Figure esemplari in commedia: Aristofane e la distorsione dei paradigmi

Abstract

In the comedies of Aristophanes, mythological paradigms undergo the usual mechanisms of comic distortion, based on polysemy and linguistic conventions. This paper analyzes the exempla that articulate the two agones of the Clouds, focusing also on the strategy that underlies the choice of relevant events and characters. The comparison with similar exempla in tragedy aims to show that Euripides has already exposed the multiple ironies inherent in the paradeigma as a rhetorical tool. Aristophanes, on the other hand, exploits the paradoxes of dialectics to show that, even if paradigms are the most effective weapon to win the contest, in the economy of the play the epideixeis of both the hetton logos and Pheidippides turn out to be a failure.