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Aristophanes (ca. 446 – ca. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a prolific and much acclaimed comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays have come down to us virtually complete.
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Aristophanes (ca. 446 – ca. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a prolific and much acclaimed comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays have come down to us virtually complete. These, as well as fragments of some of his other plays, provide us with the only real example we have of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and they are in fact used to define the genre. Also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy, Aristophanes has been said to recreate the life of ancient Athens more convincingly than any other author. His powers of ridicule were feared and acknowledged by influential contemporaries - Plato singled out Aristophanes' play The Clouds as slander contributing to the trial and execution of Socrates although other satirical playwrights had caricatured the philosopher.The demagogue Cleon once prosecuted Aristophanes for slandering the Athenian polis with his second play The Babylonians (now lost). Details of his trial and punishment are not recorded but Aristophanes replied with merciless caricatures of Cleon in his subsequent plays, especially The Knights.
"In my opinion," he says through the Chorus in that play, "producing comedies is the hardest work of all."
Biography of a dramatist
We know less about Aristophanes than about his plays. In fact his plays are our main source of information about him. It was conventional in Old Comedy for the Chorus to speak on behalf of the author during an address called the 'parabasis' and thus some biographical facts can be got 'straight from the horse's mouth', so to speak. The plays however contain few clear and unambiguous clues about the kind of man Aristophanes might have been. He was a comic poet in an age when it was conventional for a poet to assume the role of 'teacher' (didaskalos) and though this specifically referred to his training of the Chorus in rehearsal, it also covered his relationship with the audience as a commentator on significant issues. The writing of plays however was also a craft that could be handed down from father to son and it has been argued that Aristophanes produced plays mainly to entertain the audience and to win prestigious competitions. Aristophanes claimed to be writing for a clever and discerning audience yet he also declared that 'other times' would judge the audience according to its reception of his plays. He sometimes boasts of his originality as a dramatist yet his plays consistently espouse opposition to radical, new influences in Athenian society. He caricatured leading figures in the arts (notably Euripides, whose influence on his own work however he once begrudgingly acknowledged), in politics (especially the populist Cleon), and in philosophy/religion (where Socrates was the most obvious target). Such caricatures seem to imply that Aristophanes was an old-fashioned conservative yet that view of him leads to contradictions.
The plays were written for production at the great dramatic festivals of Athens, the Lenaia and City Dionysia, where they were judged and awarded places relative to the works of other comic dramatists. An elaborate series of lotteries, designed to prevent prejudice or corruption, narrowed the voting judges to just five in number. These judges probably reflected the mood of the audiences yet there is much uncertainty about the actual composition of those audiences. They were certainly huge, with seating for at least 10 000 at the Theatre of Dionysus, but it is not certain that they amounted to a representative sample of the Athenian citizenry. The day's program at the City Dionysia for example was crowded, with three tragedies and a 'satyr' play ahead of the comedy and it is possible that many of the poorer citizens (typically the main supporters of demagogues like Cleon) occupied the festival holiday in other pursuits. The conservative views expressed in the plays might therefore reflect the attitudes of a dominant group in an unrepresentative audience. The production process might also have influenced the views expressed in the plays. Throughout most of Aristophanes' career, the Chorus was essential to a play's success and it was recruited and funded by a 'choregus', a wealthy citizen appointed to the task by one of the archons. A choregus could regard his personal expenditure on the Chorus as a civic duty and a public honour but Aristophanes showed in The Knights that wealthy citizens could in fact regard civic responsibilities as punishment.
Aristophanes' first play The Banqueters (now lost) won second prize at the City Dionysia in 427 BC. Comments made by Aristophanes in The Clouds have been interpreted as evidence that he can have been hardly more than eighteen years old when The Banqueters was produced. The young author won first prize with his next play, The Babylonians (now lost), another polemical satire on Athenian mores. It was usual for foreign dignitaries to attend the City Dionysia, where The Babylonians was performed, and some influential citizens, notably Cleon, used this as an excuse to bring Aristophanes to court on a charge of slandering the Athenian polis. The details of the trial are unrecorded but, speaking through the hero of his third play The Acharnians (staged at the Lenaia, where there were few or no foreign dignitaries), he carefully distinguishes between the polis and the real targets of his acerbic wit:
People among us, and I don't mean the polis,
Remember this - I don't mean the polis -
But wicked little men of a counterfeit kind...
Aristophanes repeatedly savages Cleon in his later plays. These satirical diatribes however appear to have had no effect on Cleon's political career - a few weeks after the performance of The Knights, a play that is full of anti-Cleon jokes, Cleon was elected to the prestigious board of ten generals. Equally, Cleon seems to have had no real power to limit or control Aristophanes since the caricatures of him continued up to and even beyond his death.
