Comic Poet Research Articles

Old Comedy and Athenian Power

Abstract In this article, jumping off from Geoffrey de Ste. Croix’s treatment of Aristophanes and the Megarian Decree, I argue that Old Comedy is an underutilised category of evidence for the study of the popular intellectual history of Athens. My particular focus here is the Athenian empire: how does Old Comedy present Athenian power and what does this comic presentation tell us about how at least some ordinary Athenians understood it? Can one popular Athenian imaginary of the empire be constructed through analysis of Aristophanes and his contemporaries? I will argue that Old Comedy, taken as a corpus, presents a very Athenian empire, that is to say one focused on Athens and its exploitation of others. The comic poets, therefore, likely assumed parochialism and myopia on the part of their audience, but also significant topical interest in the mechanisms of Athenian power, particularly those which brought revenue to Athens. This impression of highly topical engagement with the empire is corroborated by bringing Comedy into dialogue with other sources, in particular the epigraphic record.

Aelian and the Gods of Comedy

Abstract Aelian offers a curious example of how comedy was tied to religion during the Second Sophistic. He describes a votive relief dedicated by the Old Comic poet Theopompus to Asclepius, which he interprets as a symbol of the genre (Theopomp. Com. test. 2 PCG = Ael. fr. 102 Domingo-Forasté). My article situates this passage within the style and purpose of Aelian’s miscellanies, in order to explore how he transforms it into a literary monument that testifies to the god’s concern for Old Comedy—a striking departure from the more negative perceptions of the genre in the literary culture of his time. I propose two possible origins for the anecdote that might illuminate Aelian’s symbolic treatment: an actual votive relief linked to the playwright in an Attic sanctuary of Asclepius, or a comedy by Theopompus himself.

A Musical Mash-Up of Phrynichus Tragicus and New Music in Aristophanes’ Birds

Abstract I argue that in the ode and antode of Birds (737–52 and 769–84), Aristophanes presents a ‘mash-up’ of the early tragic songs of Phrynichus and the late fifth-century New Music. I analyze the comic presentation of both in Aristophanes and other comic poets to show that while they are contextually distinct, there is evidence of some musical congruity that renders them a fitting pair for combination in a mash-up. Regarding the ode and antode of Birds, I argue that despite the Phrynichean style of the songs, their meta-musical discourse shows a New Music poetics. I identify the New Musical aspect of the songs in the figure of the nightingale-aulete and the bird-noise refrains. Contextualizing the mash-up in the comic plot, I suggest that it constitutes a comic musical commentary on the play’s politics.

What is Athens without Menander? The Comic Poet, the Courtesan, and the Production of Space in Alciphron's Letters

What is Athens without Menander? The Comic Poet, the Courtesan, and the Production of Space in Alciphron's Letters

Holding the Baby: A Parody of Euripides’Augeat Philyllius Fragment 4

AbstractThis paper focuses on a hitherto unnoticed parody of a scene in Euripides’ Auge by the comic poet Philyllius at the outset of the fourth century. It argues that fragment 4 from Philyllius’ ...

Once More a Weasel

Abstract At the premiere of Euripides’ Orestes in 408 BCE, the actor Hegelochos, playing the part of Orestes, made a small but destructive error in his performance: while attempting to deliver the line ‘after the storm I see once more a calm’, he said instead, ‘after the storm I see once more a weasel’. The comic poets Strattis, Sannyrion, and Aristophanes each present versions of this error in their plays; this paper contextualizes their treatment of Hegelochos within the portrayal of tragic actors in comedy generally, and argues that they portray Hegelochos’ mistake as an act of instantaneous tragic parody.

