Characteristics of aristophanic comedy

Characteristics of aristophanic comedy

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Characteristics of aristophanic comedy

Aristophanic Comedy

Connection between democracy & drama

• Most of the audience watching the plays would on make crucial decisions in the Assembly
• In the background of the comedies was the Peloponnesian War
• added power and pathos to cries for peace and sanity in each play
• When Sparta defeated Athens and abolished democracy, the vital link was broken.
• Comedy became more domestic in nature, limited in scope & force.

Features of Attic Old Comedy

• Emphasis on bawdiness deriving from fertility origins
• A structure centred upon the parados, agon and parabasis
• Satirical attacks on current trends and members of the community
• The festivals and the element of competition
• Serious and educative purpose of the plays
• Importance of chorus and masks and animal costumes

Links to Dionysus

• Was the God of Wine, ecstatic release, fertility and theatre
• Both actor & drunkard have lost their normal personalities
• The Greeks explained being under influence of strong passions as temporarily possessed by a god
• Actors wore masks and costumes that covered them from head to foot so their normal personalities were obscured, allowing the power of the god to shine through.

Fertility Festival Origins

• The earliest form of the worship of Dionysus were annual processions where the god’s image was taken from his temple behind the theatre of Dionysus to Eleusis
• Many wore masks
• In the countryside, hymns were sung, animals were sacrificed and the celebrants drank wine.
• After the feast, they retired by the roadside on beds of ivy leaves, drinking and merrymaking.
• At nightfall, the procession returned to the city by torchlight and the image of the god was set up on an altar in the middle of the open-air theatre.
• This re-enacted the coming of the god to Athens
• In the komos or phallic procession through country villages, worship of Dionysus was again expressed mainly through song and dance that clearly showed the gods connection with fertility religions
• A flute player led the way, followed by women singing hymns to Dionysus, carrying the phallus pole or human puppet with a large phallus
• Behind marched phallic choruses of men, wearing masks representing drunkenness, who asked bystanders to make way for the god.
• They would scoff at the bystanders, purifying the community by attacking prominent or unpopular individuals and scaring away evil.
• Phallic rites were not by nature obscene.
• Their function was religious: to purify and renew the community, to scare away evil
• Although Attic Old Comedy contains much satire and personal attack, it is not poisonous or vicious.
• Aristophanes attacks war and stupidity with laughter.

Importance of the Chorus

• Comedy began when the chorus leader separated himself off from other singers as they told stories of the god , then two more actors were added, chorus numbers were fixed at 24
• Some of the earliest comedies were given titles with animal names
• May account for Aristophanes’ titles like Wasps, Birds or Frogs
• Very first masks may have been the purple faces of worshippers of the god of wine, who had smeared their faces with lees from the wine jars
• The chorus sings, dances, judges the agon, and is often disguised in animal costumes
• Enhance the play’s impact on the audience
• Could represent public opinion & shape the audience’s response
• Conveyed political messages and make themes of the play more accessible to the audience

Structure of the Plays

• In open-air theatres the chorus acts as a curtain would in modern theatres: choruses sung between scenes mark passing of time and the division of action.
• Importance of the chorus can be seen in the three-part structure of Attic Old Comedy
• The parados –the processional entry of the chorus into the theatre
• The agon – the debate on values between two main characters judged by the chorus
• The parabasis – the chorus stepped out of role, unmasked and talked to the audience on behalf of their author, explaining the significance of their animal costume and the play’s themes.
• Threefold pattern may also reflect the themes of the plays, which all seem to include
• A sick society mad on war, lawsuits, money and political and military domination of Greece
• A fantastic deed done by the hero – in Wasps, the fantasy trial of the dogs – in Frogs, the descent into the underworld. The fantastic deed propels us into a never-never world of peace, reconciliation and fulfilment.
• The rejoicing with which the play ends.
• Super-imposed on the parados, agon and parabasis were scenes of spoken dialogue added later, as the chorus came before the actors. They were:
• The prologue. Introduces the protagonist and explains his predicament. Sources of sickness affecting the city made clearer. Much verbal humour.
• Scenes after the parados. A series of comic episodes leading up to the Agon.
• Encounter scenes. Occur after the Agon. Generally consist of a series of episodes in which the hero drives away a succession of unwelcome visitors who would all like an unearned share of the peace and plenty earned by the hero through his fantastic deed.
• Exodos. The choral finale and the exit of the chorus.
• Many scenes were separated by short, sung interludes. Some of the plays end with a gamos, or marriage scene, an appropriate end to celebrations of fertility and creativeness.

