Attic Comedy Research Articles

Art and Archaeology

This review again reflects the exciting chronological and geographical range within which Classicists operate and the diverse approaches and disciplinary knowledge that illuminate the ancient world for us. Alexa Piqueux's monograph, The Comic Body in Ancient Greek Theatre and Art, 440–320BCE, explores how costume and gesture entwine with speech to bring alive the comedy body, drawing equally on images painted on vases and extant texts of Old and Middle Comedy. One of the greatest difficulties of working with these two data sets is that the texts originate in Athens while the majority of vases that depict comedy were actually made in southern Italy and Sicily. This necessitates a first chapter that investigates the ‘Italianness’ of these vases, the extent to which they might be directly reflective of Attic comedy, drawing on that comedy more generally for thematic inspiration, or showing adaptation of Greek comedy and its performance in Italian contexts. This might involve looking for clues in the images of the construction of temporary stages on which travelling troupes might have been performing in Italy (57) or considering the way in which particular comic themes, that seem so peculiar to Athens, might have played to different audiences in Italy by appealing to contentions within local societies, for example generational divides in Paestan society (66).

“Modus Vivendi” of an Athenian (Attic) Citizen (on Aristophanes’ Comedies)

The paper shows how, based on selected texts by Aristophanes (5th — 4th centuries BC), a prominent representative of the ancient Attic comedy, it is possible to recreate the lifestyle (“modus vivendi”) of an Athenian (Attic) citizen. It is discussed that when solving the task, it is necessary to take into account what material to use, as well as how to build a narrative. It is noted that the proposed technique can also be applied to other comedies by Aristophanes (or the texts of other authors of the distant past — whether it be Antiquity, the Middle Ages or Modern Times), studied, for instance, in order to identify the characteristic features of one person or group of ones of a different social circle, to reconstruct individual or collective biographies.

THE AFTERLIFE OF SAPPHO'S AFTERLIFE

This article explores an important aspect of the constellation of elements that contribute to the construction of the image of ‘Sappho’ from antiquity to the twentieth century, that of Sappho's ultimate destiny after her fatal leap from the Rock of Leucas. I first argue that the story of Sappho's leap lies behind the description of the Underworld in a long fragment of a fifth-century Attic comedy, theMinersof Pherecrates, and that indeed ‘Sappho’ appeared as a character in the play. The next sections examine the background and the iconic function of Sappho's leap in the underground Basilica near Porta Maggiore in Rome and connects all these elements to the way in which the Underworld is represented in Sappho's textual fragments. The fifth section of the article deals with the ways in which Sappho's fate was reconfigured from the Renaissance onward, examining first visual, musical and dramatic representations. In the final part I focus on the ways the motif is transformed by Baudelaire and Yourcenar. The image of the poetess can shift from being an icon of an eschatological message of new life to one of an exemplary failure, two poles that have an impact both on the reception of classical antiquity and on the vision of the destiny of poetry itself.

Chapter Four Didymus and comedy

Abstract Didymus’ commentaries on the comic playwrights and his Comic Vocabulary responded to the interests of the readership of Attic comedy primarily in two ways: by summarizing the opinions of previous scholars and by offering a wide range of explanations, useful also to less specialized readers. Although his exegesis of comedy is now preserved only through quotations (mainly in the scholia to Aristophanes), it is still possible to identify the main features and interests of Didymus’ interpretative work and highlight its relevance for both ancient and contemporary readers of Greek comedy.

THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL: AN EROTIC READING OF SOCRATES’ FIRST ARGUMENT IN PLATO'S HIPPIAS MAJOR

ABSTRACTThis article looks to Attic comedy to explain Socrates’ first argument in Plato's Hippias Major: his refutation of Hippias’ claim that the Beautiful is a beautiful girl. As part of his argument, Socrates introduces three examples of beautiful things—a mare (θήλεια ἵππος), a lyre (λύρα) and a pot (χύτρα)—all of which are used in comedy as metaphorical obscenities for sexualized women. The author contends that an erotic reading of the text accomplishes what no other interpretation can: (1) a unified account of the passage that (2) allows for Socrates’ successful refutation of (3) a proposal in keeping with Hippias’ character. In addition, it explains (4) Socrates’ choice of examples—in particular, the rarely cited χύτρα—and (5) Hippias’ otherwise inexplicable reaction to the χύτρα, as well as (6) the analogous relationship of monkeys and men to pots and girls.

