays by aristophanes, the father of comedy. As the three major comedy poets in Athens, aristophanes, Clattinus and Orpolis are the most popular works, while ancient Greek drama has a very high artistic position in the history of human drama, and has been worshipped and studied by countless descendants, with far-reaching influence.

Two works, The Bird, the first work of Utopian literature, and Frog, a work of confrontation between classical and modern.

Rough, serious, humorous, ironic, absurd, lyrical ... Perhaps because the "father of comedy" laid the basic style of drama, it is no stranger in the process of reading, and the sense of reading is not heavy. The detailed notes of the article provide explanations and easy access. Professor Zhang's translation is beautiful, delicate and rigorous, which shows the charm of aristophanes's works and his selfless recollection of the classical spirit. So I don't have to be scared by the title. I think there is a threshold for reading. Instead, I will smile from time to time in the story, which is really unspeakable excitement and powerlessness.

See this work, who can not let out a sigh? How dare you say that? Ancient Greece was really open at that time. No matter whether the story is utopia or cultural conflict, you can feel Mai Mang's sharp sense and ridicule from the story, and you can also see that people give up the present and want to find a new way out or some kind of redemption, which has an unrealistic sense of absurdity and elegance.

As a poet, there are also a lot of poems in the play, interspersed in the conversation. These lyrics connect the preceding with the following, vividly amplifying the absurdity of the city-state, the lust of human beings and the * * * of the audience. Let the work ache faintly in surreal imagination and vulgar humor.

Amazingly, at that time, the play was interspersed with a lot of plots that interacted with the audience, which further enhanced the interest of the work, whether it was the hot field of the opening or the interaction of the atmosphere behind it. In addition, it is the rhythm of work. The previous "Birds" went straight to the point, simply and neatly, put the attraction forward, and brought the audience back to savor the absurdity and absurdity of human nature through the rapid climax. The "frog" at the back slowly enters the scene first, and pushes the plot to the climax through the small high tide point, and then falls back to the end after several small high tide points.

Really, I have to give a thumbs up. The artists at that time were really good. Worthy of being called "the father of comedy", he provided reference and effect test for our future generations. Perhaps at that time, he had figured out the creative mode and the audience's habit of watching plays?

Reflections on Birds and Frogs (Illustrated Collector's Edition) (II): Interpretation of Politics and Literature

Little is known about aristophanes's life (about 446 BC-385 BC), even less. He was an Athenian citizen and began his drama career around 427 BC. He was one of the three greatest comic poets in Athens in the 5th century BC. The birds and frogs selected in this book are both famous comedies.

Birds begins with a dialogue between two Athenians, Oedipus and Pestilus. They stumbled across the hillside wilderness, hoping to start their lives elsewhere, so they wanted to find the legendary king of Thrace and believed that he could give them some advice, but they didn't know that Thrace had become a Dai Sheng (bird).

Dai Sheng talked about his happy life of eating, drinking and having fun with birds. During the conversation, Pace Tyros suddenly had a brilliant idea. Birds should stop flying around like fools and build a great city in the sky-the country of birds in the clouds. Dai Sheng liked the idea very much, and he agreed to help them realize it, provided that they could convince all the other birds. He and his wife, the nightingale, began to sing, bringing together the birds in the world. When they arrived, they formed a new choir. The new birds are angry at the existence of human beings, because human beings have been their enemies for a long time, but Dai Sheng persuaded them to give his human guests a fair chance to argue. Pestilos explained how these birds became primitive gods and suggested that they regain their lost power and privileges from the upstart Olympus. The birds were persuaded and urged the Athenians to lead them against the usurper.

Birds has constructed a utopia, which contains a lot of topics for reference, including Athens politicians, generals and celebrities, poets and intellectuals, foreigners and historical and mythical figures. Here, aristophanes demonstrated his ability to describe human nature convincingly in a convincing environment. Although I didn't talk about the war publicly, I was a little disappointed with the life in Athens and its courts, politics, false oracles and funny military actions.

In Frog, I actually feel the same way. It tells the story that Dionysus despaired of the tragic figures in Athens, so he took his slave Kostyas to hades to bring euripides back from death (Frog was written by aristophanes shortly after euripides's death, 406 years ago). That poem, the confrontation between classical and modern, is absolutely famous. Referring to the background of the times, the Peloponnesian War (43 BC1-404 BC) came and went. This war is essentially a conflict between imperialist Athens and conservative Sparta, so it has long been the dominant issue in Athenian politics. Therefore, we can clearly feel that aristophanes's works pay attention to the social, literary and philosophical life of Athens itself, as well as the themes triggered by Athens.

