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Birds, The: Introduction

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From: Great Works of Literature
Date: 19920101
Author:Aristophanes

00-00-0000
Translation: Fitts, Dudley

Introduction

Twice a year at the Dionysian Festivals in Athens writers of comedy were invited to compete for the three drama prizes. At the City Dionysia of 414 B.C., a tense year in the apparently endless war with Sparta, Aristophanes entered his brilliant fantasy, The Birds. For some reason it took only the second prize: the first went to Ameipsias for his Komastai, a comedy that has not survived; but it is clear that the audience received The Birds with favor, and even now, more than two millennia later, we can sense much of the delight ...

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