Job Versus Hercules: Virtue in the Articles of the Byzantine Suda Dictionary of the 10th Century

Introduction. In ancient mythology, the image of Hercules is one of the most popular, and his heroic cult is one of the most common. Having emerged from the “conglomerate of folk tales”, the image of Hercules was actively assimilated by the Greek and then Roman literary tradition. Hercules was a very popular hero among Greek tragic and especially comic poets. In Roman times, the final systematization of the image took place. The key role in this process was played by the works of Apollodorus “The Mythological Library” (2nd century BC), “Pictures” by Philostratus the Younger (2nd century BC) and “Description of Hellas” by Pausanias (2nd century BC). Within the framework of the classical tradition, the image of Hercules in Roman times was finally formed and unambiguous. Hercules is a hero, a demigod, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, who possessed amazing strength, who killed his children (and the children of his brother Iphicles) in an act of madness. He performed 12 labours at the request of Eurystheus. Hercules lived with the Lydian queen Omphale dressing in a woman’s dress. He was poisoned by his wife Deianira, burned at the stake on Mount Eta and ascended to Olympus, where he became the spouse of Hebe. Methods. The hermeneutic methodology, which ensured the correct understanding and interpretation of the text of the Suda dictionary and the ancient texts, on which this “antique” dictionary was based, is used in the article. The toolkit of the hermeneutic circle (pre-understanding and understanding of the text, interpretation of the whole based on knowledge of its parts) made it possible to highlight key elements (plots, signs and symbols) of the philosophical image of Hercules in the entries of the dictionary. Results. We can see a kind of “muscular Christianity”, when the strength of the body still corresponds to moral perfection and the withdrawal from the world does not contradict the active entry into the still polis institutions of urban life in Byzantine cities, among which the most important was the hippodrome and sports competitions. Christian authors actively used traditional sports metaphors and images of wrestling, but filled them with new Christian content. In the dictionary of the Suda, there is a kind of replacement of images that embody the samples of virtue. Hercules always loses to Job. It is indicative that the Christian rhetoric, relying on the philosophical symbolism of the apotheosis of Hercules, using the “sports” terminology of struggle, ignores the developed philosophical symbolism of Hercules, and fights against the mythological “fables” about Hercules. Using cynical and stoic terminology, Christian rhetoric opposes the comedic and dramatic image of Hercules, as Herodore of Heracles did in the 5th century BC. That is, the enemy is borrowed from Christian rhetoric along with philosophical symbols and terminology describing a difficult life full of trials as a virtue.

Evidentiality and Mirativity in the Language of Roman Comedy

Summary:The paper deals with the ways of expressing evidential and mirative semantics in the language of Roman comedy. The author claims that the phenomena under consideration belong to the grammar rather than to the lexicon of the Latin language, and shows that various evidential and mirative values can be expressed by the use of verbal tenses, voices, moods and syntactic construction. It is stressed that evidential and mirative functions in such units result only from the interaction of different linguistic parameters within a certain context and does not reside in the units taken in isolation. The main focus of the study is on the linguistic techniques which were preferred by Plautus and Terence. The comparative analysis of the linguistic strategies found in the author's present and the previous research demonstrates that the choice of a particular strategy depends on a given genre. Thus, some strategies (e.g., impersonal passive, inferential perfect and future, imperfect of a truth just recognized, mirative use of the subjunctive and infinitive) are preferred by comic poets while other techniques (e.g., deductive use of debere, gnomic future as a reportative strategy, cum inversum as a mirative device) which may be used in historic or epic narrative, never occur in the language of Roman comedy.

Theopompus’ Homer: Paraepic in Old and Middle Comedy

AbstractThe remains of the comic poet Theopompus suggest an author preoccupied with Homer: three of twenty titles reference the Odyssey (Odysseus, Penelope, Sirens), a fragment without title shows ...

A Cidade e o Teatro em Cavaleiros de Aristófanes: O Poeta e o Político ”“ Introdução à tradução de Cavaleiros.


 
 
 A peça Cavaleiros, de Aristófanes, data de 424 a.C. e é a comédia mais política dentre as que nos restaram do comediógrafo, logo também é a mais política da comédia antiga grega. O enredo da peça é uma disputa, ou agón, entre um escravo (o Barraqueiro, que representa o demagogo Cléon), recém-comprado pelo Povo, personificado como o patrão, e um vendedor de chouriços (o Vendetripa, que sugerimos representar o Poeta coÌ‚mico), pela liderança de Atenas. A rivalidade e o antagonismo entre o Vendetripa e o Barraqueiro escondem uma identidade e duplicação de um no outro. O Povo de Atenas é a presa disputada por ambos, que usam de impudência e de malícia para conseguir o governo da pólis. Mas, no final, o Vendetripa se revela amigo verdadeiro do Povo, enquanto o Barraqueiro apenas finge ter amor ao Povo, para enriquecer. Traduzimos os nomes das personagens enfatizando suas características de vendedores do mercado: Vendetripa, Barraqueiro, Bom de Feira, Zeus Feirante.
 
