Book Description
JavaTech is a practical introduction to the Java programming language with an emphasis on the features that benefit technical computing. After presenting the basics of object-oriented programming in Java, it examines introductory topics such as graphical interfaces and thread processes. It goes on to review network programming and develops Web client-server examples for tasks such as monitoring remote devices. The focus then shifts to distributed computing with RMI. Finally, it examines how Java programs can access the local platform and interact with hardware.
Download Description
JavaTech is a practical introduction to the Java programming language with an emphasis on the features that benefit technical computing. After presenting the basics of object-oriented programming in Java, it examines introductory topics such as graphical interfaces and thread processes. It goes on to review network programming and develops Web client-server examples for tasks such as monitoring remote devices. The focus then shifts to distributed computing with RMI. Finally, it examines how Java programs can access the local platform and interact with hardware. Topics include combining native code with Java, communication via serial lines, and programming embedded processors. An extensive web site supports the book with additional instructional materials. JavaTech demonstrates the ease with which Java can be used to create powerful network applications and distributed computing applications. It will be used as a textbook for programming courses, and by researchers who need to learn Java for a particular task.
Customer Reviews:
the RMI and CORBA are awkward to build and use.......2006-07-22
One of Java's strengths is that you can run its bytecode on many different types of hardware. But one merit of this book is that it shows how you can customise your code to take advantage of binaries on particular platforms, and use specific devices.
The book also talks about distributed or remote computing. Giving explantions of RMI and CORBA. You should be aware that RMI has fallen under a relative cloud. Systems using it can be awkward to run, even if there are no bugs. While CORBA's limitations have become painfully apparent, independently of any Java usage. Nowadays, distributed computations written in Java tend to go to Web Services and using XML text messages to communicate between entities, as opposed to CORBA's binary messages.
If you have never used RMI and CORBA before, then the book doesn't really educate you about their drawbacks. So they might seem like really nifty ideas. The book should perhaps talk more about Web Services.
Book Description
This volume features four celebrated masterpieces: Lysistrata, The Frogs, The Assembly-Women, and Plutus (Wealth), all in new translations by the distinguished poet and translator Paul Roche.
Customer Reviews:
Inexpensive and very okay.......2006-09-27
Roche's Signet Classic "Four Plays by Aristophanes" provides good contemporary translations of Lysistrata, The Frogs, A Parliament of Women, and Plutus. On the negative side, the renderings are not terrifically inspired. The paper is too pulpy for a "classic," but that's a drawback of most (though not all) inexpensive classics nowadays. My printing of Roche, however, is not thick or blotchy, though I've noticed the Signet Classics sometimes tend in that direction.
Gone are the days, evidently, when the pages of a Signet Classic always looked crisp and stayed bright for decades. I've got some from the '60s that still look good.
Roche's introduction and notes to these four plays are brief but solid.
Great Ancient Greek Political Parodies.......2005-01-06
I should first point out that I read a different edition of this book, and the one that I had had only two plays - The Birds and The Frogs. I will review only these two. Aristophanes has a "no holds barred" type of approach to controversial political decisions and actions. The Birds is a comedy that ridicules the disastrous Greek expedition to Sicily in 413 B.C. Arisotophanes is a wonderful writer and he uses similes and parables throughout his writing. Besides being comedic, The Birds pays tribute to man's eternal desire to achieve the freedom and beauty associated with birds.
The Frogs is a parody on the stupidy and culpability of persons afflicted with their own preoccupation with themselves. We see these types of "puffed up" personalities all around even in this day and age. So like the frogs we hear in our ponds and marshes chirping the same old songs. This is acually as timely as it was when it was written sometime around 400 B.C. Hard to believe.