When The Banqueters was produced, Athens was an ambitious, imperial power and The Peloponnesian War was only in its fourth year. Aristophanes' plays often express pride in the achievement of the older generation (the victors at Marathon) yet his plays are opposed to the war with Sparta and they are particularly scathing in criticism of war-profiteers, among whom populists such as Cleon are included. By the time his last play was produced (around 386 BC), Athens had been defeated in war, its empire had been dismantled and it had undergone a transformation from the political to the intellectual centre of Greece. Aristophanes was part of this transformation and he shared in the intellectual fashions. The structure of his plays evolves from Old Comedy until, in Wealth II (his last surviving play), it more closely resembles New Comedy, but it is uncertain whether he led or merely responded to changes in audience expectations.
In the absence of clear biographical facts, scholars make educated guesses based on interpretation of the language in the plays. Inscriptions and summaries or comments by Hellenistic and Byzantine scholars can also provide useful clues. A second parabasis in Wasps appears to indicate that Aristophanes reached some kind of temporary accommodation with Cleon, possibly following his prosecution for The Babylonians or perhaps after a second attack by Cleon in response to The Knights. The hero in The Acharnians complains about Cleon "dragging me into court" over "last year's play" and this could indicate that Aristophanes could have acted that part in the play's performance at The Lenaia. It has been inferred from statements in The Clouds and Peace that Aristophanes was prematurely bald, and from statements in The Acharnians that he had some kind of close, personal association with the island of Aegina. We know from comments in The Knights and The Clouds that his first three plays were not produced in his own name. They were instead produced in the names of Callistratus and Philoneides, an arrangement that seemed to suit Aristophanes since Philoneides later produced The Frogs. We know that Aristophanes was probably victorious at least once at the City Dionysia (with Babylonians in 427) and at least three times at the Lenaia, with Acharnians in 425, Knights in 424, and Frogs in 405. Frogs in fact won the unique distinction of a repeat performance at a subsequent festival. We know that a son of Aristophanes, Araros, was also a comic poet and he could have been heavily involved in the production of his father's play Wealth II in 388. Araros is also thought to have been responsible for the posthumous performances of the now lost plays Aeolosicon II and Cocalus, and it is possible that the last of these won the prize at the City Dionysia in 387. It appears that a second son, Philippus, was twice victorious at the Lenaia and he could have produced some of Eubulus’ comedies. A third son was called either Nicostratus or Philetaerus, and a man by the latter name appears in the catalogue of Lenaia victors with two victories, the first probably in the late 370s.
Plato's The Symposium appears to be a useful source of biographical information yet the reliability of the information is open to debate. 'The Symposium' purports to be a record of conversations at a dinner party at which both Aristophanes and Socrates are guests. The party is supposed to have occurred some seven years after the performance of The Clouds (the play in which Socrates was cruelly caricatured) and yet there is no indication of any ill-feeling between the two men. Plato's Aristophanes is in fact a genial character and this has been interpreted as evidence of Plato's friendship with him (their friendship appears to be corroborated by an epitaph for Aristophanes, reputedly written by Plato, in which the playwright's soul is compared to an eternal shrine for the Graces). Plato was only a boy when the events in The Symposium are supposed to have occurred and it is possible that his Aristophanes is in fact based on a reading of the plays. For example, conversation among the guests turns to the subject of Love and Aristophanes explains his notion of it in terms of an amusing allegory, a device he often uses in his plays. Aristophanes is represented as suffering an attack of hiccoughs and this might be a humorous reference to the crude physical jokes in his plays. He tells the other guests that he is quite happy to be thought amusing but he is wary of appearing ridiculous. This fear of being ridiculed is consistent with his declaration in The Knights that he embarked on a career of comic playwright warily, fearful of the public contempt and ridicule that other dramatists had incurred.
Aristophanes was probably appointed to the Council of Five Hundred for a year at the beginning of the fourth century but such appointments were very common in democratic Athens. He lived through the tumults of The Peloponnesian War and he survived two oligarchic revolutions and two democratic restorations, from which it has been inferred that he probably was not actively involved in politics even in spite of the highly political stance of the plays. Socrates, in the trial leading up to his death, put the issue of a personal conscience in those troubled times quite succinctly:
- "...he who will really fight for the right, if he would live even for a little while, must have a private station and not a public one.
The role of a comic playwright might not have been a state office but it was very public and the plays were polemical satires deeply concerned with issues of right and wrong. Aristophanes lived to a ripe old age but it is difficult to know whether this confirms or refutes the philosopher's dictum.
Aristophanes the poet
The language in Aristophanes' plays, and in Old Comedy generally, was valued by ancient commentators for its exemplification of the Attic dialect. The orator Quintilian believed that the charm and grandeur of the Attic dialect made Old Comedy a model for orators to study and follow, and he considered it inferior in this respect only to the works of Homer. A revival of interest in the Attic dialect appears in fact to have been largely responsible for the recovery and circulation of Aristophanes' plays during the 4th and 5th Centuries AD, resulting in their survival today. In Aristophanes' plays, the Attic dialect is couched in verse and his plays can be appreciated for their poetic qualities.