Retórica, tradición misógina y humor en la Declamación XXVI de Libanio de Antioquía

Libanius presents in his Declamation XXVI a misanthrope who addresses the Council to be allowed to commit suicide, because he has married a talkative woman and he cannot bear it. There are two points of reference that the author has followed for the construction of his characters. On the one hand, the practice of the schools of rhetoric, where one of the topicson which they worked in the preparatory exercises was whether or not to marry. On the other, Attic comedy, which made fun of feminine defects and warned about the dangers of taking a wife, within a long misogynistic tradition that has been present since the beginning of Greek literature

ОБРАЗ ПЕРИКЛА В ДРЕВНЕАТТИЧЕСКОЙ КОМЕДИИ

ОБРАЗ ПЕРИКЛА В ДРЕВНЕАТТИЧЕСКОЙ КОМЕДИИ

Public intellectuals, political satire and the birth of activist public relations: The case of Attic Comedy

The purpose of this article is to explore the origins of dissent public relations and to establish its emergence in the context of the ancient Greek comedy represented by Aristophanes. Indeed, Attic Comedy (also known as Old Comedy) was the first great example of today’s mass communication, in which political satire was used to dissent and protest against political and social circumstances in fifth-century BC Athens. This situation was conditioned by the Peloponnesian War and its political, economic and social consequences. From this perspective, this article also constitutes an investigation into the intellectual history of public relations, of which Aristophanes can be considered to be one of the first practitioners.

Nietzsches Aristophanes

Abstract Nietzsche’s Aristophanes. Nietzsche dealt extensively with Aristophanes in his early work. This article reconstructs some of the sources and contexts of Nietzsche’s work on Aristophanes and, against the backdrop of the conventional image of Aristophanes in classical philology, pays tribute to Nietzsche’s farsighted social and political analysis of Attic comedy.

Self-Rapists, Adulterers and Unrelenting Inquisitors – How Bogusław Butrymowicz and Edmund Cięglewicz Introduced Aristophanic Comedy into Polish Reading Culture

In this article, I would like to reflect on the question of the introduction of Old Attic comedy to Polish reading culture. My main source for trying to recon­struct how Aristophanes’ comedies have been brought into Polish reading culture is the first “complete” translations produced at the beginning of the 20th century by Bogusław Butrymowicz and Edmund Cięglewicz. We are still in the period parallel to the Victorian era in England, so we can apparently predict, before even getting down to reading, what both the authors’ translation strategies may look like, es­pecially in the face of Aristophanes’ prolific sexual innuendos. It turns out, how­ever, that each of the authors being reviewed by me somehow tried to pick up the gauntlet which had been thrown down by the ancient playwright. Their courage to translate the original meanings without beating about the bush surprises us many a time, especially when we compare the Polish translations by them with those made into English by Benjamin Bickley Rogers, in the same period. Both Butrymowicz and Cięglewicz worked directly on the original Greek texts. Their prose translations released by the most popular publishers enabled outsiders to the small circle of ex­perts to read pieces of ancient literature. As for pupils, students, theatre directors and theatregoers, their first (and usually only) contact with Aristophanes was by reading those translations.

Horacio y su historia de la sátira

La historia de la sátira trazada por Horacio en sus Sermones empieza con Lucilio, el inuentor del género, que se inspira en el espíritu satírico de la vieja comedia ática, pero no desarrolla todas sus potencialidades. A este primer tiempo brillante, pero fallido por haberse estancado la sátira en manos de los seguidores de Lucilio que imitaron solo de sus defectos, le sigue un segundo tiempo en el que, tras los intentos frustrados del neotérico «Varrón Atacino y otros» por reencauzar el género, Horacio consigue llevarlo a la perfección que le permite entrar en el canon clásico. De esta forma, Horacio no es el primus en sentido cronológico pero sí en el sentido de excelencia y desde ahí construye la tradición de la sátira de acuerdo con sus propios intereses, pero hay que aceptar que la extraviada evolución postluciliana de la sátira jugó a su favor.