Get on the right page.......2004-08-25
The reviews attached here seem to refer to another collection by another translator--the Arrowsmith edition, apparently. Instead of "Clouds" we have two lesser plays--"Parliament of Women" and "Wealth." The translation's lively, the notes very helpful, the glossary mentioned in other reviews is absent here. All in all, a very useful introduction to Aristophanes, and endless fun.
ancient Greek comedy at its best.......2004-04-05
Aristophanes was to theatre what Socrates was to religion and politics--the funny, irreverent "bad boy." My favorite of these 4 plays has to be "The Clouds", which is in fact a parody mocking and making fun of Socrates (spelled or mis-spelled Sokrates). Very funny dialogue.
David Rehak
author of "A Young Girl's Crimes"
Great Student Edition.......2002-10-31
This book is physically constructed like a student edition -- i.e., cheaply. The paper is cheap and thick, the ink thick and sometimes blotchy, with that great newspaper smell. If you're looking for a lovely edition of Aristophanes to sit on the mantle with your nice books, this is not.
The text is also organized like a student edition. The translations are great, lively, readable and fun. Each of the four plays is followed by a commentary, with textual and contextual explanation (pointing out Greek jokes that couldn't be translated, explaining Athenian politics, etc.). The back of the book is a glossary of names, places and institutions. The aids are clear and very helpful, especially for first time readers.
Book Description
Aristophanes is the only surviving representative of Greek Old Comedy, the exuberant, satirical form of festival drama which flourished during the heyday of classical Athenian culture in the fifth century BC. His plays are characterized by extraordinary combinations of fantasy and satire, sophistication and vulgarity, formality and freedom. Birds is an escapist fantasy in which two dissatisfied Athenians, in defiance of men and gods, bring about a city of birds, the eponymous Cloudcuckooland. In Lysistrata the heroine of the play organizes a sex-strike and the wives of Athens occupy the Akropolis in an attempt to restore peace to the city. The main source of comedy in the Assembly-Women is a similar usurpation of male power as the women attempt to reform Athenian society along utopian-communist lines. Finally, Wealth is Aristophanes' last surviving comedy, in which Ploutos, the god of wealth is cured of his blindness and the remarkable social consequences of his new discrimination are exemplified. This is the first complete verse translation of Aristophanes' comedies to appear for more than twenty-five years and makes freshly available one of the most remarkable comic playwrights in the entire Western tradition, complete with an illuminating introduction including play by play analysis and detailed notes.
Customer Reviews:
A Review on Aristophanes' Plays.......2001-04-02
Aristophanes is considered the finest comic playwrite of the Classical Era. This is certainly born out through the selection in this volume. Birds is a comedy about an Athenian who decides to incite the birds to take over the world and replace the classical deities as its rulers. Both Lysistrata and Assembly-Women are about what would happen if the women took over the government. In the former, the women of Greece band together in a sex-strike, to end the Pelopennesian Wars. In the later, the Athenian women use trickery to be elected the the leaders of the democracy, and they institute economic and sexual communism. In the last selection, Wealth, the deity of Wealth, Ploutos, is captured and made to distribute wealth only to the good. However, as Poverty points out, that might not be a good thing. These plays are full of topical comedy, but much of the humor still is funny 2400 years later. The translation is very uncensored, as Greek comedy itself was, so that very little is lost in metaphor. The imagery in some of them is highly amusing. Although this is a great example of the way life was in Classic Athens, these plays are not for the squeamish!!
Customer Reviews:
Three early Greek comedies by Aristophanes.......2004-07-30
"Aristophanes I" brings together three of the Greek comedians earliest extant comedies. The legend is that when Aristophanes' comedy "The Clouds" was first performed in Athens in 423 B.C., his target, Socrates, stood throughout the performance so that everyone in the audience was aware that he was there and hearing what was said of him. The portrait of Socrates clearly satirical and most critics consider it to be inaccurate. But Aristophanes is making fun of Athens' renowned "Think-tank" the "Phrontisterion," the school where the rich young men of Athens were taught the fine art of rhetoric. Instead of anything lofty the comic poet suggests the primary purpose of such an education is to be clever and out-reason greedy creditors. This is an especially good translation of the play, which includes insightful notes and essays on both Old Comedy and the Theater of Dionysus that helps readers understand the conventions of staged comedy at the time of Aristophanes.