So aristophanes did not hesitate to attack the mocking Dionysus in the play, and decided to take Aeschylus instead of euripides after the final confrontation. Isn't this a sign of disappointment with the poverty of contemporary tragedy?

The former is political, while the latter is literary. Whether his goal is war or literature, aristophanes's reputation has obviously stood the test of time. His works are vulgar and delicate, combining serious political satire with fireworks-like rhetoric, especially aristophanes's puns, one-liners and local allusions, which can still arouse laughter and thinking.

Reflection on Birds and Frogs (Illustrated Collection Edition) (3): It is the happiest ending for everyone to make absurd suggestions on practical problems.

This book contains two comedies by aristophanes, Birds and Frogs. Aristophanes has a good sense of comedy reading, largely because his works are elegant and popular, which are classic works of ancient Greece and even works of network celebrities. These works are full of imaginative expression and satirical criticism of the current disadvantages, and have super communication and carnival. It is conceivable that as an ancient Greek audience, in a highly time-sensitive story focusing on the current city, what excites them is the surreal imagination and the bursting of absurd realistic jokes.

Aristophanes, as the "father of comedy", is also one of the three major comedy poets in Athens (the other two are Clattinus and O 'Pohris), and his works are the most popular. Not only because he was born to write gorgeous poems, but also because in his comedies, he was particularly good at making the most absurd suggestions on the practical problems in Athens with poems, jokes and satires.

Birds is aristophanes's surreal fantasy masterpiece, which describes a utopia that the Athenians yearned for more than 2,000 years ago, "the country of birds in the clouds". In this ideal country between heaven and earth built by birds, the cities on the earth are dirty and depressing, the gods are lazy and speculative, and the country in the clouds is beautiful and happy, which is a kingdom derived from the simple concept of "avoiding the world". Oedipus and Pesteros are the protagonists who put this escape from this world and create a new world into practice.

This is the story of a world-weary little man in Athens. He fooled the bird world, won support, scolded all the officials, negotiated with God to get a beautiful wife, and turned against him to become king. This is a daydream, a hearty daydream, how romantic and beautiful this dream is, how laughing and cursing it, how god's perspective it is, how sad and miserable the world will be after waking up, and how the shadow brought by the Peloponnesian War will make people escape.

In a large number of jokes, you can really feel the feelings of the audience in Athens in the theater, because the jokes more than 2,000 years ago are now "hahaha, crazy". The theoretical basis of Oedipus and Pestilus deceiving the bird world against God and creating a new country is actually a fable of two-part allegories circulated among the people, as if the fable came out and the bird had magical power. This sense of absurdity also exists in Oedipus' struggle with officials and negotiations with the gods, and everything goes incredibly smoothly. Finally, in this transcendental utopia, we see the truest irony and a happy ending with comedy characteristics. All ideals, expectations, criticisms and remoulding end in "peace agreement", "negotiation" and "marriage".

Frog tells the story of an insignificant playboy who catches people in the underworld. This playboy is Dionysus, the famous Dionysus. He thinks there is no best poet in the world, so he will go to hades to get back a favorite poet and return to the world. In aristophanes's comedy, the opening is a famous scene, and we actually saw the scene of Dionysus chatting with Hercules.

Dionysus is timid, fickle and cowardly in this play. He wants to find a lukewarm road to the underworld. So Hercules, the Hercules, seriously and informally discussed different ways of "suicide" for this little brother. Dionysus refused to hang himself or drink poison. Finally, he chose to go to the underworld by boat, and he also exchanged views with the frogs in Styx.

The final confrontation took place between several poets, euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles, who argued about their respective orientations of political culture and education. The wonderful degree is that the more familiar you are with the works of the three poets, the more you can get the stems inside. In the end, Dionysus, who had been vomiting during the whole duel, chose to take Aeschylus, but it didn't matter who he took. What is important is that the ranking of the three poets in the laurel duel is actually the ranking in aristophanes's mind.

The fantasy of this comedy is that the world is the underworld and the underworld is the world. The underworld is desolate, and the underworld has various forms, so who is more suitable for the world and who is more suitable for the underworld. You may have your own answer after reading it.

Between fantasy and reality, between flowery rhetoric and low-level jokes, aristophanes's comedies mocked his city-state and supported the needs of the people. The profound essence is always accompanied by laughter in the Athens city-state theater.