Utopian Motifs in Early Greek Concepts of the Afterlife

AbstractThis paper explores the use of utopian motifs in early Greek concepts of the afterlife. The notion of a paradisiacal existence for selected heroes after death is widespread in Greek thought, going back at least as far as Hesiod, and appearing in such diverse sources as Pindar, the Orphic gold leaves, Attic comedy, and Lucian. Such idyllic afterlives share various features common to Lewis Mumford’s ‘utopias of escape’ (The Story of Utopias, London, 1922, 15), such as the absence of pain and toil, plentiful and self-supplying food and drink, the company of one’s peers, and so forth. They also share the utopian ideals of selective and restricted citizenship – although the requirements for entry may vary. The popularity of eschatological utopias is associated with the theme of a lost ‘Golden Age’ and the consequent assumption of the inevitable decline of human societies. Although often regarded as escapist fantasies, eschatological utopias do react, often critically, to perceived issues in the societies that constructed them. Their unreal nature is regarded as problematic, and through their association with Kronos and the Golden Age they exemplify the dangers ofanomia.But they also provide a means by which an individual can preserve his consciousness and identity in death.

Righteous Deception

Righteous Deception

Драматургія Арістофана та криза полісного світогляду

The purpose of the article is analysis of correlation between specifics of composition in Aristophanes’ comedy and fundamental changes of Athenians’ world-view. In the end of V – beginning of IV century B.C. – period of progressive decline of Athens which caused rethinking of new way of interference between world and human being.Using comparative and historical approaches author argues that while tragedy remains restrained by genre canon formed in the epoch of Athens’ flowering, Aristophanes’ comedy with its freedom of contents and representation means is proves to be able to answer demands of new time.The analysis of structure of Aristophanes’ plays reveals tendencies of violation of standard pattern of Greek drama, freedom in arranging traditional dramatic elements as parabasis, agon, part of chorus etc. As a result dramatic action is developed as system of equivalently meaningful episodes. This principle of dramatic composition allows Aristophanes to show complicated interaction between remote aspects of polis’ life such as war, citizenship law, literature, philosophy and private life.Freedom in dramatic structuring includes violation of time and place unity, genre interaction, combining of laughter and seriousness, breaking of theatrical illusion which are signs of folk chronotope and open dramatic form.Research implication. Downfall of Athens and fundamental changes in Athenian’s world-view caused overrun of dramatic tradition. Principles of open form in Aristophanes’ comedies are considered as discovering of new artistic methods to rethink new situation.Consideration of Old Attic Comedy as first example of open form in Europan theatre determines originality of the article.

Graikų dialektai senojoje atikinėje komedijoje

The present article deals with the Greek dialects in Old Attic Comedy. Aristophanes is the greatest representative of this genre and the one whose complete plays have been preserved. The works of his contemporary comic poets have survived in fragments. The author of this article analyses some dialectal features of comediographs such as Apollophanes, Crates, Eupolis, Epilycus, Strattis, Aristophanes. The fragments of Old Comedy are difficult to interpret because sometimes excerpts are badly battered, the dramatic context is missing, and we do not know who is speaking the fragmentary lines that have survived. The analysis of dialectal forms shows that Greek comediographs were interested in dialects. The representation of different dialects was customary in Old Attic Comedy. Comic writers used non-Attic dialects to make their personages more realistic or to make a mock of them. Many dialectal forms in comedies contain comicality, irony, parody, intertextuality or are paratragic and might be borrowed from a tragedy, lyric or epos. In the comedies Lysistrata and Acharnians, Aristophanes reproduces Laconian, Megarian, and Boiotian speeches. He had to pick out a convincing number of the most peculiar features present to these dialects to the audience. The phonologic and morphologic features of the dialectal words in comedies generally accord with epigraphic records.

Ephippos’ Geryones: A Comedy between Myth and Folktale

The fragments of Ephippos’ Geryones include a long description of a huge fish cooked by Geryones in a correspondingly oversized casserole (fr. 5). This kind of description is amply paralleled in folktales from around the world concerning gigantic objects. Stories of this type were widely diffused already in antiquity, both in Greece and in the Near East. It is likely that Ephippos’ passage was inspired by the popular narrative tradition of his time. Comparison with the folktale material helps understand the context of fr. 5 and its function in the play. Various traditional elements of Geryones’ myth (his gigantic size, herds of oxen, far-off island, and the cup of Helios used to reach it) are comically reflected in Ephippos’ text, intermingled with folktale motifs. As usually in folk tradition, the description of the giant fish may have been a false tale. It would doubtless stimulate the appetite of Heracles, the central hero of the play, and incite him to travel to Geryones’ land; but the hero would be finally disappointed of the huge meal he expected (a common motif in Attic comedy). Fr. 3 from the same play indicates that “Heracles losing his meal” was a recurrent Leitmotiv in the plot.