In this comedy Socrates is consulted by an old rogue, Strepsiades (sometimes translated as "Twisterson"), who is upset with the mountain of debts his playboy son Phidippides, who loves fast horses and fast living. Phidippides agrees to go to Socrates' school of logic where he can learn to make a wrong argument sound right. After graduation is able to use the system of "unjust logic" to outwit his father and kick him out of the family home. The Chorus of Clouds comments on the proceedings and in the end the Phrontisterion is burned to the ground by Strepsiades. The flaw of the play is Aristophanes is trying to satirize the Sophists, who were popularizing a new philosophy that denied the possibility of ever reaching objective truth, he picked the wrong target. The Sophists were mostly teachers who were not native to Athens, such as Isocartes and Gorgias. "Sophist" basically meant teacher, so while Socrates was a "sophist" he was not a "Sophist." Twenty-four years later, when Socrates was condemned to death for "corrupting the youth of Athens," the only accuser he said he could name was a certain "comic poet" who renamed nameless.
The version of "The Clouds" that has passed down to us is not the original version, which was defeated by Cratinus' "Wine Flask" at a comedy competition during the Great Dionysia celebrations. We know this is a revised version because the Chorus complains about Aristophanes finishing third in that competition. However, critics assume it is essentially the same play, albeit a more polished version. Once you forgive Aristophanes for his unfair characterization of Socrates, "The Clouds" is a great comedy employing all of his standard tricks of the trade from fantasy and ribaldry to funny songs and obscene words.
"Wasps" ("Sphekes") appeals to contemporary audiences because it satirizes the litigiousness of the Athenians. Actually, the play, produced in 422 B.C., is more about the permanent tensions between conservative and liberal politics. Aristophanes is attacking the practice of the politician Cleon's exploitation of the large subsidized juries used in by the Athenian legal system. Bdelcylen ("Cleon-hater"), representing the position of the playwright, maintains that pay for public service is the device of demagogues to purchase loyalty. His father Philocleon("Cleon-lover"), a mean and waspish old man who has a passion for serving on juries, represents the Athenians.
Bdelcylen arranges for a court to be held at home to hear Philocleon's stupid little case of accusing the dog of the house of stealing cheese. The old man is cured of his passion for juries, becoming a drunkard instead. The best scenes in "Wasps" are Philocleon's attempts to escape when Bdelcyclen locks him up and the scene where the poor dog is tried. Certainly this play is representative of Aristophanes as a reformer, who wanted to persuade his audiences to change their foolish ways by ridiculing them on stage.
The problem with "The Birds" ("Ornithes") is that for once Aristophanes does not seem to be attacking some specific abuse in Athens. Still, we suspect that even this little fantasy is not simply escapist entertainment. Certainly there are those who see it as a political satire about the imperialistic dreams that resulted in the disastrous invasion of Sicily (which happened the year before his play was produced in 414 B.C.). Then again, this could just be Aristophanes bemoaning the decline of Athens.
Pisthetaerus ("Trusting") and Euelpides ("Hopeful") have grown tired of life in Athens and decide to build a utopia in the sky with the help of the birds, which they will name Necphelococcygia (which translates roughly as "Cloud Cuckoo Land"). Pisthetaerus and his feathered friends have to fight off those unworthy humans, malefactors and public nuisances all, who try and join their utopia. Then there are the gods, who come to make some sort of agreement with the new city because they have created a bottleneck for sacrifices coming from earth. Because it is a more general satire, "The Birds" tends to work better with younger audiences than most comedies by Aristophanes. Besides, the chorus of birds lends itself to fantastic costumes, which is always a plus with young theater goers.
In studying any of the Greek plays that remain it is important to I have always maintained that in studying Greek plays you want to know the dramatic conventions of these plays like the distinction between episodes and stasimons (scenes and songs), the "agon" (a formal debate on the crucial issue of the play), and the "parabasis" (in which the Chorus partially abandons its dramatic role and addresses the audience directly). Understanding these really enhances your enjoyment of the play.