For Aristophanes' contemporaries the works of Homer and Hesiod were as instructive as The Bible has become for many Greeks today. Poetry therefore had a moral and social significance that made it an inevitable topic of comic satire. Aristophanes was very conscious of literary fashions and traditions and his plays feature numerous references to other poets. These not only include rival comic dramatists such as Eupolis and Hermippus and predecessors such as Magnes, Crates and Cratinus, but also tragedians, notably Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, all three of whom for instance are mentioned in The Frogs. Aristophanes was the equal of these great tragedians in his subtle use of lyrics. He appears to have modelled his approach to language on that of Euripides in particular, so much so that the comic dramatist Cratinus labelled him a 'Euripidaristophanist' addicted to hair-splitting niceties.
A full appreciation of Aristophanes plays requires an understanding of the poetic forms he employed with virtuoso skill, which are appreciable through their different rhythms and associations. These can be defined in general terms according to three kinds, as indicated below:
- Iambic dialogue: Aristophanes achieves an effect resembling natural speech through the use of the six-foot iambic trimeter (corresponding to the effects achieved by English poets such as Shakespeare using iambic pentametre). His realistic use of the metre makes it ideal for both dialogue and soliloquy, as for instance in the prologue, before the arrival of the Chorus, when the audience is introduced to the main issues in the plot. The Acharnians opens with these three lines by the hero, Dikaiopolis:
How many are the things that vex my heart!
Pleasures are few, so very few - just four -
But other things, they're manysandthousandsandheaps!
- Here Aristophanes employs a frequent device, arranging the syntax so that the final word in a line comes as a comic climax. The hero's pleasures are so few he can number them (four) but his causes for complaint are so many they beggar numerical description and he must invent his own word for them (literally 'sandhundredheaps', here paraphrased 'manysandthousandsandheaps'). The use of invented compound words is another comic device frequently found in the plays.
- Long lines in anapests or trochees: long lines in 7 or 8 metrical feet are used in various situations within each play, such as:
- formal debates or agons between characters (typically in anapestic rhythm);
- excited dialogue or heated argument (typically trochaic rhythm, the same as in early tragedy);
- long speeches declaimed by the Chorus in parabases (in either anapestic or trochaic rhythms).
Anapestic rhythms are naturally jaunty (as in many English ballads) and trochaic metre is suited to rapid delivery (the word 'trochee' is in fact derived from trechein, 'to run', as demonstrated for example by choruses who enter at speed, often in aggressive mood) However, even though both these rhythms can seem to 'bowl along' Aristophanes often varies them through use of complex syntax and substituted metres, adapting the rhythms to the requirements of serious argument. In The Frogs, for instance, the character Aeschylus, in debate with Euripides, presents a view of poetry that is supposed to be serious but which leads to a comic interruption by the god, Dionysus:
Aes:It was Orpheus singing who taught us religion
and how wrong people are when they kill,
And we learned from Musaeus medicinal cures
and the science of divination.
If it's farming you want, Hesiod knows it all,
when to plant, when to harvest. How godlike
Homer got to be famous, I'll tell if you ask:
he taught us what all good men should know,
Discipline, fortitude, battle-readiness. Dio: But
no-one taught Pantacles - yesterday
He was marching his men up and down on parade
when the crest of his helmet fell off!
- The length of the verses naturally enforces a pause in the middle, indicated here by a break in the lines. The rhythm begins at a typical anapestic gallop, slows down to consider the revered poets Hesiod and Homer, then gallops off again to its comic conclusion at the expense of the unfortunate Pantocles. Such subtle variations in rhythm are common in the plays, allowing for serious points to be made while still whetting the audience's appetite for the next joke.
- Lyrics: Almost nothing is known about the music that accompanied Greek lyrics and the metre is often so varied and complex that it is difficult for modern readers or audiences to get a feel for the intended affects, yet Aristophanes still impresses with the charm and simplicity of his lyrics. Some of the most memorable and haunting lyrics are dignified hymns set free of the comic action In the example below, taken from The Wasps, the lyric is merely a comic interlude and the rhythm is steadily trochaic. The syntax in the original Greek is natural and unforced and it was probably accompanied by brisk and cheerful music, gliding to a concluding pun at the expense of Amynias, who is thought to have lost his fortune gambling.
Though to myself I often seem
A bright chap and not awkward,
None comes close to Amynias,
Son of Sellos of the Bigwig
Clan, a man I once saw
Dine with rich Leogorus.
Now as poor as Antiphon,
He lives on apples and pomegranates
Yet he got himself appointed
Ambassador to Pharselus,
Way up there in Thessaly,
Home of the poor Penestes:
Happy to be where everyone
Is as penniless as he is!
- The pun here in English translation (Penestes-penniless) is a weak version of the Greek pun . Many of the puns in the plays are in fact weak puns based on words that are similar rather than identical and it has been observed that there could in fact be more of them than Scholars have yet been able to identify. Sometimes entire scenes are constructed on puns, as is the case in The Acharnians with the Megarian farmer and his pigs.
It can be argued that the most important feature of the language of the plays is imagery, particularly the use of similes, metaphors and pictorial expressions. In 'The Knights' for example the ears of a character with selective hearing are represented as parasols that open and close. In The Frogs, Aeschylus is said to compose verses in the manner of a horse rolling in a sandpit. Some plays feature revelations of human perfectibility that are poetic rather than religious in character, such as the marriage of the hero Pisthetairos to Zeus's paramour in The Birds and the 'recreation' of 'old' Athens, crowned with violets, at the end of The Knights.