Finally, Voltaire once commented on aristophanes's comedies, saying that "his comedies are a vivid portrayal of the stupidity and weakness of his time". He's amazing.

Random thoughts on birds and frogs (illustrated collector's edition) (4): Ideal needs drama and life needs comedy.

front cover

From ancient drama to modern drama film, it has always existed to express human thoughts and feelings in artistic form, and human beings have always had a strong desire for it. Modern movies or stage plays actually originated from ancient dramas. Of course, I'm not an expert in this field, so when I'm ready to start reading this masterpiece by aristophanes, one of the three great comedy writers in ancient Greece, I think it's necessary for me to make up a missed lesson first and get to know the background of ancient drama.

In ancient Greece, drama was divided into tragedy and comedy. The so-called tragedy is characterized by more serious, which is different from our current definition of tragedy. The tragic ending at that time was not necessarily tragic and regrettable, but it must be serious. The tragic protagonist's ending must be caused by his own behavior. Therefore, under the influence of its serious narrative and strong personal feelings, the audience will have a strong sense of substitution; In contrast, the mode, rhythm and plot of comedy are more flexible, and comedy pays more attention to the plot of the story, which does not necessarily need to be expressed by narration. It can be presented by borrowing the movements, shapes or other combined forms of characters/animals, and telling the truth and thinking through some exaggerated or unrealistic plots, which will arouse the audience's voices. There is quite a bell to vent here. In addition, there is a very important point. This point is also reserved in our current comedy works.

Like today's works, former playwrights also hope to express some truth or ideas through them. In real life, there are always various constraints that restrict us from saying many things directly or showing some feelings and emotions. Therefore, we have to express our ideas directly or implicitly through some exaggerated dramatic techniques, which are needed by both the author and the audience, so drama was born naturally and has been preserved to this day in various other richer forms.

So, who is aristophanes? What is the representative significance of his works?

He wrote the earliest ancient Greek comedy that we can see. There are other playwrights, but unfortunately none of their works can stay. Then aristophanes's works naturally become the best way for us to understand the thoughts, life and beliefs of ancient people. After finishing his works, there are 44 comedies. Through the study of these works, we can understand the thoughts of human beings thousands of years ago, what they yearned for and worshipped. When you really read these works, you will find that there is not much difference between them. Today, our views on life and ideals are so close to those of people in BC.

Let's look back at these two works.

The first book is Birds, which was written in 4 14 BC. It's hard to imagine such a work that people can have so many years ago. The whole story originated from the author's imagination. At the beginning of the story, two Athenians wanted to find a comfortable country and let them live as if they were sleeping in cotton-padded jackets. As a result, they didn't ask many questions. One of them said, Why can't you (bird) make one yourself? This is where the story begins and reaches its climax.

So the two Athenians began to praise birds (for a long time, because of ignorance of many phenomena, human beings worshipped nature very much, which was naturally reflected in their works). However, although humans praise birds, birds don't trust humans-"Human nature: everything is cunning at any time". As you can imagine, there was a conflict between people and animals at that time, and the author has realized that this conflict is incorrect. After some back-and-forth arguments, human beings constantly proved their firmness and loyalty, and finally moved the birds. Birds are willing to work with human beings to build a beautiful "country in the clouds" full of hope. But in the end, human beings betrayed their former partners because of their greed and ignorance (if I understand correctly).

This is of course a symbol.

The year this play was written coincided with the second stage of the famous Peloponnesian War. At that time, Athens sent troops to intervene in the dispute of Greek city-states in Sicily, and countries were at war. We can imagine the life of ordinary people at the bottom. I think the author wants to express the ideal and beauty and the reality of human nature through this work, which is shocking in reality. No matter what era, the pursuit of the purest ideal and the ugliest evil root are the same.

The second work is Frog, which is also aristophanes's masterpiece. It was founded 405 years ago. At this time, the author has produced nearly 10 works, so the overall language can really see its growing strength. To put it simply, the story is that Dionysus wants to go to the underworld and bring back his favorite poet euripides. On the way, he met a group of frogs and had a long conversation and debate with them. Finally, relatively speaking, this work is more literary and readable, but also more profound. I didn't understand some profound ideas expressed in it, so I looked up the information and wanted to see who Aeschylus was. Although he is not as famous as euripides, he is also a tragic poet. He was born in 465 BC. At that time, Athens was in prosperity and peace. I think the author here should have a deeper meaning.

Now, it is difficult for us to fully understand ancient drama, but I can still see exaggerated expressions, ironic dialogues and speculative arguments in the drama from these words. I think this is the inheritance of civilization.