Aristophanes’s Response to the Peloponnesian War and the Defeat of the Comic Hero

This article discusses the experience of the Peloponnesian war through the plays of Aristophanes, tracing the writer’s career and examining the way the civil conflict is reflected in his work. It underlines how the experience and outcome of the war was progressively shaped into trauma not only for the Athenians but also for Aristophanic comedy itself. It focuses on three Aristophanic comedies: Acharnians , Peace , and Lysistrata . It also examines Frogs , Aristophanes’s comedy which discusses the salvation of his city. Language, motifs, the comic hero, and the (impossibility of the) solution provided becomes the indicator of the political and military condition.