 

Hermippos, Aspasia, and the Fates

In this paper I first survey briefly the career of Hermippos, unfairly dismissed by G. Norwood for being “unimportant as a comic poet.” He wrote parody ( parōidia) and iambics as well as comedy, producing about ten comedies over the years 435 to 415 with five victories. D. Gilula argued that “none of his comedies can be securely dated,” but I can place at least five of these plays to within a year or two of production. My principal interest lies in Fates, a comedy that can reasonably be dated to 430 and that contains a well-known lyric fragment (F 47) denouncing Perikles’ policy of Sitzkrieg in the first years of the War and a poignant description (F 48) of how Peace has yielded to War. I argue also that the “prosecution” of Aspasia by Hermippos for asebeia (Plutarch Perikles 32) belongs not to the law-courts but to a comedy and that that comedy is very likely to have been Fates.

The Emergence of the Lyric Canon by Theodora A. Hadjimichael

146 PHOENIX Davies’s text of the Cypria is rather conservative and avoids unnecessary emendations and audacious conjectures. This can also be said of his reconstruction of the plot, in which his main concern is to rely strictly on available data and to resist speculation, which is an obvious risk when we deal with fragments. On the other hand, his statements are often very peremptory, and one might expect that, in a work devoted to such a controversial subject, more room for doubt would be allowed. Apart from this, the commentary is very rich and thorough, which makes the book a valuable reference work even for those who do not completely share Davies’s approach. The author does not merely aim to reconstruct the plot, but also to contextualize its themes and motifs in the broader context of archaic literature and Mediterranean culture. Many related texts are reported in the original and much attention is devoted to folk-tale elements, Near Eastern influences, and artifacts (which are a particularly important source for Cyclic legends). Appendixes 1, 2, and 3 (197–204) briefly introduce three motifs that are connected with the plot of the Cypria, but might not have been featured in the poem. Appendix 4 (205–208) reports the fourteen testimonia on the Cypria contained in Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. The Bibliography (209–210) only contains frequently cited works. The book also includes an index of mythological names (211–212) and a succinct index of subjects (213). Empoli (FI) Pietro Verzina The Emergence of the Lyric Canon. By Theodora A. Hadjimichael. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2019. Pp. xxix, 333. Theodora Hadjimichael has produced a book on the reception of the most famous Greek lyric poets, beginning with their very first audience and ending with their canonization by epigrammatists in the Hellenistic period (Chapters One to Six); a final chapter, “The Paradox of Bacchylides,” serves as an appendix. Learned and clearly written, her study must be counted a success, although it should go without saying that any broad survey of these largely fragmentary poets (only Pindar has his own, albeit partial, transmission ) will elicit second thoughts and the occasional disagreement on the part of the reader. At the end, though, admiration of the book and gratitude to the author remain. The very notion of what constitutes a canon is discussed early on, where we learn that “canon,” although a Greek word, was first used in our modern sense of a limited number of authors judged the best of their kind in 1768, by David Ruhnken (6)—a sense oddly unknown to the OED. Hadjimichael is thus in the same position as Aristotle was in the Poetics: how to talk about something for which there is no Greek word (in Aristotle’s case, “literature”). Rather than merely accepting this admittedly useful notion, however, it would have been instructive for Hadjimichael to put this nameless idea into a wider context that would situate such a grouping. To me, it seems analogous to the familiar Greek practice of cataloguing and naming, as, for example, in Homer’s Catalogue of Ships and Hesiod’s Muses, the latter being the better comparandum here, where we see the establishment of an arbitrary numerus clausus of a larger group of sometimes nameless individuals, such as Muses, Moirai, Olympians, and Winds. This afforded the Greeks and others a sense of control over the world. Whatever its origin and purpose, the word clearly has its uses, and there is no harm in retrojecting the concept avant la lettre. Thus, one can easily imagine that a cultured Greek at the end of the fifth century, asked to name the best writers of lyric poetry (as BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 147 Hadjimichael shows, the adjective had yet to be applied to individuals), would quickly be able to produce a list of six to nine poets very close to, if not fully coinciding with, the ones chosen formally two to three centuries later. That this is the case is carefully detailed by Hadjimichael as she examines all the partial listings found chiefly in Aristophanes in the fifth century and in many other comic poets in the fourth (Chapter Two). Some might have included Lasus...