Satire

• Attic Old Comedy includes much satire on unpopular individuals.
• Perhaps trying to curry favour with the audiences
• Wasps includes more personal attacks than any other, perhaps due to Clouds’ failure (year before)
• Gender jokes, making fun of the feminine looking Cleisthenes
• Vicious running jokes that turn a real person into a living legend in his own lifetime, such as jokes about Cleonymus ‘the great shield dropper’ that went on for fourteen years. This despite Athenian laws on slander that specifically said that you couldn’t say a man threw away his shield in battle
• One-liners such e.g. Cleon has humble origins and ‘stinks of the tanner’s yard’
• Ancient writers saw such personal attacks as an important dimension of Attic Old Comedy
• Attacks upon current trends like the new education and the emphasis upon fashion of the modern generation and attacks upon individuals are an attempt to purify and renew that community in time of war and desperation.
• The real emphasis is on getting back to the old ways, on peace and fertility and the proper worship of the gods.

Festivals and the Importance of Competition

• Outdoor dramatic festivals in honour of the fertility god Dionysus were celebrated in winter, the time when the earth was preparing the new season’s crops
• The City Dionysia
• Nation-wide festival
• Celebrated in the last week of March, or Early April marking the arrival of the wine-god in Athens
• Recreates the journey of the god from his earliest centre of worship, Eleusis, to Athens, where his statue stood in his own theatre for the festival
• Three days were devoted to tragedy. Each tragic poet produced three tragedies and one satyr play
• A comic play produced in the afternoons, after the tragedies and the satyr play
• A fourth day may have been scheduled for comedy
• The Lenaea
• Celebrated in January a time of year which discouraged sea travel
• Local Athenian festival
• Probably held in the theatre of Dionysus
• Comic competitions introduced in 442BCE
• Less important than the City Dionysia
• With no allies and foreigners present, the poets could be more outspoken about what was wrong with the state
• Important for the production of new comedies
• 5 comic poets were chosen annually, though in time of war cut down to 3
• These were competitive - Greeks saw the power of the gods behind the winner of a competition.
• Choosing of judges by lot from audience was a way of giving gods a say in outcome of the festival

Themes

• Aristophanes despite his conservatism, also attacked his own party and class
• Longed for the days when the Marathon Men led Greece to victory over the Persians
• But also realised if Athens was now full of intellectual corruption and fraud, this had happened because the traditionalists had allowed themselves to become weak, playing into the hands of people like Cleon
• Cleon and his like had become strong and influential because they lacked principals
• The traditionalists were weak because they had stupidly allowed the moral standards that might have protected them against people like Cleon to deteriorate
• There are faults on both sides, but always 2 contrasting groups of ideas, those that are being celebrated and those that are being attacked.

• Shown in Wasps
• Procleon is old, fought against the Persians and is fill of energy, delight, life and poetry.
• ‘he’s a great one for the old songs’
• He is also much more of a man than his son will ever be
• We approve of him
• Are forced to admit he has been stupid and allowed himself through greed to be duped by Cleon’s influence into bringing down suspect decisions in the law courts
• Represented as sick of a sickness that is deep rooted in the whole of Athens – a sickness which his son is trying to cure by keeping him locked up & away from the law courts
• Although Anticleon is a modern, long haired ‘namby-pamby’, he is literally Anti-Cleon, pro-peace and truly cares for his father’s well-being
• The structure reveals faults and strengths on both sides.
• A true healthy Athenian would possess the strengths but not the weaknesses of both father and son.

Use of Masks
Purposes

• Masks neutralised the actor’s own personality
• Gaping mouth intended to produce resonance
• Exaggerated features so they could be seen from the back of the theatre

Disadvantages

• Allowed no changing of facial expressions, freezing the actor into a single, unchanged appearance

Advantages

• Allowed one actor to switch roles and overcame problem of only 3 speaking actors per play
• Allowed male actors to play female parts.
• Allowed faces to be seen easily at a distance because of the bold painting
• Enhanced grotesque foolishness of comic characters
• Allowed well-known Athenians to be deliberately caricatured

Costumes

• Costumes provided a vivid splash of colour, e.g. the chorus in the orchestra in their exotic costumes
• ‘Skin’ of the three male actors consisted of tights. Their stomachs were grotesquely padded. If playing a male role, a large leather phallus generally a long floppy affair, was stitched to tights
• Over their tights actors wore a sleeveless belted garment called a chiton
• Over the chiton might be worn a cloak, the himation, which was long enough to cover the phallus
• Actors playing a female role wore a whitened mask, a long flowing chiton that reached to the ground, often yellow in colour. The himation over the chiton was normally worn as a sort of hood
• The chorus didn’t wear the phallus though there is a possibility that the Wasps had a sting-phallus
• All the members of the comic chorus probably wore identical masks and costumes.