O parabazie u jej antycznych źródeł

Modern reflection on a literary work uses the term "parabasis", which has been borrowed from ancient tradition. In the article the author goes back to the very sources of parabasis and reminds the meaning of the word parabasis which in Greek means departure from something, leaving the stage and the chorus remains to address the audience directly and in reference to Old Attic comedy, with which it is unequivocally associated, it means the structural part of a literary work in which a suspense of dramatic action occurs. Particular parabases were discussed which are found in the extant comedies of Aristophanes, this in order to find out that in none of the comedies it occurs in its complete model form as accepted by classical philologists on the basis of material known from Aristophanes and from fragments of comedies by other authors. The practical function of parabasis and its particular parts were shown on the example of The Knights by Aristophanes. In the final part of the article the author presented some contemporary views on parabasis of which some speak traditionally about breaking the scenic illusion while the others about the integral relation of parabasis with the other parts of the comedy. The author concludes that in spite of all parabases in Greek comedy have no parallel either in the earlier or in the later Greek literature. It has its own poetics, its own structure, and explicitly breaks science illusion, even if Greeks differently viewed the very phenomenon of breaking illusion in drama.

The drunk, the reformer and the teacher: agonistic poetics and the construction of persona in the comic poets of the fifth century

Although the role of competition in Greek cultural and social practices has been well documented and studied, it is only in the last decades that the extent to which it permeates Athenian drama has been realised. The element of competition in Athenian dramatic performances is now widely used as an interpretative tool, especially in Old comedy, where the competitive conditions of performance are overtly articulated. As research on the fragmentary comic poets proliferates, Aristophanes' rivals have become a far more visible element in the scenery of Old Attic comedy and, as a result, the fiercely competitive dimension of comic performances is more easily traced. We are now able to ask questions from new perspectives, and understand better such issues as authorial collaboration, charges of plagiarism, claims of degeneration and decline in the quality of plays and their authors, as well as illustrate the enormous role of audience reception in the interpretation of Old comedy. Aristophanes' bombastic and self-righteous comments regarding himself and his poetry are now read in a more nuanced manner, as a competitive poetic strategy which constructs a fictionalised ‘Aristophanes’.

The Resurrection of Aristeides, Miltiades, Solon and Perikles in Eupolis’Demes

The arrival of Aristeides, Miltiades, Solon and Perikles in Eupolis'Demeswas arguably one of the most celebrated scenes of Attic Old Comedy. Platonios (diff. char. 13-4) praises Eupolis for ‘being capable of resurrecting (ἀνάγειν) from Hades the characters of lawgivers and through them to discuss the establishment or the repeal of laws.’ Aelius Aristides (3.365) observes that ‘a certain comic poet depicted four of the Athenian leaders as coming back to life (ἀνεστῶτας).’ Platonios uses the verb ἀνάγω to refer to the ascent of the four statesmen to the upper world, whereas Aelius Aristides chooses ἀνίστημι. Both ἀνάγω and ἀνίστημι describe an upwards movement, and suggest a return to the world of the living. Neither of them, however, specifies the nature of this journey.

Oxford readings in Aristophanes

This anthology should be a 'must' for all serious students of Aristophanes. It brings together for the first tinme in one volume all the most important contributions to the study of Aristophanes published over the last several decades - providing an ideal resource for anyone studying the plays. Aristophanes is the only surviving author of Greek Attic comedy who has left us more than fragments, and his eleven surviving plays reflect the spirit of Athens in the golden age - and its unique freedom of speech. The book deals not only with the better known comedies like Clouds and Birds, but also the later, more unusual works like The Assembywomen and Wealth, which represent important stages towards the evolution of modern comedy. Subjects range from the classic question of Aristophanes' relationship to contemporary politics to more modern issues such as feminism, gender, performance context, and the interaction between fifth century comedy and tragedy. Many of the contributions are not otherwise readily available to students and teachers, coming from foreign journals and books, difficult to obtain. All the greek has been translated for the benefit of students reading the plays in English.