Three classic plays translated for performers and students.......2004-02-03
Better known for translating the great Greek tragedies, Peter Meineck has now turned his pen on the comedies, with generally positive results. Like other translations published by Hackett, this one is aimed squarely at today's college students. It has plenty of historical background for those who want it, or can be read just for the plays.
Translating comedy is trickier than tragedy, because jokes are so fickle. What one society finds hilarious, another might find distasteful. Meineck does his best to render the old Greek jokes and still be funny. He doesn't always succeed. His skills at punning are not as great as Aristophanes', nor do the jokes about minor Athenian figures like Theorus and Cardopion add much to a performance text.
And these are performance texts. No matter how faithful to the original, no matter how many footnotes and endnotes the translator provides, a student should still be wary of changes made for modern performance. Today's theater operates under an entirely different set of conventions.
The plays themselves are three genuine classics, WASPS being less known than CLOUDS and BIRDS, but in this book, perhaps the best. Procleon's obsession with jury service and the headaches it causes his son translates very well, and Meineck is surprisingly adept at rendering the political understory that subliminally critizes the Athenian leader Cleon.
BIRDS is the story of two friends who come up with one of the great comic plans: a utopia named Cloudcuckooland where they, with the help of the birds, rule both the gods and men. And it works!
CLOUDS is read most often because it features a comic version of Socrates and his 'Pondertorium.' While Meineck and Introduction writer Ian C. Storey conclude the portrayal of Socrates is entirely innaccurate, it sure is funny. CLOUDS is really more of a father-son story, a father convincing his profligate son to get an education in order to argue the father's way out of the accumulating debts. What the father doesn't bank on is his son using new-learned rhetorical skills to argue that a son has the right to beat his father.
Meineck is British, so the slang in the plays is full of 'poofters' and 'arses.' I will say this much, only recently have translations of the Greek comic playwrights begun to reflect how genuinely bawdy they were. Some of Meineck's best footnotes let you in on the double-entendres.
It's all a lot of silly mischief, and in the final reckoning Aristophanes comes through loud and clear, despite such devices as rhymed doggerel passages (no rhymes in classical Greek) and confusing name translations like Makemedo. The title of this book is ARISTOPHANES I, and let us hope that professor Meineck is at work on an ARISTOPHANES II that will include some of Aristophanes lesser-known works as well as perennial favorite LYSISTRATA.
Book Description
Jean-Claude van Itallie is one of the most distinguished playwrights of the American avant-garde. A keen deconstruction of American popular culture, the America Hurrah triptych served notice that here was a major new dramatic voice. America Hurrah and Other Plays is a definitive collection of the work of a major American playwright, with such works as Bag Lady, written in the voice of a deceptively insightful homeless woman; The Serpent, a fanciful interpretation of the story of Adam and Eve; The Traveller, which depicts a charismatic and brilliant artist recovering from a stroke; and van Itallie's dazzling play based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Customer Reviews:
Great stuff - Good Doctor with pace.......2006-12-02
I had read The Good Doctor and enjoyed it plenty for great characters, great writing and a slow-building, relentless tension. The Quarry has the same great characterization and prose, but nothing at all slow about it. The beginning of the story is enthralling, both the introduction to the main character and the first incident at the quarry (best not read liner notes etc more max effect). What continues seems a combination of Greene's "Power and Glory" (in terms of "feel") and Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians" (in terms of suspense and pace). A fantastic aspect is the power of the not explicitly stated (e.g. main character's real name never revealed, ). And the construction and build-up to the denoument is something Tolstoy - like. The Quarry is clearly another example of the spectacular literature of South Africa.
