Toxic Love in Aristophanes' Comedy "Lysistrata"

Abstract

The theme of love is not often addressed by researchers of ancient literature. Many interesting topics are developed in
Aristophanes' comedy "Lysistrata", such as: the problems of war and peace, the role of a female leader in the society, the function
of comic catharsis, and others. Our goal is to present this famous comedy by Aristophanes from a completely different aspect and
bring the theme of love to the forefront. In fact, this issue has never been the subject of study. Moreover, the majority of scholars
believe that the motif of love in ancient literature should not be sought until Apollonius of Rhodes' "Argonautics". We will try to
prove the opposite. This comedy by Aristophanes conveys the idea that women need men just as much as men need women. They
need each other's love. Perhaps the strike organized by Lysistrata was the first mass strike of women. Aristophanes's striking
women do not seek to destroy men, but rather strive for unity with them. The comic nature of the work lies in the fact that the
goal set by the heroes is serious, but the means used to achieve it are frivolous (peace is established by shifting the emphasis to the
sexual side, emotions, and love), although thought-provoking.
The goal of women who have a clear leader is not the neutralization of men themselves, but only one of their main
functions, the desire to wage war. Achieving this goal, in fact, teaches men to capitulate to women. This result is brought about by
Lysistrata's well-organized, well-motivated, and most importantly, correctly chosen policy – to temporarily refuse men love.