Conditions of Production
Poets

• Playwrights chosen by archons – probably chose those with already established reputations
• The Archon Eponymous presided over the City Dionysia
• Dramatists did not submit completed plays, but offered a detailed account of what they had in mind and perhaps also read specimens of their work.
• Paid for their work

Actors

• Paid for by the state
• Allocated for their performance so there would be no favouritism

Choregos

• Assigned to each play
• Job to hire, train and fit out at his own expense the chorus
• Dramatists produced their own plays but separate producers were not unknown
• Richest citizens were asked in turn to become choregoi
• In 406 and 405 the duties of each choregos in both tragedy and comedy were divided between two men, because of economic conditions caused by the war

Judging

• Very elaborate
• Judges seem to have sworn an oath to be fair
• 10 judges were chosen by lot when the competition opened from a hundred candidates who had in turn been chosen from an even larger number
• At the end of each day, each judge placed his verdict in an urn, five of the urns were opened, the rest ignored.
• Made bribery very difficult, while the players were judged by average citizens not experts.
• The system of allotment allowed the gods a role in the judging

Prizes

• There were 3 prizes for comedy
• Since the number of plays had been reduced from 5 to 3 as a wartime austerity measure to receive 3rd prize was no great honour
• The winning dramatist, choregos and actors were awarded garlands of ivy
• Probably there was financial award for the winning comic dramatist

Aims of Aristophanic Comedy:

To win the Dramatic Competition

• Importance of this seen in the parabasis of Wasps:
• So, once again, your champion fought for you
  And sought to purge the land of grievous ills
  And what did you do then? You let him down.
• This refers to Clouds which was a failure the year before.
• Frogs reminds us of the competition as the chorus sings to Demeter:
  Queen Demeter stand before us,
  Smile upon your favourite chorus!
  Grant that when we dance and play
  As befits your holy day,
  Part in earnest, part in jest,
  We may shine above the rest
  And our play in all men’s eyes
  Favour find and win the prize

To be innovative

• In the parabasis of Wasps, Aristophanes talks of “sowing a crop of new ideas”, and in the Prologue claims we will not be given “the usual Megaran stuff”
• Milking dramatic conventions the audience was familiar with provided fun
• E.g. in trial of the dog in Wasps, the dog not speaking
• The characterisation of Aristophanes is innovative
• Viewpoint on Procleon changes more facets of fertile/fascinating character revealed
• Dionysus develops:  At beginning is fragmented/uncertain, but reborn at end.
• Aristophanes’ staging is innovative.
• The dancing circle in Frogs turned into the bottomless lake of Hades, skene is palace of Heracles, then when re-cross orchestra it is palace of Pluto
• Aristophanes’ structure is innovative
• The use of two agons in frogs
• In Wasps, there is a second parabasis dealing with Cleon the Tanner
• In Frogs the second, Xanthias actor, is as important as the first, Dionysus actor
• In Frogs, the fourth actor speaks
• The use of two choruses in Frogs is unusual, (but are frogs seen onstage?)

To Teach

• Wanted to teach Athens the value of peace and a stable, secure and ordered community
• Recognised the value of cleverness
• In the agon of Frogs, Dionysus has the trouble deciding between the old-fashioned values of Aeschylus and the new morality of Euripides
• Wasps is “just a little fable with a moral’, while in Frogs, the theme of education is everywhere: “A poet should teach a lesson, make people into better citizens

To Entertain

• “Part in earnest, part in jest”
  “To amuse you citizens and advise”
• Humour, verbal, visual, slapstick, and bawdy made his lessons memorable.

