Clouds Book Trailer

GREEK LITERATURE & CULTURE

Greek Literature and the Tragic Vision

Ian Johnston explores how Greek ideas of justice, divine power, and human freedom shaped the heroic and tragic vision of ancient Greek literature.

Introduction to Ancient Greece

A concise guide to the geography, history, political life, and cultural development of ancient Greece, from the Bronze Age civilizations of Crete and Mycenae through the rise of the city-states, Classical Athens and Sparta, and the age of Alexander the Great.

GREEK COMEDY

On Satire in Aristophanes’s Clouds

Ian Johnston examines how Aristophanes uses satire in The Clouds, tracing the play’s shifting targets from Socrates and the Thinkery to Strepsiades and, ultimately, the Athenian audience itself. He explores the social function of laughter, the manipulation of language, and the increasingly troubling implications of the play’s comic attack.