Aristophanes and Old Comedy
, muse of comedy, gazing upon a comic mask (detail from Muses' Sarcophagus)]]
The Greek word for 'comedy' (komoidia) derives from the words for 'revel' and 'song' (komos and ode) and, according to Aristotle, comic drama actually developed from song. The first, official comedy however was not staged at the City Dionysia until 487/6 BC, by which time tragedy had already been long established. The first comedy was staged at the Lenaia later still, just some twenty years before the performance there of The Acharnians, Aristophanes' third play. According to Aristotle, comedy was slow to gain official acceptance because nobody took it seriously. And yet, only sixty years after comedy first appeared at 'The City Dionysia', Aristophanes was able to describe his work as the most difficult work of all. Competition at the Dionysian festivals required the existence of dramatic conventions for plays to be judged yet it also fuelled innovations. Developments were quite rapid and Aristotle was able to distinguish between 'old' and 'new' comedy by 330 BC. The trend from Old Comedy to New Comedy involved a trend away from a highly topical emphasis on real individuals and local issues towards a broader frame of reference with stock characters and situations. The trend was due in part to the internationalizing of cultural perspectives during and after The Peloponnesian War. For ancient commentators such Plutarch, the development of New Comedy represented increased sophistication, yet Old Comedy was in fact a complex and sophisticated art form incorporating many approaches to humour and entertainment.
In the City Dionysia, a statue of the god Dionysus was brought to the theatre from a temple outside the city and it remained in the theatre throughout the festival, overseeing the plays like a privileged member of the audience. In Aristophanes' play The Frogs, however, Dionysus enters the theatre as a ludicrous figure unconvincingly disguised as Hercules. He observes to the audience that, every time he is on hand to hear a joke from a comic dramatist like Phrynichus (one of Aristophanes' rivals), he ages by more than a year. The scene opens the play and it is a reminder to the audience that almost nobody is above mockery in Old Comedy - not even its patron god or its practitioners! Gods, artists, politicians and even ordinary citizens were legitimate targets, comedy was a kind of licensed buffoonery and there was no legal redress for anyone who was slandered in a play. There were some limits on the scope of the satire but they are not easily defined. Impiety could be punished in Fifth Century BC Athens but absurdities implicit in traditional religion were open to ridicule. The polis was not allowed to be slandered but, as stated in the biography, that could depend on who was in the audience and which festival was involved. Both festivals were in honour of Dionysus, a god who represented Man's darker nature, and Old Comedy was a celebration of the exuberant sense of release inherent in his worship. (Euripides' play The Bacchae offers the best insight into the Fifth Century ideas about this god). Old Comedy is more interested in finding targets than in advocating any line of policy. It requires victims and hence its emphasis on real individuals and local issues.
Aristophanes began his career writing in the Old Comedy genre but he always varied the structure of his plays from year to year and, in his last surviving play, Wealth II, he also shifted the thematic focus from local issues to broader issues that an international audience might easily understand. For convenience, Old Comedy, as represented by Aristophanes' early plays, is analysed here in terms of three broad characteristics - topicality, festivity and complexity - with a fourth subsection dedicated to the parabasis, an important, structural element of Old Comedy.
Topicality
The emphasis on real personalities and local issues had some unique consequences for the staging of Old Comedy. All actors in classical Athens wore masks but, whereas in tragedy and New Comedy, these identified stereotypical characters, in Old Comedy the masks were often caricatures of real people. It is possible that Socrates attracted an unusual amount of attention in Old Comedy because his distinct face lent itself easily to caricature by mask-makers. In The Knights we are told that the mask makers were too afraid to make a caricature of Cleon (there represented as a Paphlagonian slave) but we are also assured that the audience is clever enough to identify him anyway. Since Old Comedy makes numerous references to people in the audience, the theatre itself was the real scene of action and theatrical illusion was treated as something of a joke. In The Acharnians, for example, The Pnyx is just a few steps from the hero's front door, and in Peace Olympia is separated from Athens by a few moments' supposed flight on a dung beetle. The audience is sometimes drawn or even dragged into the action. When the hero in Peace returns to Athens from his flight to Olympia, he tells the audience that they looked like rascals when seen from the heavens and, seen up close, they look even worse.. In The Acharnians the hero confronts the archon basileus, sitting in the front row, and demands to be awarded first prize for a drinking competition, which is a none too subtle way for Aristophanes to request first prize for the drama competition. Frequent parodying of tragedy is an aspect of Old Comedy that modern audiences find difficult to understand yet the Lenaia and City Dionysia included performances of both comedies and tragedies and thus literary references were highly topical and immediately relevant to the original audience. The topicality of Old Comedy allowed the dramatist even to refer to himself and, in the spirit of the occasion, this included mockery. It is possible, as indicated earlier, that Aristophanes mocked his own baldness and he also compared himself in his early career to an unwed, young mother.
