Tragedy on the Comic Stage by Matthew C. Farmer

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 179 is an indication of divine involvement—a point she makes repeatedly (and on which cf. Poetics 1452a4–11)—the basis for this claim remains an accumulation of examples; the argument itself is made ex silentio. Such criticisms do not invalidate Lefkowitz’s central thesis. Indeed, given the persistence of the interpretive tradition which views Euripides as a religious revolutionary,1 it is both necessary and timely. If I am skeptical in some respects, it is because tragedy is a complex art and because I genuinely doubt whether it is possible to make a robust case for what Euripides personally believed on the basis of his poetic output. Lefkowitz, I suspect, may feel the same way, but what else do we have to work with? University of Manitoba C. Michael Sampson Tragedy on the Comic Stage. By Matthew C. Farmer. New York: Oxford University Press. 2017. Pp. xi, 267. In the first part of his book, Matthew Farmer examines systematically, for the first time, what can be said about the treatment of tragedy in the hundreds of Attic comedies of which only fragments survive, under the headings of “tragic culture” (Chapter One, “Electra and the Coal Pan: Tragic Culture in the Comic Fragments”) and “tragic parody” (Chapter Two, “Give Me a Bit of Paratragedy: Tragic Parody in the Comic Fragments”). The former term covers “all the ways the comic poets depict their characters . . . talking about tragedy” (12–13); the latter denotes “comic imitations of tragic language, characters, plot, and spectacle” (69). Farmer recognizes that the dichotomy is somewhat artificial, since the two phenomena tend to occur together and morph into each other (65), but it is useful nevertheless. Tragic culture—interest in, and enthusiasm for, tragic drama—suffuses Athenian society of the fifth and fourth centuries. Farmer makes extensive use of the concept of “fandom” introduced to the study of Athenian drama by Ralph Rosen;1 the tragedy fan is a frequent figure in comedy of all periods. The main diachronic development in comedy ’s reflection of tragic culture is, not surprisingly, an increasing focus on dramatists of the past at the expense of those of the present. Tragic parody is, according to Farmer, “an essential feature of all Greek comedy” (71, 113); certainly we have no complete, or nearly complete, comedy from which tragic parody, as defined above, is absent. Coverage has thus to be selective, but a dozen dramatists receive substantial discussion. Farmer is not entirely consistent in his view of how far the subtler features of tragic parody would be appreciated by audiences. At one point (82) he says that the comic poets wrote for an audience “capable of identifying the original tragic sources . . . and [incorporating them] into their understandings of the parodic comedies”; at another (103), more realistically, he distinguishes between more and less sophisticated spectators (cf. Ar. Eccl. 1155–57 on the contest judges). His discussion of Strattis’ Phoinissai (95–103), however, arguably overestimates the abilities even of the more sophisticated. Thus, according to Farmer (97–98), the parody of Eur. 1 See, for a recent example, Pietro Pucci, Euripides’ Revolution under Cover: An Essay (Ithaca 2016). 1 R. Rosen, “Aristophanes, Fandom and the Classicizing of Greek Tragedy,” in L. A. Kozak and J. W. Rich (ed.), Playing around Aristophanes (Oxford 2006) 27–47. 180 PHOENIX Phoen. 546 in Strattis fr. 48 “shows him . . . as a subtle reader of Euripides’ play” because Phoen. 541–547 “stands out . . . as a crucial turning point in the development of Podlecki’s pattern of sun imagery.” This can be true, however, only if (1) the Euripidean passage does have special structural significance, and (2) Strattis perceived this and expected a non-negligible proportion of his audience to perceive it as well, and (3) a large proportion of his other perverted quotations from Euripides’ play were likewise taken from passages of special critical interest. That is quite a stretch. Part Two of the book focuses on Aristophanes’ Wasps (Chapter Three, “The Man Is Obsessed with Song: A Contest of Genres in Wasps”), Thesmophoriazusae (Chapter Four, “Euripides in the Echo Chamber: Poets and their Poetry in Women at the Thesmophoria”), and Wealth (Chapter Five, “Writing Beyond Genres...