Discuss The Frogs as a Drama of Ideas?

The Frogs is a remarkable comedy of Aristophanes. It may be termed as a comedy of ideas. It is the happy idea on which it depends. The very idea of this play is to find the Athenians happy and peaceful. Aristophanes wanted to discard violence of all kinds. He did not want that human society and human life would degenerate and the nobler virtues of life would be lost sight of. After the passing away of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides the standard of the drama fell miserably and that was why Dionysus wished to go to the underworld and bring back Euripides to fill up the void created by their death. Euripides was a fashionable writer and a realist. There were, of course, other writers and poets, but they were not up to the mark.

Aristophanes was a comic dramatist as well as teacher. He wanted that the nobler values of life to be restored and the earth would be such a place where there would be no war. Good sense would prevail over the Athenians and they would have a happy and prosperous life. For all these Dionysus went to the underworld in search of Euripides. In The Frogs we find ‘a rich mixture of familiar components in surprising combination’.

The Frogs has been called a ‘play of ideas’ because Aristophanes begins it with the central idea derived from a particular social or political fact of his day. In this play, the idea springs from the character of the personages and each scene has its own unexpected inventions. The plot is little and poorly constructed. Real humour is lacking in the play. The playwright is not interested in proper characterization. The idea on which the whole plot of The Frogs is built really grand. Dionysus has been presented as a young Athenian who resolves to go and fetch a tragedy writer from the underworld preferably Euripides. He would like to restore the rights of disfranchised citizens and to recall the political exiles. These are the literary and political ideas which are inseparably connected in The Frogs. The very purpose is to restore them to the proper place. The dramatist has connected all these together.

The dispute and the debate enable Dionysus who occupied a chair of the judge in the dispute. In this contest Dionysus declares Aeschylus the winner and takes back Aeschylus to the upper world to teach the generation which is blotted out of them mind.

The chorus is rich with the ideas. It attacks the state for taking away the right of citizenship and wages the audience to save their city from taking unworthy steps.

Though the play is loosely connected, Aristophanes tries to integrate all the idea together and that is why there are subplots. The most important among the ideas are the literary criticism and the political issue. So the ideas are not only literary and political but philosophical too. The characters here are type but they express some ideas within a limited scope. The ideas are grouped together but the dialogues are not interesting and lively, rather they assume the form of a debate. The play of intellect is there in the drama which is essential in the case of comedy of idea. Satire is there without any overflow of humor. It is never desired for hurting anybody. He never loses sympathy with the characters. So we may call it a drama of ideas having connected them together, Aristophanes has got in his mind the noble purpose of providing welfare and well-being for the Athenians. Subplots do not go against the purpose of this drama.