The Lenaia and City Dionysus were state-sponsored, religious festivals and, though the latter was the more prestigious of the two, both were occasions for official pomp and circumstance. The ceremonies for the Lenaia were overseen by the archon basileus and by officials of the Eleusinian mysteries. The City Dionysia was overseen by the archon eponymus and the priest of Dionysus. Emblems of religion and state had a theatrical quality. Opening ceremonies for the City Dionysia featured, in addition to the ceremonial arrival of the god, a parade in full armour of the sons of warriors who died fighting for the polis and, up until the end of the Peloponnesian War, a presentation of annual tribute from subject states. The serious side of Athenian religious and political life could hardly be ignored in the circumstances and the plays often give expression to this. Knights, for example, is chiefly notable for its unremitting jokes at Cleon's expense yet it includes grave and beautiful hymns invoking Poseidon and Athena, and it ends with visions of a miraculously transformed Demos (i.e. the morally reformed citizenry of Athens). Imaginative visions of a return to peaceful activities resulting from peace with Sparta, and a plea for leniency for citizens suspected of complicity in an oligarchic revolt are other examples of a serious vision. Even the jokes are meant to be taken seriously when they have a political or religious significance. The butt of the most savage jokes are opportunists who prey on the gullibility of their fellow citizens, including oracle-mongers, the exponents of new religious practices, war-mongers and political fanatics. In The Acharnians, for example, Lamachus is represented as a crazed militarist whose preparations for war are put in hilarious relief to the hero's preparations for a dinner party. Cleon emerges from numerous similes and metaphors in the The Knights as a protean form of comic evil, clinging to political power by every possible means for as long as he can. A festival audience however presented the comic dramatist with a wide range of targets, not just political or religious ones - anyone known to the audience could be mocked for any reason, such as diseases, physical deformities, ugliness, family misfortunes, bad manners, perversions, dishonesty, cowardice in battle, and clumsiness. Foreigners, a conspicuous presence in imperial Athens, particularly at the City Dionysia, often figure in the plays as people who comically mispronounce Attic words - these include Spartans (Lysistrata), Scythinans (Thesmophoriazusae), Persians and Megarians (The Acharnians).
Festivity
The Lenaia and City Dionysia were religious festivals but, in classical Athens, they resembled a gala rather than a church service. A relaxation in standards of behaviour was permitted and the holiday spirit included bawdy irreverence towards both men and gods. Old Comedy is rich in obscenities and the crude jokes are often very detailed, as when the Chorus in The Acharnians places a curse on Antimachus, a choregus accused of niggardly conduct, wishing upon him a night-time mugging as he returns home from some drunken party and envisioning him, as he stoops down to pick up a rock in the darkness, accidentally picking up a fresh turd instead. He is then envisioned hurling the turd at his attacker, missing and accidentally hitting Cratinus, a lyric poet not admired by Aristophanes. What makes this curse funny is the fact that it was sung (or chanted) in choreographed style by a Chorus of 24 grown men and, in the original performance, these were amateurs known to the audience as responsible citizens. The Chorus was vital to the success of a play in Old Comedy long after it had lost its relevance for tragedy. Technically, the competition in the dramatic festivals was not between poets but between choruses. In fact eight of Aristophanes' eleven surviving plays are named after the Chorus. In Aristophanes' time, the Chorus in tragedy was relatively small (twelve members) and its role had been reduced to that of an awkwardly placed commentator, but in Old Comedy the Chorus was large (numbering twenty-four), it was actively involved in the plot, its entry into the action was frequently spectacular, its movements were practised with military precision and sometimes it was involved in choreographed skirmishes with the actors. The expenditure on costumes, training and maintenance of a Chorus was considerable, and it is possible that many people in the original audience enjoyed comedy mainly for the spectacle and music. The chorus gradually lost its significance as New Comedy began to develop.
Consistent with the holiday spirit, much of the humour in Old Comedy is slapstick buffoonery that doesn't require the audience's careful attention, often relying on visual cues. Actors playing male roles appear to have worn tights over grotesque padding, with a prodigious, leather phallus barely concealed by a short tunic. Female characters were played by men but were easily recognized in long, saffron tunics. Sometimes the visual cues are deliberately confused for comic effect, as in The Frogs, where Dionysus arrives on stage in a saffron tunic, the buskin boots of a tragic actor and a lion skin cloak that usually characterized Heracles - an outfit that provokes the latter (as no doubt it provoked the audience) to guffaws of helpless mirth. The holiday spirit might also have been responsible for an aspect of the comic plot that can seem bewildering to modern audiences. The major confrontation (agon) between the 'good' and 'bad' characters in a play is often resolved decisively in favour of the former long before the end of the play. The rest of the play deals with farcical consequences in a succession of loosely connected scenes. The farcical anti-climax has been explained in a variety of ways, depending on the particular play. In The Wasps, for instance, it has been thought to indicate a gradual change in the main character's perspective as the lessons of the agon are slowly absorbed. In The Acharnians, it has been explained in terms of a unifying theme that underlies the episodes, demonstrating the practical benefits that come with wisdom. But the early release of dramatic tension is consistent with the holiday meanings in Old Comedy and it allows the audience to relax in uncomplicated enjoyment of the spectacle, the music, jokes and celebrations that characterize the remainder of the play. The celebration of the hero's victory often involves a sexual conquest and sometimes it takes the form of a wedding.
