The Mechanisms of Humor in Aristophanes. (original) (raw)
The combination of fantasy and political satire determines the hybrid nature of Old Comedy — this idiosyncratic type of comic drama which flourished in fifth-century Athens, between the glamour of Pericles’ Golden Age and the tumult of the Peloponnesian War, between the marbles of the Acropolis and the quarries of Sicily. On one hand, we find marvellous adventures and unrealistic utopias, magical qualities and supernatural creatures, castles in the air and beasts talking with human voice — elements of fairytale and popular imagination, as though drawn from the pages of the Brothers Grimm or the Baron Munchausen. On the other hand, there is intense preoccupation with political actuality and caustic ridicule of the leaders and institutions of the democratic polis. This kind of comedy flies towards the clouds of phantasmagoria, and at the same time walks in the Pnyx and the Athenian Agora. From the tension between these two opposite movements arises the rough harmony of a unique poetic genre. Fairytale fantasy and political satire mutually function and are expressed via each other. The extravagant conceptions become the means for bringing on stage and ridiculing the public life of the city. And conversely, the issues and personalities of Athenian politics are the materials that are metamorphosed, as though with the touch of a magic wand, and become the bricks for the building of the fantastic world. Especially in Aristophanes’ oeuvre, the process of political signification is applied par excellence to the materials of fantasy and fairytale. What Cratinus repeatedly did with epic myth (e.g. in the Dionysalexandros and the Nemesis), Aristophanes attempts with motifs and patterns from the folk tradition of magical Märchen. This practice is the trademark of Aristophanic comedy, which reconstructs and retells political reality in the guise of a fairytale. Aristophanes takes over the genre of “fairytale comedy” (Märchenkomödie), which had been perfected by Crates and Pherecrates in the preceding generation; and he mixes it with the art of political allegory invented by Cratinus. A series of examples from the earlier comedies of Aristophanes (Clouds, Acharnians, Peace) illustrate the poet’s method of work.
Defining Comedy as Political Critique: Drawing the line between Aristophanes and contemporary comedy
This study is a discussion of the function of comedy as political critique and its role in the contemporary society, locating it back to its traditional historic origins and examining its development as mainly a form of entertainment combining the need to criticise and satirise current events, social issues and trends, as well as flaws and mistakes related to politics. According to the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, all ideas have a historical essence. Therefore, in contradiction to Plato’s belief of ideas being eternal, timeless and ahistorical, Hegel suggests that an idea is a historical figure that is born and developed in a historically specific society. The reason I am choosing to agree with Hegel in this case is the fact that Plato’s opinion leads me to interpretive impasse. Agreeing with Hegel and thinking of an idea, in this situation comedy, as a historical figure, I am able to trace the reasons it was born and the causes for which it took the form of political satire and did not remain a simple source of amusement and laughter. For this reason, I need to underline from the very beginning that the research is focusing around Aristophanes, whose work has inspired his contemporaries as well as future theatre makers and artists in general. In addition to that and the main reason he is becoming a reference point throughout this study, based on the theory explained above is that he set the basis for the evolution of comedy as a form of entertainment to political satire. Firstly, I am aiming to understand the relationship between Aristophanes’ work and the politics of his time. I am meaning to identify the position of his comedy as a critique towards his society, the flaws and faults of the government, as well as the mistakes of the citizens. Consequently, this will lead me to recognise satire’s as well as the comedian’s position in a contemporary society. However, in order achieve this I am exploring the socio political and historical background in which Aristophanes lived and developed his work and identify his political scope through the examination of several contradicting opinions by theorists, such as E. Spyropoulos, F. Dekazou Stephanopoulos, N.G. Mpouras, M. Croiset, as well as the poet’s comic work. In this process I will also question and investigate the existence and function of political satire in a non democratic environment, which nonetheless will not be answered in this chapter, but will be concluded on a later chapter, as some further inquiry is considered necessary here. Carrying on I am investigating the role of indecency -in the context of ancient Greek comedy and in relation to humorous yet obscene incidents, such as sexual innuendos or even representations of sexual acts and scatological humor- in Aristophanes work and the contradiction to the poet’s acclaimed ethos. Through this I am intending to reach a definitive opinion on why the poet chose comedy as a theatrical form to address his political critique, and how he incorporated all its characteristics that traced back to its very origins and were often contradicting to the higher purpose of his work. I am realising this through the study of Aristophanes work locating the aspects where indecency appears, such as in scenography, costume, music and choreography, in addition to the comical scenes, the character’s behaviors and the language, and its forms, as well as tracing the contradiction to the poet’s acclaimed ethos. From then on, my target is using the above as a basis to analyse the way in which comedy has developed since Aristophanes time, as a form of entertainment, as well as in its relationship to politics. However, I am approaching this looking at two specific examples, that I have chosen because of the worldwide interest and impact they have had; Southpark episode 201 aired in 2010 depicting the prophet Muhammad, and the film The Interview produced in 2014 mocking the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Finally, summarising everything that has been examined and discussed before and using that as foundation, I am attempting to site a clear definition of comedy as political critique, which will embody satire’s historical background, as well as the process of its transformation from a source of entertainment to a channel for political statement.
