Close Reading Exercise. History Coursework Assignment.
Your task is to write on ONE of the four passages below, using the advice provided in the
document ‘Close reading guidance’ (available via moodle). You must include a word--count.
The word limit is 850--1000 words, and the word--count must include references, but not the
bibliography (if there is one; see below). This exercise will be worth 25% of your overall mark for
the module.
It is likely to help you if you use secondary literature while preparing your close reading, and
you will be given credit for *appropriate* use of these works (N.B. make sure that all citations
and quotations help you to analyse the passage; if they do not, you may not be given extra
credit for merely reading a secondary source, but the quotations will nevertheless take up
valuable space in your answer). There is a short bibliography of suggested reading at the end
of this document, and there is also an online bibliography linked to on Moodle. Lecture
powerpoints contain further suggestions. If you have used secondary literature, you need to
cite it with a reference at the point where your argument is derived from it or draws upon it (not
to do so would be plagiarism), and to include a bibliography (use the guidance provided in the
Assessment Booklet, which is available on the Classics Department Community moodle page).
Lysistrata (Excerpt) 1
LYSISTRATA (EXCERPT): CLOSE READING
Class
Professor Name
University Name
City, Country
Due Date
Lysistrata (Excerpt) 2
Lysistrata (Excerpt): Close Reading
The excerpt from Lysistrata is suggestive of play's undertones and implicit meanings. Including an exchange between Lysistrata, play's heroine, and city's magistrate current excerpt is an extended metaphor comparing city government to fleece preparation. The act of government vs. act of weaving are, interestingly, acts each of which signifies men and women respectively. Indeed, men, in a patriarchal society as Ancient Greece, was reared and encouraged to lead, govern and go to war. In contrast, women, assumed irrational and submissive, are relegated to house chores and squabbling, something identifiable in subtle clues made by city magistrate such as “brainless,” frequent exclamations and an echo of irony in “You really think your way with wool and yarnballs and spindles can stop a terrible crisis?” The magistrate's irony also juxtaposes “wool” and “yarnballs,” soft and flexible as are, at one end, and “terrible crisis,” at a second, as if to imply a perennial irreconcilability between men and woman. The length of Lysistrata's exchanges are, one should note, particularly extensive compared to magistrate's. This is not a dramatic coincidence just happening by chance. Instead, Aristophanes ensures Lysistrata is offered full “voice” to vent out, as a representative of women, deeply kept discontents of and about war. The parallels Lysistrata establishes between city government and fleece preparation are, moreover, strong enough as to enlist magistrate (and viewers) as active participants in shaping course of actions in imagination. The extended metaphor is, moreover, rich in imageries stretching across acts of government (by men) and acts of fleecing (by women). Interestingly enough, fleecing, evocative of acts of swindling and extracting money as is, is used by Aristophanes. That women, arguably described by Lysistrata, are “muted” and only Lysistrata is permitted to speak out in part for her unique ability for argumentation and in part for a dramatic
Lysistrata (Excerpt) 3
role Aristophanes wanted to exaggerate in a comedy.
Then again, meaning making and interpretation in current excerpt is informed by a wider appeal to Ancient Greek society's values and cultural conventions. The “silent revolution” Lysistrata leads women in by urging women to abstain from having sex with husbands and partners is, if anything, an antithesis of women's submissive nature (as framed and defined by men) and resignation to men. The only way to protest is, accordingly, via “feminine” means only namely, via fleecing made comparable to city government by Lysistrata. Put differently, weaving wool – and, for that matter, people – into a different matter (cloth) falling under “a fine new cloak” is an act of consequence equal to, if not more important than, acts of war men subscribe to in full....