Aristophanes’ “The Frog” is a comedy but it is not just confined to comic entertainments. It is more about society of the time. It can be turned as a social, political and literary satire. Infact, Aristophanes criticizes the intellectual of his own period in a comic manner in his comedy “The Frog”.
The comedy is centered upon the intellectuals of the time. The plot of the play falls into two parts. The first describe the journey of Hades and is fall of most amusing jokes at the expense of various deities. The second part describes the contest between Aeschylus and Euripides and conceits chiefly of passages quoted by the two poets from the respectable words. The criticism of two playwrights is concentrated in the agony and the sins that follows Aeschylus is satirized for his bombastic language, blood curdling sentences, lengthy coral words and obscurity in exposition. The main criticism is directed at Euripides. He is attacked for his use of rhetoric psynopathos, rationalism, his reduction of tragedy to the level of ordinary life, the monotony of his prologues, and his innovation in rhythm and music. In other words, to dramatists criticize and attack one another work on ground ranging from professional skill to social, political and moral philosophy.
Aristophanes was a teacher as well as a comic dramatist. He is muscle is satire on political, social and intellectual movements and their exponent was intended to modify the public policies of Athenians and correct certain tendencies in their cultural life.
The serious political themes becomes more evident at the climax of their plot where Dionysus is unable to decide on artistic ground, asks the two tragedians, advice on the present politics that of Aeschylus’s appearing so satisfactorily that Dionysus decides to take him back to the upper word, to take him back a new to his wisdom to a generation that has forgotten him.