The Reputation of the Manteis in the Century after the Sicilian Expedition

In Greek myth and history manteis (‘seers’, ‘diviners’) had a respected position, which did not, however, save them from being mocked by the fifth-century comic poets. They possessed a distinct technê, which was considered especially important in warfare but useful for other purposes too. This article considers their social profile, and the varied reactions to them of diverse elements in the population. The manteis encouraged the Sicilian Expedition and suffered some reputational consequences from its failure. But in the fourth century they retained a considerable degree of respectability in spite of the negative opinions of most (though not all) intellectuals.

Lucilius and Nigidius Figulus on orthographic iconicity

AbstractThe comic poet Lucilius proposed several orthographic prescriptions in the ninth book of hisSatirae, written in the period 115–110 BC. In dealing with this topic, Lucilius severely criticized Accius’ statements on orthography, refusing his proposals of doubling vowels (“geminatio vocalium”) and overgeneralization of <ei> for /i:/. Lucilius’ prescriptions, which were borrowed by the philosopher Nigidius Figulus a century later, clearly follow the iconical principles of the pseudo-Stoicσυμπάσχειν-theory. In this paper a new interpretation of the orthographic iconicity in Lucilius’ and Nigidius’ doctrine is proposed, with reference to the case morphemes of *-ŏ- and *-ā- stems. As a matter of fact, “thickening” and “thinning” of the letter-forms (addĕrevstenuāre,pinguisvstenuis) can be satisfactorily explained only by taking account of <EI> and<I>spellings in a cursive script (namely <III> vs <I>). Finally, the key to explain the technical termstenuis‘thin’ vspinguis‘thick’ is traced back to an ancient metaphor of the wool-spinning practices.

Metaphors and Jokes in the Fragments of Cratinus

Metaphors and Jokes in the Fragments of Cratinus Naomi Scott What’s the difference between a metaphor and a joke? At first this might seem a strange question. Indeed, the differences are so obvious, and the similarities so much less so, that the question itself sounds like the opening to a joke in the “What’s the difference between an elephant and a blueberry?” style.1 However, in this article, I am going to suggest that the line between these two categories is far from clear-cut. Using examples from the comic poet Cratinus, I will show firstly that the same fundamental mechanism underlies jokes and metaphors, and secondly suggest that Cratinus’s metaphorical language in fact actively exploits the slippage between these two modes of speech to create humour and expose the inherent absurdities of literary language and convention. An understanding of the potentially ambiguous line between jokes and metaphors, and the extent to which these two modes of speech may not be entirely distinct categories, provides us with a particularly useful insight into the metaphorical language of Old Comedy. Comedy is hugely rich in metaphorical language,2 and its metaphors range from the large-scale [End Page 231] and structural (for example, the polis-as-oikos metaphor which underpins much of the plot of Aristophanes’ Knights),3 to the frequent short metaphors which colour its poetry. Given that the genre is also, needless to say, rich in humour, a model of metaphor which shows its close likeness to jokes and puns may go some way towards explaining the almost excessive fondness which comedy has for metaphorical language. Old Comedy also seems to be a good place to start when looking to understand how literary (as opposed to everyday) language works. Comedy often operates at the fault lines of language, exposing the impossibilities which, despite their centrality to the function of language (and especially literary language), might otherwise go undetected. Comedy in general, and (as I argue) Cratinus in particular, also has a tendency towards amplification. We therefore find in comedy literary phenomena such as metaphors in a somewhat exaggerated form, and this very lack of subtlety makes for useful case studies. I hope therefore to show not only that theoretical models of metaphor (and especially the model based on joke theory which I shall propose) have much to offer in our understanding of Old Comedy, but also that comic language in its very comicness has much to offer to our theoretical understanding of literary metaphor. METAPHORS AND JOKE THEORY The contention that metaphors and jokes are underpinned by the same fundamental mechanism rests on the observation that, at their core, both involve taking two apparently disparate ideas and mapping them onto one another. In metaphors, this mapping takes the form of the comparison drawn between the vehicle and the tenor (or source and target), whereby one is understood in terms of the other. From the 1990s onward, there has been interest in understanding this relationship between vehicle and tenor from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. This cognitive approach takes as its starting point the idea that metaphorical comparisons involve the mapping not only of linguistic categories, but also of underlying conceptual [End Page 232] domains. Cognitive approaches stress the embeddedness of metaphorical language in everyday speech. For example, common idiomatic expressions such as “the foundations of a theory” or “constructing an argument” are understood to be the linguistic manifestations of an underlying conceptual metaphor THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS.4 Of these cognitive models, the most dominant has been Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner’s theory of “conceptual blending,”5 which they set out in their 2002 book: The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. According to Fauconnier and Turner, metaphorical language not only involves the two inputs of vehicle and tenor, it also creates a third mental space in which these two inputs are blended together in an impossible way. The most famous and often cited of Fauconnier and Turner’s examples involves an effort in 1993 to break a longstanding sailing record set in 1853. Newspaper reportage described the 1993 ship as being “4 days ahead” of its 1853 predecessor. According to...