Social Satire

• Accords with the purpose of O.A.C to purify the community
• In Wasps attacks evidential standards and irrelevancies in jury trials.
• The parabasis of Frogs argues for social justicec and clemency in the face of the enemy
• Often worked through caricature, the living man became a myth in his own right. E.g. Cleonymus
• Attacks the greed of the Athenians
• In Wasps Procleon’s daughter attempts to get the 3 obols out of his mouth while kissing him
• Corpse in Frogs demands 2 drachmas to carry Dionysus’ luggage to hell. Inflation is rampant.
• Confusion between the world of the dead in Frogs and the people of Athens who are morally dead. The chaos in hell that follows Euripides’ arrival mirrors the world of Athens as the Peloponnesian war drew to its inevitable end.

Political Comment

• Aristophanes wishes Athenians to recognise their stupidity towards:
• The Peloponnesian war
• The aftermath of Arginusae
• The Oligarchic revolution of 411 BCE
• Cleon and other politicians

To celebrate creativity and fertility

• Would like a return to traditional values of times of Marathon Men: peace, prosperity & fertility
• Treatment of Procleon’s poneria: outrageous wickedness so full of life he can only be admired
• Larger than life. Many faceted, protean character & reveals aspects of his character
• At first seems a slapstick clown
• Then see him sing in a high tragic manner
• By the end he is an expert dancer
• Though he is old, he can still knock his son down
• Cured of jury-mania, his appetites become normal once more, except for gargantuan scale
• The creative fertile quality is also seen in the bawdy, the outrageous, superhuman fantasies by which his characters overcome obstacles between them and peace, well being & prosperity

To offer literary criticism

• Ancients likened to progress of Great Drama to the fire relay at the Pan-Athenaic festival: Aeschylus handed the torch to Sophocles, who brightened its splendour and handed it to Euripides but he was too weak to carry the torch, let alone keep tragedy alive
• Euripides replaced kings and battles with household things, but can be viewed as realistic
• Euripides removed the Aeschylean red carpet and purple passes, used simple dialogue, ‘put tragedy on a diet’
• In Frogs he says to Aeschylus:
  “And you think the right and proper way to teach them is to write your kind of high flown Olympic language, instead of talking like a human being?
• Euripides removed choral drama from stage – a chorus might decorate a palace, but looks peculiar among ordinary people
• Helps explain the claim that Aristophanes makes in agon of Frogs – Euripides killed tragedy!

What makes Aristophanes funny?

Subtle verbal humour

• Puns
• Wasps – Alcibiades’ lisp is attacked:
• “Look, Thothiath, theowuth ith twanthformed. He’th a waven… A’wavin’ to hith powerful fwendth of courth”
• Translator tried to capture the Greek pun on ‘korax’ a raven and ‘kolax’, a flatterer
• Made-up words or neologisms
• The unwieldy multi-syllabic tongue breaker in Greek, “sweet-sticky-and-antique”

Obvious Visual Humour

• Much originates in the animal disguises of the phallic processions.
• Striped costumes of the chorus with large stings symbolise the power of those under Cleon’s influence to harm the community
• Masks allowed the producer to parody a physical or mental characteristic of a well-known person
• Chaerophon appears in yellow masks, because he was famed for sallow complexion
• Phallus a form of visual exaggeration
• 45cm long, made of leather & a red tip
• Long floppy affair, as when Procleon asks flute girl to climb up it
• Because of the huge size of the theatre, phallus felt to be in proportion
• Costumes padded & strategically painted
• Naked flute girl in Wasps.
• “H’m. What’s this dark patch in the middle?”
• “And what’s this lump at the back? Feels uncommonly like a bottom to me.”
• Humour may have been funnier because the actor was obviously male.
• Frogs, ridiculous sight of Dionysus dressed as his Heracles but own nightshirt under

Slapstick or Farce

• Procleon’s increasingly absurd attempts to escape the house via door, waste pipe, chimney, roof-tiles, and underneath the donkey which prompts feverish running about by his jailers, locking doors and ramming tiles and smoke hole covers down on him.

Miming or Visual Parody

• After Procleon’s cure; Anticleon reform & teach him polite behaviour of modern Athenians
• Procleon’s poneria and vitality too vigorous to be bound by artificial social rules. Clumsy attempts to copy polite table manners, conversation and bearing are hilarious
• “just like one of your wealthy friends, eh.” (adopting a mincing gait)

Tragic Parody

• High-flown language & rhythms remind audience of tragic seriousness in wildly absurd new situation
• E.g. where Procleon, shit inside and unable to go to court, sings like a heroine of Euripides

Burlesque of Epic and Myth

• Recalling famous myths/legends not parody, but reveal by contrast: sickness/greed/viciousness of modern Athens under Cleon
• Procleon’s attempts to escape under the donkey cannot compare to Odysseus’ exploits
• “oh the disgusting old rascal. Look where he’s stuffed his head.”