Complexity
In Aristophanic comedy, the hero typically devises a fanciful escape from an intolerable situation. He has something of the ingenuity of Homer's Odysseus and much of the shrewdness of the farmer idealized in Hesiod's Works and Days, subjected to corrupt leaders and unreliable neighbours. Thus Dikaiopolis in The Acharnians contrives a private peace treaty with the Spartans; Bdelucleon in The Wasps turns his own house into a private law court in order to keep his jury-addicted father safely at home; Trygaeus in Peace flies to Olympus on a giant dung beetle to obtain an end to the Peloponnesian War; Pisthetairus in Birds sets off to establish his own colony and becomes instead the ruler of the bird kingdom and a rival to the gods. Fantasy in Old Comedy is unrestricted and impossibilities are ignored Situations are developed logically to absurd conclusions, an approach to humour that is echoed for instance in the works of Lewis Carroll and Eugene Ionesco (the Theatre of the Absurd). The crazy costume worn by Dionysus in The Frogs is typical of an absurd result obtained on logical grounds - he wears a woman's saffron-coloured tunic because effeminacy is an aspect of his divinity, buskin boots because he is interested in reviving the art of tragedy, and a lion skin cape because, like Heracles, his mission leads him into Hades. Absurdities develop logically from initial premises in a plot. In The Knights for instance, Cleon's corrupt service to the people of Athens is originally depicted as a household relationship in which the slave dupes his master. The introduction of a rival, who is not a member of the household, leads to an absurd shift in the metaphor, so that Cleon and his rival become erastai competing for the affections of an eromenos, hawkers competing for the attention of a buyer, athletes racing each other and, more realistically, orators competing for the popular vote. The numerous surprising developments in an Aristophanic plot, the changes in scene, and the farcical comings and goings of minor characters towards the end of a play, were managed according to theatrical convention with only three principal actors (a fourth actor, often the leader of the chorus, was permitted to deliver short speeches). Despite the wild improbabilities in an Aristophanic plot, and the organizational difficulties they imposed, the plays are couched in disciplined verse and in a highly formal, dramatic structure that is repeated with minor variations from one play to another. The structural elements of a typical plot are as follows:
- prologue - an introductory scene with a dialogue and/or soliloquy addressed to the audience, expressed in iambic trimeter and explaining the situation that is to be resolved in the play;
- parodos - the arrival of the chorus, dancing and singing, sometimes followed by a choreographed skirmish with one or more actors;
- symmetrical scenes - verses in two sections, each resembling the other in meter and line length; mostly comprising long lines, forming the agon or debate that decides the outcome of the play, and also forming the whole or part of a parabasis.
- parabasis - verses through which the Chorus addresses the audience directly (see the section below Parabasis;
- episodes - sections of dialogue in iambic trimeter, often in a succession of scenes featuring minor characters towards the end of a play;
- songs ('strophes'/'antistrophes' or 'odes'/'antodes') - often in symmetrical pairs where each half has the same meter and number of lines as the other, used as transitions between other structural elements, or between scenes while actors change costume, and often commenting on the action;
- exodus - the departure of the Chorus and the actors, in song and dance celebrating the hero's victory and sometimes celebrating a symbolic marriage.
The rules of competition did not prevent a playwright arranging and adjusting these elements to suit his particular needs. In Knights, for instance, Aristophanes makes extensive use of symmetrical scenes and, in Thesmophoriazusae, the first parabasis is in a shortened form and there is no second parabasis. The trend towards New Comedy generally involved an increase in the length and frequency of episodes at the expense of the other elements, a change that becomes particularly evident in the last of the surviving plays Wealth (II). Along with a simpler dramatic structure, there came simpler, more realistic plots and a softening in tone. The complexity of Old Comedy however had an inclusive quality - a serious purpose did not exclude light entertainment, the haunting beauty of lyrical poetry coexisted with the linguistic buffoonery of puns and invented words, abusive and rowdy sentiments were expressed within the discipline of verse, and wildly absurd plots unfolded within a formal, dramatic structure. Old Comedy was the comedy of a vigorously democratic polis at the height of its power.
