Douglas M. MacDowell – författare

The Wasps is one of the most entertaining and characteristic comedies of Aristophanes, and the absence of fundamental difficulties in the text makes it especially suitable for newcomers to his plays. This paperback edition (replacing the hardback first published in 1971) intended for sixth form and first-degree students, as well as professional scholars, includes an introduction, a revised text, an apparatus criticus based on a fresh examination of the manuscripts, and a full commentary. Particular attention is paid to questions of performance, and to the play's outstanding comic and dramatic qualities.

A more intimate and vivid glimpse of Athenian political life during and directly after the Peloponnesian War is provided by the speech of Andokides On the Mysteries than by any other work: it is also a major source of legal and prosopographical information, and an important specimen of Attic prose style in the most crucial period of its development. Despite this it has been unduly neglected in recent years, partly for lack of an up-to-date English commentary. This new paperback version of MacDowell's standard edition (first published in hardback in 1962) is intended both for undergraduates and professional scholars. The revised text (notably more conservative than other modern texts) with apparatus criticus is supplemented with a full introduction surveying the life and trial of Andokides and his literary style; a note on the basis of the text; a detailed commentary; and appendices which discuss Andokides' innocence or guilt, the chronology and political significance of events in 415 BC, the legal revision ordered by the decree of Teisamenos, the date of the trial and the speech, and aspects of the historical and stylistic background relevant to the work.

In 346 BC. the Athenians negotiated a peace treaty with King Philip II of Macedon, but afterwards one of the Athenian ambassadors, Demosthenes, accused another, Aiskhines, of accepting a bribe from Philip to contrive that the terms of the treaty should be favourable to him. The case came to trial three years later, and On the False Embassy is the speech which Demosthenes prepared for the prosecution. It is one of the most famous pieces of ancient oratory, and it is also one of the principal sources of information about the politics of its period. This volume is on the same lines as Professor MacDowell's previous edition of Demosthenes' speech Against Meidias. It includes an introduction concentrating especially on the historical circumstances, a revised Greek text based on fresh study of the manuscripts, an English translation on pages facing the text, and the first detailed commentary on the speech for over a hundred years.

BL Covers every play, with extensive quotations in EnglishAristophanes' comedies are famous for their comic characters and earthy humour, but they are also highly topical, with many contemporary political allusions easily missed today. Douglas MacDowell provides students with a long needed accessible and essential introductory guide to the plays, focusing particularly on information about the Athens of the day.

The plays of Aristophanes are the oldest comedies which still survive. They are famous for their comic characters, their fantastic plots, their farcical action, and their earthy humour. But they are also highly topical, full of comments, both comic and serious, on politics and other current affairs in classical Athens.This book provides an accessible introduction to Aristophanes' plays, focusing particularly on their relationship to Athenian politics and life, and to the effect that Aristophanes hoped to have on his audience. All passages quoted from them are given in new verse translations, and readers do not need any knowledge of Greek. But scholarly problems are not ignored, and specialists will find here both new suggestions and summaries of different interpretations with recent bibliographical information in the notes.

In the most comprehensive account available of the texts of Demosthenes, Douglas M. MacDowell describes and assesses all of the great orator's speeches, including those for the lawcourts as well as the addresses to the Ekklesia. Besides the genuine speeches, MacDowell also covers those which have probably wrongly been ascribed to Demosthenes, such as the ones written for delivery by Apollodorus; and he considers too the Epistles, the Prooemia, and the puzzling Erotic Speech.