The court of comedy: Aristophanes, rhetoric, and democracy in fifth-century Athens
Choice Reviews Online, 2014
Aristotle is working out the characteristics of the discipline of rhetoric (ῥητορική), when he makes a sharp distinction about those attending a speech: ἀνάγκη δὲ τὸν ἀκροατὴν ἢ θεωρὸν εἶναι ἢ κριτήν, "The listener must be either a spectator or a judge" (Rhet. 1.3.2.1358b2-3). He then divides judges into those who judge about the future, as in the Assembly, and those who judge about the past, as jurors in court, but reckons spectators as those who judge merely a speaker's ability. He delves at length into the mechanisms at play in persuading judges, but spectators disappear from his analysis. According to Aristotle, then, spectators play only a superficial role in the Assembly and courts. In using this terminology, knowingly or not, Aristotle shuts down and dismisses what had been a lively debate two generations earlier, a debate about the deliberative process not only in the Assembly and courts, but also in the Athenian democratic Council and in another venue where spectators routinely rendered judgments-the theater. 1 This debate suffused discussion in a range of genres and public venues for decades, but the year 427 b.c.e. was pivotal. Events of that year proved 1. For a broad discussion about the governing and efficacy of Athenian democracy and deliberation, see Ober (2008). For surveys of the discussions about modern "deliberative democracy," see Elster (1998) and . For these issues applied to Aristophanes, see Zumbrunnen (2012). 2. Ober (1998,(94)(95)(96)(97)(98)(99)(100)(101)(102)(103)(104) analyzes Thucydides' presentation of the debate in terms of the tensions between democracy and tyranny. 3. [Plato,] Hippias Major 282b also mentions this trip and Gorgias' success. This would be more valuable testimony if Platonic authorship were secure, but, if nothing else, it is likely an early specimen of the perspective that the embassy was a triumph for Gorgias himself. 4. All translations are my own, except where indicated. 5. Throughout this book I leave the Greek word δημος untranslated, or more accurately, just transliterated as "Demos." I do this because I want to be clear and consistent about when Greek sources use the term, and because no English word corresponds to the sense of the Demos as both the mass populace and the franchised citizen body of Athens. Greek at this time of course has no orthographic means (such as capitalization) to distinguish a generic instance of the word from a formal, legal designation. from an unspecified play of Aristophanes (fr. 649) for an antithesis (3.9.9.1410a28-29). Cf. Chapter 2 on Pericles for Aristotle's swipe at comic poets generally. 14. Cicero (De inv. 2.2.6) says that in his day, because of the success of Aristotle's summary history of early rhetoric, nemo illorum praecepta ex ipsorum libris cognoscat, sed omnes, qui quod illi praecipiant velint intellegere, ad hunc quasi ad quendam multo commodiorem explicatorem revertantur, "No one learns the precepts [of Aristotle's predecessors] from their own writings, but those who wish to know what principles they espoused come back to him [Aristotle] for a far more amenable explanation." Extant references to the early history of rhetoric are consistent with Cicero's characterization. Cf. Cole (1991b). 15. For typical examples of citing Aristophanes with respect to Plato's disparagement of Sophists, see McCoy (2007, 12, 39, 79 and 165, in contrast to Plato) and Romilly (1992, 83-89 and 134-43, supporting Plato). For an example of using Aristophanes to construct a modern critique of Socrates, see . 16. The issue of who was a "Sophist" in antiquity is fraught with controversy, on which see Kerferd (1981, 42-58) and Schiappa (2003, 3-12). Because this study focuses on comedy's reaction to rhetoric, I am less concerned with whether any given individual should properly be reckoned a Sophist, although I will analyze comedy's use of the term σοφιστήs in Chapter 2 and the Appendix. In any case, my aim is to cite and discuss any individual identified in comedy with speech making and language theory, regardless of whether the label "Sophist" applies. 17. Kerferd (1981, 4-12). 18. On the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, see Schiappa (1990b) and (1991). For an example of an updated version of this approach applied to democratic theory, see Crick (2010). 