1. The Opening (1-25)

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we discuss the opening lines of the play, in which we meet Dionysus and his slave, Xanthias. Xanthias is desperate to talk about his ‘heavy load’, but Dionysus is sick of hearing the same old jokes…

Course

This course provides close reading and analysis of Aristophanes’ Frogs, focusing on the prescribed material for the OCR A-Level in Classical Greek. All passages are presented in the original Greek with a facing English translation, while commentary includes discussion of the historical context of the play, the language and style of Aristophanic comedy and its characters, and the references to other literary works, most notably the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides.

Lecturer

Dr Rosie Wyles researches the cultural history of the ancient world through theatre performance. She did her undergraduate studies in Classics at Oxford and was awarded her PhD on the ancient performance reception of Euripides from the University of London in 2007. Her research interests include Greek and Roman performance arts, costume, reception within antiquity and beyond it, and gender.