The Comedy “The Knights” or the Elections by Aristophanes, with Modern Accents
Keywords:
Aristophanes, elections, comedy, “The Knights”Abstract
The creative works of Aristophanes is the classics, which does not lose its actuality even today. One of the interesting work of its kind is his comedy “The Knights” (425-424 BC). As it happens, this comedy tells us about the condition in Athens and as always, the poet manages to give it everlasting acridity and actuality in any period of time and at any space, as the issues, about what the Greek comedy writer describes, are of human nature. This is the dramatic pamphlet, and maybe one of the most audacious, which has ever performed on stage.
Aristophanes’ comedies can’t be interpreted in only one way. The basic issue, which I focus my attention on, are the process of electing servants by Demos and errors related to it. These errors have been characteristic to all elections for nearly 2700 years. Thus, it can be said, that Aristophanes makes a pamphlet of all types of elections.
In the following work, we try to answer the question on the basis of the text by Aristophanes: why it is necessary to hold elections; who has the right to vote at the elections; who can be the candidate; what perspectives the elected person has; how the illiterate and inexperienced leader has to rule the country; who the legitimists of the candidates are, who they are introduced by; what the legitimists expect from their candidate; how candidates manage to be admired by people with mere verbiage and demagogy; how the pre-election process goes; whether the candidates have effective programs; how the election procedure goes; what election results we have, etc.
At the same time, we try to show that election procedures have not greatly changed since Aristophanes wrote this comedy, and if the reader thinks, that Aristophanes’ characters are not gentlemen, it does mean, that he successfully criticized his attitude towards politics.