Parabasis
The parabasis is an address to the audience by the Chorus and/or the leader of the Chorus while the actors are leaving or have left the stage. The Chorus in this role speaks sometimes out of character, as the author's mouthpiece, and sometimes in character, but very often it isn't easy to distinguish its two roles. Generally the parabasis occurs somewhere in the middle of a play and often there is a second parabasis towards the end. The parabasis comprises elements that have been defined and named by scholars but it is probable that Aristophanes' own understanding of the parabasis was less formal. The selection of elements varies from play to play, and it varies considerably within a play between first and second parabasis, as indicated below, where just two plays are cited:
- kommation - a brief prelude, usually in short, anapestic lines and often including a valediction to the departing actors, such as (Go rejoicing!);
- parabasis - the 'parabasis proper', referred to by Aristophanes simply as 'anapestic lines', usually in long anapestic lines of seven feet ('anapestic tetrameter catalectic'), devoted to a defense of the author's work, including a criticism of the audience's attitude;
| The Acharnians | lines 626-58 | no parabasis proper | | The Wasps | lines 1015-50 | no parabasis proper |
- pnigos - sometimes known as 'a choker', a small set of short lines in anapests appended to the parabasis proper as a kind of rapid patter (it has been suggested that some of the effects achieved in a pnigos can be heard in "The Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song", in act 2 of Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe);
| The Acharnians | lines 659-64 | no pnigos | | The Wasps | lines 1051-59 | no pnigos |
- epirrhematic syzygies - symmetrical scenes that mirror each other in meter and number of lines, often forming an agon, they are also usually a part of the first parabasis and comprise the following elements, some or all of which may form the entire second parabasis:
- strophe or ode - short lines in a variety of meters, often as an invocation to the gods in the first parabasis, and as a comic interlude in the second parabasis;
| The Acharnians | lines 665-675 | 1149-61 | | The Wasps | lines 1060-70 | 1265-74 |
- epirrhema - usually long lines of troches in seven feet ('trochaic tetrameter catalectic'), broadly political and probably spoken by the leader of the Chorus in character;
| The Acharnians | lines 676-91 | no epirrhema | | The Wasps | 1071-90 | 1275-83 |
- antistrophe or antode - mirrors the strophe/ode in meter, length and function (textual corruption is probably the reason for its absence in the second parabasis of Wasps);
| The Acharnians | lines 692-702 | 1162-73 | | The Wasps | lines 1091-1101 | no antistrophe |
- antepirrhema - mirrors the epirrhema in meter, length and function;
| The Acharnians | lines 703-718 | no antepirrhema | | The Wasps | lines 1102-1121 | 1284-91 |
According to some interpretations, the second parabasis in all the early plays (The Acharnians to The Birds) is structured as indicated above for The Wasps in the form strophe-epirrhema-antistrophe-antepirrhema. In that case, the second parabasis for The Acharnians occurs in lines 971-99. In those lines however the Chorus of Acharnians comments on action that occurs on stage during its address to the audience whereas the lines listed in the table above (1143-73) begin with a valediction to the actors, typically a sign that the stage is being cleared for a parabasis. An understanding of Old Comedy conventions such as the parabasis is necessary for a proper understanding of Aristophanes' plays yet a sensitive appreciation of those plays can tell us what those conventions actually were.
Influence and legacy
, the master of New Comedy, here depicted in a push-me-pull-you form that might or might not have amused them both.]]
The tragic dramatists, Sophocles and Euripides, died near the end of the Peloponnesian War and the art of tragedy thereafter ceased to develop, yet comedy did continue to develop after the defeat of Athens and it is possible that it did so because, in Aristophanes, it had a master craftsman who lived long enough to help usher it into a new age. Aristophanes seems to have had some appreciation of his formative role in the development of comedy, as indicated by his comment in Clouds that his audience would be judged by other times according to its reception of his plays. Clouds was awarded third (i.e. last) place after its original performance and the text that has come down to the modern age was a subsequent draft that Aristophanes intended to be read rather than acted. The circulation of his plays in manuscript extended their influence beyond the original audience, over whom in fact they seem to have had no practical influence at all. The plays did not affect the career of Cleon, they failed to persuade the Athenians to pursue an honourable peace with Sparta and they were not instrumental in the trial and execution of Socrates, whose death probably resulted from public animosity towards the philosopher's disgraced associates (such as Alcibiades), exacerbated of course by his own intransigence during the trial. The plays, in manuscript form, have been put to some surprising uses - as indicated earlier, they were used in the study of rhetoric on the recommendation of Quintilian and by students of the Attic dialect in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries AD. It is possible that Plato sent copies of the plays to Dionysius of Syracuse so that he might learn about Athenian life and government. Even today the plays have a significance that goes beyond their artistic function, as historical documents that open the window on life and politics in classical Athens, in which respect they are perhaps as important as the writings of Thucydides. The artistic influence of the plays is immeasurable. They have contributed to the history of European theatre and that history in turn shapes our understanding of the plays. Thus for example the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan can give us insights into Aristophanes' plays and similarly the plays can give us insights into the operettas.
Listed below is a random and very tiny sample of works influenced (more or less) by Aristophanes.
In drama
- 1909: Wasps, original Greek, Cambridge University undergraduate production, music by Vaughan Williams;
- 2004, July-October: The Frogs (musical), adapted by Nathan Lane, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, performed at The Vivian Beaumont Theatre Broadway;
- 1962-2006: various plays by students and staff, Kings College London, in the original Greek : Frogs 1962,1971,1988; Thesmophoriazusae 1965, 1974, 1985; Acharnians 1968, 1992, 2004; Clouds 1977, 1990; Birds 1982, 2000; Ecclesiazusae 2006; Peace 1970; Wasps 1981
- 2002: Lysistrata, adapted by Robert Brustein, music by Galt McDermot, performed by American Repertory Theatre, Boston U.S.A.;
- 2008, May-June: Frogs, adapted by David Greenspan, music by Thomas Cabaniss, performed by Classic Stage Company, New York, U.S.A.