Bawdy

• Part of the healthy celebration of what is normal and joyful
• Suggests what Athens has lost by pursuing the war – fertility, health, farmland and the countryside
• Bawdy paradoxically reminds us of the religious meaning behind the festive comedy
• Verbal, e.g. Procleon’s drives become diseased, so lusts after doing harm in court instead of love
• Can also be visual such as the rope-phallus-flute-girl joke

In-jokes

• Much interaction between stage and audience
• Telling audience in Wasps not to expect “Crude Megarian stuff” guarantees plenty of bawdy
• In many plays, audience share their delight at the plight of Cleonymus:
• “What creature is it that sheds its shield on land and sea and sky?”

Sarcasm and Satire

• Through caricature, comedy serves serious political aim: curing Athens’ sickness – warmongering, greed, dubious moral standards and the cynical education of the sophists
• Cleon is a horrible whale creature carving up the body politic
• He is the Great Roarer because of his ability to rouse the rabble with his oratory
• Sosias’ nightmare of him stinks of the tanners yard because of his humble origins
• His dupes are like “a cloud of smoke”, Greek ‘kapnos’, also suggests empty boasting
• Self-interest of jurors also satirised by Procleon’s desire to do “solid lasting harm”
• Trial of the Dogs satirises Greek courts
• Ready presumption of guilt
• Defendant’s trick of bringing in totally irrelevant arguments

Milking dramatic conventions

• Conditions and rules of performance were milked for fun
• Only 3 speaking actors onstage. In encounter scenes in Wasps, Xanthias actor goes offstage & changes mask in a series of rapid transformations
• If the best actors’ styles were readily recognisable despite the mask the audience could enjoy the transformations and see through them. In a short time, Xanthias becomes reveller, baking woman, citizen and Xanthias again
• In the trial scene, second dog mounts witness stand, but can’t speak as 3 speaking actors onstage.

Fantasy

• The deed by which order is restored is clearly pure fantasy (going to underworld)
• Heroic scale is one way the writer celebrates poneria, the sly, creative, fertile cunning of his hero.
• Such deeds are impossible in the real Athens
• Humour derived from the irrepressible nature of characters like Procleon with his gusto for life
• Superhuman fantastic element in the plays was probably based on the idea that the renewing of life in spring had to overcome tremendous odds and resistance.

Characterisation

Minor Characters are stereotypes

• Simplistic stereotypes – abusive baking woman or landladies, yellow-masked & dazed Chaerophon
• Grotesque caricatures – unseen politicians- Blear Eyes, Buskin, Great Roarer – or Heracles the glutton with his “pea soup”
• Characters taken from real life & transformed into living legends, grotesque distortions of their real selves, such as the ‘great shield dropper Cleonymus himself” or Cleisthenes, the “homosexual on a prodigious scale”

Major characters are symbolic

• Protagonist dominates the action & speaks between 1/3 and ½ the lines, stands for play’s main idea
• Used the stereotype as a powerful vehicle for moral and political comment
• Some characters are defined entirely by their symbolic role
• Procleon/Anticleon – names indicate political attitudes toward Cleon. Procleon is also symbol of disappearing traditional values. “He’s a great of for the old songs”. Compared with Aeschylus in Frogs as member of generation of Marathon Men. He & fellow jurors may be stumbling old wrecks now, but “served the city best when those barbarians came”
• Dionysus’ costume disguised as Heracles betrays his split personality. Represents Athens, split by factions & recriminations towards end of the Peloponnesian war.
• Xanthias (Frogs) more complex than stereotype slave, almost as imp. as 1st actor
• Euripides – represents new sophistical learning & questioning values – “Now the ship drifts all over the place.”