19. An argumentum ex silentio is always difficult, but even so, reasonable caution and precision can be expected. For example, Consigny (2001,(43)(44) makes a claim for the centrality of kairos to Gorgias' thought, but none of the texts he cites even use the term. It is one thing to acknowledge that ancient testimony indicates that Gorgias wrote about kairos (82 B13 DK), and even to attempt to reconstruct how such an idea fit into Gorgias' thought, but it is quite another to operate as if we have any text where Gorgias discusses the concept or even deploys the term. The presence, absence and limitations of meaning of key terms will be a recurring topic in this study. 20. Schiappa (1999, 3-10) catalogues seventeen points of agreement in the "standard" or "traditional" scholarly account of rhetoric prior to Aristotle. 21. On the unity of the Rhetoric, see . On the problematic history of scholarship on the purpose and unity of the Rhetoric, see Poster (1997( ). 22. Schiappa (1990a)), pace the objections of O'Sullivan (1993); cf. Schiappa (1994) and ). 23. Cole (1991a) and Schiappa (2003, revised from 1991 edition). 24. See Wise (2008) for an analysis of Aristotle's Poetics that similarly finds him reacting to drama more as it was practiced in his own day than to fifth-century practice. Cf. the response to this thesis in ). 25. Cole (1991a, esp. 71-94). For convenience, I adopt his term "proto-rhetorical" for the cultural investigation into language that Old Comedy dramatizes and satirizes (cf. the Appendix).
The Shadow of Aristophanes: Hellenistic Poetry’s Reception of Comic Poetics
M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit and G.C. Wakker (eds.) (2018) Drama and Performance in Hellenistic Poetry. Hellenistica Groningana 23. Leuven (Peeters): 225-271.
The significance and influence of Attic drama on Hellenistic poetry has been a topic of little consistent focus in recent scholarship, reflecting the dominant academic emphasis on Hellenistic poetry as a written artefact, allegedly detached from any immediate context of performance. This paper attempts to reverse this trend by setting out the continuing vitality and cultural importance of drama in the Hellenistic world, before exploring the role of Attic Old Comedy as both a precedent and a model for Hellenistic poetry. Much of what is often thought distinctively ‘Hellenistic’ can in fact be shown to have clear old comic precedent: Old Comedy, just like Hellenistic poetry, is heavily intertextual (even to the point of re-appropriating Homeric hapax legomena); engages in frequent generic manipulation; displays a strong interest in literary history; emphasises its own literary and metrical innovations; and displays a self-conscious awareness of the tensions between textuality and performance. Yet more than this, Old Comedy also offered a key paradigm of agonistic self-fashioning and literary-critical terminology which Hellenistic poets could parrot, appropriate and invert. Hellenistic poets’ direct engagement with Old Comedy extended well beyond the famous literary agon of Aristophanes’ Frogs.
Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae: Funny in Theory - or Only in Practice
An explained joke is no longer a joke-Voltaire Analysing comedy is like dissecting a frog. Nobody laughs and the frog dies-Barry Cryer Nonetheless the range and variety of Aristophanes' work makes it tempting to reach for explanations-albeit cautious and provisional ones 1. Its appeal seemingly transcends temporal and cultural barriers 2. Anatomising what makes comedy tick makes for a difficult balancing act: 'the study of literature is in various ways policed by a kind of ideology of seriousness' (Bennett and Royle, 2016, p. 116). On the other hand, 'comedy cannot universalise for long without falling over a heap of dung' (Taplin, 1986, p. 173).
Comic Authority in Aristophanes' Knights
This article investigates the relationship between comic speech and political authority in democratic Athens through a reading of Aristophanes' Knights. The article surveys three different interpretations of how Aristophanes constructs the authority of his comic persona in the play: (1) he contrasts comic speech with rhetorical speech to illustrate the superiority of the former (comic superiority); (2) he reflexively reveals to the audience the potential deceptiveness of comic speech (comic reflexiveness); and (3) he mocks his own claims to authority through the construction of a comically boastful persona (comic anti-authority). It is argued that the final two readings best capture the spirit of Aristophanic comedy, pointing to an affinity between the comic authority constructed by Aristophanes and the democratic conception of authority in operation in classical Athens.