Aristophanes (450 BC-288 BC) was an Ancient Greek playwright. Born in Athens, Aristophanes was a leading playwright and master of comic drama whose contribution to Old Attic Comedy made him both a leading artist of his time and a target of political rebuke. Of the forty plays he wrote, only eleven survive today, including The Clouds (423 BC), The Birds (414 BC), Lysistrata (411 BC) and The Frogs (405 BC). Noted for his unique use of fantastic and absurd plots, musical elements, and pointed political commentary, Aristophanes changed the course of Western literature and left behind a body of work that would influence such figures as Menander, Goethe, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