The hearts and minds of South Africans haven't changed.......2006-04-12
In this stunning novel, Mr Galgut tells the story of a fugitive from justice hitchhiking in the desolate backdrop of South Africa and who is picked up by a driver, a minister on his way to a remote parish. When the minister discovers that the hitchhiker is a fugitive and confronts him in a disused quarry, the response is lethal.
This novel is a masterpiece featuring a story and characters utterly compelling. The author shows that even the quietest spots on earth can seethe with repressed violence. A blunt and tense read about guilt and evasion of truth. Justly enough, Mr Galgut has been compared to the greatest South African writers like Andr? Brink, Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee and Achmat Dangor.
Average customer rating:
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Peace. Birds. Frogs (Loeb Classical Library®)
Aristophanes
Manufacturer: Loeb Classical Library
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Aristophanes
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ASIN: 0674991982 |
Book Description
Birds differs from all other fifth-century plays of Aristophanes that survive in having no strong and obvious connection with a topical question of public interest, whether political, literary-theatrical or intellectual-educational. It has, in its own way, plenty of topical and satirical content; in particular as the city of Cuckooville begins to take shape, it proves in many ways to be a replica of Athens, and is soon visited by many of the less desirable elements of the Athenian population. But satire is kept firmly subordinate to fantasy; and as fantasy Birds has no rival in what we possess of Greek literature, until we reach Lucian nearly six centuries later. First published in 1987, current edition 1992. Parallel Greek text and English translation.
Customer Reviews:
Trusting Pisthetaerus builds a utopian city for the Birds.......2002-04-18
The problem with "The Birds" ("Ornithes") is that for once Aristophanes does not seem to be attacking some specific abuse in Athens. Still, we suspect that even this little fantasy is not simply escapist entertainment. Certainly there are those who see it as a political satire about the imperialistic dreams that resulted in the disastrous invasion of Sicily (which happened the year before his play was produced in 414 B.C.). Then again, this could just be Aristophanes bemoaning the decline of Athens.
Pisthetaerus ("Trusting") and Euelpides ("Hopeful") have grown tired of life in Athens and decide to build a utopia in the sky with the help of the birds, which they will name Necphelococcygia (which translates roughly as "Cloud Cuckoo Land"). Pisthetaerus and his feathered friends have to fight off those unworthy humans, malefactors and public nuisances all, who try and join their utopia. Then there are the gods, who come to make some sort of agreement with the new city because they have created a bottleneck for sacrifices coming from earth.
Because it is a more general satire, "The Birds" tends to work better with younger audiences than most comedies by Aristophanes. Besides, the chorus of birds lends itself to fantastic costumes, which is always a plus with young theater goers. In studying any of the Greek plays that remain it is important to I have always maintained that in studying Greek plays you want to know the dramatic conventions of these plays like the distinction between episodes and stasimons (scenes and songs), the "agon" (a formal debate on the crucial issue of the play), and the "parabasis" (in which the Chorus partially abandons its dramatic role and addresses the audience directly). Understanding these really enhances your enjoyment of the play.
You can lead a horse to water..........2000-05-10
Or rather, you can give an Athenian wings but he won't become a gentle agrarian bird rather, he'll rouse the citizenship, attack the Gods, and turn on you at the last possible moment. While some literary critics tout this as Aristophanes' most unfathomable work, well, I just think they're being silly. Maybe that's my own lack of education speaking, but I think The Birds a pretty obvious, as well as bitingly funny, commentary on humans, or men, or Athenians (all of these concepts probably being more or less the same to Aristophanes)as hopelessly political and power-hungry beings. One thing I love about this, and, I suppose, all of the Greek dramas, is that they are ultimately very malleable and applicable to my (our?) modern experience. (With a certain ammount of difficulty) you can lead a 21st Century North American to social conciousness but they're still gonna want and have the economic buying power to get, cheap Nikes. Cynical? Yes. Scathing? Yes. Real? You betcha. Sure we've got indoor plumbing, but our cultural context is back in the golden age. Lucky we've still got dudes like Aristophanes to give us a clue as to how to slog through it all.
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