WIT-TAK, T.M. de,
Lysistrata. Vrede, vrouw en obsceniteit bij Aristophanes. With a Summary in English.
Wolters, Groningen, 1967. 142p. Sewn. Diss. Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht. 'His passionate, though hopeless, longing for peace and his understanding of the misery and destruction that befell many victims of the Peloponnesian War inspired Aristophanes to his Lysistrata; the piece contains many data regarding the position of women in the 5th century B.C. which have been neglected or misinterpreted; the obscenities do not represent an attempt on the part of the poet to win the sympathies of the gallery but are integrated in the play as a whole. Such are in short the conclusions Mrs. De Wit draws in this book (…). It goes without saying that she felt compelled to criticize in many respects the latest commentaries (Van Leeuwen and Wilamowitz), as well as views of recent historians. She shows that several old-fashioned theories about the position of women in 5th century Athens still linger on in recent books, and does not fail to pick our some striking generalizations or prejudices for critical, sometimes sarcastic, comment.' (W. KASSIES in Mnemosyne, 1970, p.201).
€ 16.00
(Antiquarian)