In literature
- The romantic poet, Percy Shelley, wrote a comic, lyrical drama (Swellfoot the Tyrrant) in imitation of Aristophanes' play The Frogs after he was reminded of the Chorus in that play by a herd of pigs passing to market under the window of his lodgings in San Giuliano, Italy.
- Aristophanes (particularly in reference to The Clouds) is mentioned frequently by the character Menedemos in the Hellenic Traders series of novels by H N Turteltaub.
- A liberal version of the comedies have been published in comic book format, initially by "Agrotikes Ekdoseis" during the 1990s and republished over the years by other companies. The plot was written by Tasos Apostolidis and the sketches were of George Akokalidis. The stories feature either Aristophanes narrating them, directing the play, or even as a character inside one of his stories.
In electronic media
- The Wasps, radio play adapted by David Pountney, music by Vaughan Williams, recorded 26-28 July 2005, Albert Halls, Bolten, in association with BBC, under Halle label;
- Acropolis Now is a comedy radio show for the BBC set in Ancient Greece. It features Aristophanes, Socrates and many other famous Greeks. (Not to be confused with the Australian sitcom of the same name.)
- Aristophanes Against the World was a radio play by Martyn Wade and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Loosely based on several of his plays, it featured Clive Merrison as Aristophanes.
- In The Odd Couple, Oscar and Felix are on Password, and when the password is bird, Felix’s clue is Aristophanes because of his play The Birds. After failing to guess it, Oscar says that the clue is ridiculous, and then when it's Oscar’s turn to give the clue on the team’s next shot, the password is ridiculous and Oscar's clue is Aristophanes, to which Felix instantly responds, "Ridiculous!"
- Aristophanes was also featured in "The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior" as a main character.
Works
Surviving plays
Most of these are traditionally referred to by abbreviations of their Latin titles; Latin remains a customary language of scholarship in classical studies.
- The Acharnians ( Acharneis; Latin: ) (425 BC)
- The Knights ( Hippeis; Latin: ) (424 BC)
- The Clouds ( Nephelai; Latin: ) (original 423 BC, uncompleted revised version from 419 BC – 416 BC survives)
- The Wasps ( Sphekes; Latin: ) (422 BC)
- Peace ( Eirene; Latin: ) (first version, 421 BC)
- The Birds ( Ornithes; Latin: ) (414 BC)
- Lysistrata (411 BC)
- Thesmophoriazusae or The Women Celebrating the Thesmophoria ( (first version, c. 411 BC)
- The Frogs ( Batrachoi; Latin: ) (405 BC)
- Ecclesiazusae or The Assemblywomen; (c. 392 BC)
- Wealth (; Latin Plutus) (second version, 388 BC)
Datable non-surviving (lost) plays
The standard modern edition of the fragments is Kassel-Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci III.2; Kock-numbers are now outdated and should not be used.
- Banqueters (427 BC)
- Babylonians (426 BC)
- Farmers (424 BC)
- Merchant Ships (423 BC)
- Clouds (first version) (423 BC)
- Proagon (422 BC)
- Amphiaraos (414 BC)
- Plutus (Wealth, first version, 408 BC)
- Gerytades (uncertain, probably 407 BC)
- Kokalos (387 BC)
- Aiolosikon (second version, 386 BC)
Undated non-surviving (lost) plays
- Aiolosikon (first version)
- Anagyros
- Frying-Pan Men
- Daidalos
- Danaids
- Centaur
- Heroes
- Lemnian Women
- Old Age
- Peace (second version)
- Phoenician Women
- Polyidos
- Seasons
- Storks
- Telemessians
- Triphales
- Thesmophoriazusae (Women at the Thesmophoria Festival, second version)
- Women in Tents
Attributed (doubtful, possibly by Archippos)
- Dionysos Shipwrecked
- Islands
- Niobos
- Poetry
See also
Further reading
- Henderson, Jeffrey 1991 Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-506685-5
- by W.J. Slater, Phoenix, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Autumn, 1976), pp. 291-293 doi:10.2307/1087300
- Platter, Charles. Aristophanes and the Carnival of Genres (Arethusa Books). Baltimore, MD; London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0-8018-8527-2).
- Lee, Jae Num. "Scatology in Continental Satirical Writings from Aristophanes to Rabelais" and "English Scatological Writings from Skelton to Pope." Swift and Scatological Satire. Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1971. 7-22; 23-53.
- by Cedric H. Whitman Author(s) of Review: H. Lloyd Stow The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 87, No. 1 (Jan., 1966), pp. 111-113
- G. M. Sifakis The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 112, 1992 (1992), pp. 123-142 doi:10.2307/632156
External links
- at
- Biography and texts of Aristophanes
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- Satirical article written "by" Aristophanes at
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