A recepção das tragédias fragmentárias de Eurípides nos séculos V e IV a.C.

Este artigo apresenta um panorama da recepção das tragédias fragmentárias de Eurípides durante os séculos V e IV a.C. e de sua contribuição para nossos conhecimentos sobre os enredos. Aspectos selecionados das performances, reapresentações e influências das tragédias Andrômeda, Cresfonte, Éolo, Erecteu, Hipsípile,Télefoe Teseuem poetas trágicos, poetas cômicos, decoradores de vasos e comentadores antigos são brevemente discutidos.

Quaestiones Convivales: Plutarch’s Sense of Humour as Evidence of his Platonism

AbstractGiven Plutarch’s fragmentary piece on Aristophanes and Menander (Mor. 853A–854D), a piece ofTable Talkon almost the same topic (Mor. 711A–713F) and various attacks on comic poets scattered through theLives, one might believe that Plutarch is a staid, conservative and humourless author. But several other instances in his writings reveal a playful, facetious, witty and humorous Plutarch. This paper will focus on theQuaestiones Convivales, which bear ample witness to this aspect of Plutarch’s personality and authorial technique. It will examine the ways in which he introduces and describes the various interlocutors, discuss certain comments (or arguments) with which he tries to ridicule his philosophical opponents, notably the Stoics and the Epicureans, try to distinguish the various manifestations of Plutarch’s humour (spontaneous reaction, literary device, pleasantry, witticism, irony) and finally suggest that Plutarch’s stance and attitude towards playfulness, comic situations and laughter may ultimately be affected, at least in part, by his allegiance to Plato.

Thinking through The Clouds: Comedy in Hegel and Strauss

This article reconstructs a dialogue between three modern philosophical treatments of the Ancient Greek comic poet Aristophanes's play, The Clouds (first performed in 423 BCE), which has generally been received as an unjust satire of Socrates. I argue that Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Leo Strauss all assume a rather unconventional position in their respective readings—especially given their status as philosophers—by actually coming to the comedian's defense, and by showing, in distinct but related ways, how his play grasps the “negativity” in Socrates more profoundly than do the other depictions of the philosopher that have been bequeathed to posterity. By further appealing to the hidden affinities between Aristophanes and Socrates, each of these modern thinkers, finally, shows himself to be invested in the specific function of the comedian‐satirist within the polis, an investment that has implications for both antiquity and modernity.

Introduction: Shaw and Classical Literature—What You See Is Not Always What You Get

Introduction: Shaw and Classical Literature—What You See Is Not Always What You Get

Cratinus fr. 74 Kassel-Austin and some problematic Greek words (κύρτη and the group καλιά/καλιός/καλίδιον) at Pollux 10.160–1

At 10.160–1, Pollux cites Herodotus, Archilochus and three 5th-century comic poets to explain the meaning of κύρτη and the group καλιά/καλιός/καλίδιον. I examine Pollux’ treatment of these words in an attempt to make better sense of them than the standard modern lexica do, while also demonstrating the fragility of our understanding of καλιός in Cratinus fr. 74 in particular.1