Looking at Lysistrata : Eight Essays and a New Version of Aristophanes' Provocative Comedy

In Aristophanes'' Lysistrata the women of Athens, fed up with the war against Sparta, go on a sex strike and barricade themselves into the acropolis to persuade their husbands to vote for peace. In recent years, it has been claimed as an inspiration by political movements from Feminists, to Greenham Common protestors, to the movement against in the invasion of Iraq. The most often performed all all Aristophanes; comedies it is also, perhaps the most misunderstood. 

This collection of essays by eight leading academics sets the play firmly in its historical and social context, which exploring Aristophanes' purpose in writing it and considering the responses of modern audiences and directors.