Lysistrata

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Lysistrata in the 21st Century”

In this activity, students will use audiovisual learning and critical thinking to draw connections between Aristophanes’s Lysistrata and current events by watching a scene from Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq (2015).

Aristophanes’s plays have inspired numerous adaptations over the years, and many of the issues explored in his play remain relevant today. Spike Lee’s 2015 film Chi-Raq, for instance, reimagines Aristophanes’s Lysistrata against the backdrop of gang violence in contemporary Chicago. In this activity, watch a clip from the film, with each student/group assigned a different clip. After watching the clip, reflect on the following questions:

• To which scene from Aristophanes’s play does the clip correspond?
• In what ways does the film version depart from Aristophanes’s play?
• How does the film version adapt Aristophanes’s play to contemporary concerns?
• Is the film clip successful in adapting Aristophanes’s play to a contemporary sociocultural and historical context? Why or why not?

After students have watched and reflected on their assigned clips, there will be a class discussion that reflects on Lee’s adaptation of Aristophanes’s Lysistrata and the ways in which Aristophanes’s Lysistrata remains relevant in the modern world.  

Clip One: “Create an Environment for Change”

Clip Two: “What You Done Did?”

Clip Three: “Be Safe”

Clip Four: “Armory”

Teaching Suggestion: Though students may decide to watch the whole film later, advise students to begin by watching only their assigned clip. Have them use their knowledge of Aristophanes’s play to try to contextualize the clip and reflect on what choices the director and actors are making. Some profanity has been removed from the videos, but teachers should view clips ahead of time and ensure they are appropriate for their students.

Differentiation Suggestion: English learners and students with executive function differences may have a hard time completing this assignment, especially considering the region-specific slang used throughout the film. Helpful strategies might include collaborating in small groups, using organizers, or accomplishing this task together in class from start to finish (for example, by watching the whole movie in class and discussing it afterward).

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Aristophanes’s Lysistrata places ancient Greek women on center stage—literally—allowing strong female characters to voice contemporary women’s concerns.

• How does Aristophanes represent ancient Greek ideas about the roles and responsibilities of women? (topic sentence)
• Discuss how Aristophanes reinforces and challenges ancient Greek ideas and stereotypes about women, citing and analyzing specific examples from the play.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, reflect on how Lysistrata might or might not be interpreted as an early “feminist” play.

2. Aristophanes often used his choruses as a mouthpiece for certain elements of Athenian society.

• Which elements of Athenian society do Aristophanes’s two choruses in Lysistrata represent? (topic sentence)
• Discuss the role of the choruses in the play, considering their motives, values, and how their views do or do not evolve. Provide textual evidence to support your claims.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, reflect on the similarities and differences between the two choruses and think about which of the two Aristophanes sympathizes with more.

3. Aristophanes engages with contemporary events and politics in Lysistrata, particularly the Peloponnesian War that was currently raging between Athens and Sparta.

• In what ways does Aristophanes’s play engage with and satirize contemporary events and politics? (topic sentence)
• Discuss specific examples that illustrate the nature of Aristophanes’s political satire and reflect on his message or aims in the play.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate how Aristophanes’s political satire compares to today’s, drawing connections to modern books, music, or cinema reminiscent of Lysistrata.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Aristophanes set Lysistrata, like most of his plays, in contemporary Athens, and included mention of recognizable landmarks such as the Propylaea and the Acropolis. Write an essay in which you connect the action of the play to the physical topography of fifth-century BCE Athens. What is the significance of the sites Aristophanes incorporates into his play? How did his choices make the play more relevant to an Athenian audience?

2. Modern scholars continue to debate whether women were allowed to attend dramatic performances in fifth-century BCE Athens. If women were in the audience, how might this influence our interpretation of Aristophanes’s Lysistrata? How might we interpret the play differently if women were not in the audience?

3. Debate, or agon, scenes were a common component in ancient Greek drama. Early in Aristophanes’s Lysistrata, there is an agon between Lysistrata and the Councilor. What political argument does Lysistrata make during this agon? What social changes does she argue in favor of?

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Who is the first woman to support Lysistrata’s plan?

A) Calonice

B) Lampito

C) Myrrhine

D) Athena

2. How does Lampito typify the stereotypical Spartan woman?

A) She is demure and quiet.

B) She is athletic and tough.

C) She is beautiful and graceful.

D) She is wistful and dreamy.

3. What “prop” do the women use to formalize their oath to withhold sex?

A) A bowl of wine

B) A shield

C) A white stallion

D) A candle

4. Who makes up the chorus?

A) Angry politicians from various Greek city-states

B) Gods on Mount Olympus

C) Soldiers in the Athenian army

D) Old Athenian women and men

5. What are the old men holding when they attack the Acropolis?

A) Torches

B) Swords

C) Phalluses

D) Ladders

6. Which of the following quotes best illustrates how the war has affected Lysistrata?

A) “Your duty is to roast him on that spit. / You will, you won’t, you might—just lead him on. / Remember, though: you swore on booze—no sex!” (Lines 839-841)

B) “Laconian gentlemen, our best to you! / Tell us in what condition you’ve arrived.” (Lines 1074-1077)

C) “Given the choice, I’d play a prim, demure / Young girl, disturbing no one by so much / As blinking.” (Lines 473-475)

D) “But the gods and Euripides both detest women.” (Line 283)

7. What does Councilor mean when he calls Lysistrata an “abomination in a veil” (530)?

A) That Lysistrata is dressed like an enslaved person

B) That her behavior has wasted the treasury for the war effort

C) That her behavior is unfitting for a woman

D) That her ritual dress is inappropriate for the Propylaea

8. What does Cinesias promise the Spartan herald he will do?

A) Talk to the government of Athens about making peace

B) Beat the herald if he doesn’t leave immediately

C) Enlist in the army right away

D) Have sex with the herald if his wife won’t have sex with him

9. Who distracts the Spartans and Athenians during their peace negotiations?

A) The chorus

B) Cinesias

C) Myrrhine

D) The “Goddess of Deals”

10. When does Lysistrata call off the sex strike?

A) After she loses control of the other women

B) After an oracle tells her to

C) After Athens and Sparta sign a truce

D) After the Councilor forces her to

11. How does the play advocate for a Panhellenic Greece?

A) By introducing new gods

B) By establishing new Panhellenic games

C) By showing that Greeks should not be fighting with other

D) By suggest that Athena and Sparta conquer the rest of Greece

12. What would have been the main feature of the costumes worn by the male characters in the play?

A) Oversized erections

B) Foreign armor

C) Colorful stirrups

D) Comical dresses

13. What does the term Acropolis refer to?

A) The highest point in Athens

B) A large temple

C) A council building

D) The palace of the Spartan kings

14. Which character is described as having “by far the biggest balls of all” (1107)?

A) Cleisthenes

B) Lysistrata

C) The Councilor

D) Cinesias

15. What does Lysistrata suggest about women when she says “I am a woman, but I have a mind / That wasn’t bad to start with, and I got / A first-class education listening / to Father and the elders year on year” (1124-27)?

A) That women played an active role in Athenian politics

B) That women were fully grown when they married

C) That women in ancient Greece received a lot of schooling

D) That women are just as smart as men

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. What are some ways the women in the play appropriate typically masculine behaviors and roles?

2. Of the Athenians and Spartans, who are the first to seek truce? Why is this significant?