Contrast

• Intensifies personifications, because characters are set up in opposition to each other.
• Anticleon versus Procleon, Aeschylus versus Euripides

Costumes/Masks

• Dionysus’ 1st appearance (yellow robes/buskins vs. lion skin/club) reveals lack of fixed identity.
• Xanthias actor in Wasps rapidly changes a series of caricature masks in encounter scenes.
• Wasps costumes tells us about old men’s neglected position in society (tattered brown cloaks) & their nature (stings – can be used in the service of the state or misused in the service of politicians)

Poneria

• Dionysus and Procleon have a vitality that means their characters are protean or many-sided
• Procleon:
• Stubborn, ingenious, irresponsible, vindictive, old-fashioned, unteachable, vulgar, lecherous, insulting, violent, cowardly, thieving and mildly incestuous
• He is wicked, “poneros”
• Also likeable, larger than life & full of vitality, liked for zest with which he flaunts pretentious rules of polite society or the larger-than-life richness of his character.
• Anticleon is flat by comparison

Procleon and Dionysus break out of their stereotyped roles
More sides of Procleon’s protean nature are revealed gradually:

• told by his slaves that he is sick
• he is a nasty old man, who wants to do “some solid lasting harm in the law courts” and doesn’t care for “wills and solemn seals and signatures.”
• He stole on campaign
• He wants power and money
• Admire his energy and creative escape attempts
• Then he and the chorus are no longer sick and feeble old men lying in the arms of their great protector but past defenders of Athens
• Have no place in society other than what Cleon has given them
• He is not consciously nasty, but misled – suffers from misguided simplicity
• No longer misdirects his verity but toward the flute girl
• Such a huge capacity for desire and love cannot be sick. It is the objects of desire that a diseased society, suffering from Cleonitus puts before him that are the source of sickness and perversion, not the larger than life capacity for love itself

Dionysus’ character develops & changes

• In the prologue he is a buffoon and coward. His costume shows he is a fragmented and divided character needing renewal and integration like the city & theatre
• Gradually loses what wavering identity he does have
• After the parabasis he is stripped of all false identities during the beating & is recognised by Pluto & Persephone. He gains a new dignity as judge of literary debate. Proves that he has found his real identity as a god of the city, of fertility and rebirth & of the drama when on the basis of instinct he chooses Aeschylus not Euripides to save the city & educate the fools.
• Becomes what he should have been all along – god of a stable & secure community as well as god of drama. His rebirth or rediscovery of himself enables him to leap the gap between all the opposites and contrasts in the play:

Themes

• Disunity and Mistrust in Athens
• There are strong divisions between pro and anti war factions as well as democrats and oligarch. Aristophanes sees the importance of a unified Athens if it is to successfully defeat or compromise with Sparta and Persia
• Lack of good leadership and sound advice in Athens
• There is an obvious need for a leader who can unite the poleis. Just as Dionysus searches for a poet who can instruct wisely, so too does Athens search for a leader who can lead wisely.
• Need for new morals and values
• Aristophanes urges Athenians to support politicians with traditional values. The influence of the Sophists is proving deadly to Athens and Aristophanes pleads with his audience to turn from them
• The damage done by the continuing war
• Cleophon is leading Athens further and further into despair because of his insistence on maintaining war with Sparta. Athens is struggling. It is poverty stricken, inflation is out of control and Athens’ strong traditions are quickly being eroded
• Corrupt politicians
• Democracy is corrupt. The leaders are continuing the war for personal gain, both monetarily and for prestige. Cleigenes (a pro war democrat) is a thief. As a wash house proprietor he mixes ash with detergents to make them go further. As a demagogue he gives wrong or deceptive advice of peace and goodwill.
• Forgiveness of past wrongs
• Aristophanes urges the Athenians to forgive the leaders and supporters of the oligarchic revolution. He refers to the misguided supporters of Phrynichus, who now regret supporting him. Aristophanes wants their citizen rights restored so they can help restore Athens. Athens needs as many men as possible, by disenfranchising the oligarchs Athens loses a large number of able fighting men. Aristophanes praises the democrats for allowing slaves the right to vote, but pleads for the same courtesy and measure to be shown to the oligarchs.

Quotes to support themes:

The city of Athens is sick & in need of renewal/restoration
Prologue

Lack of good poets: reflection on political state of Athens. All good politicians are dead and no-one is steering the ship.

• “Insignificant squeakers, twittering like a choir of swallows. A disgrace to their calling. If they’re ever actually granted a chorus, they piss all over the art of tragedy and then you never hear of them again.”
• “I defy you to find a genuine poet among the whole lot of them: one who can coin a memorable line.”

Parados

Idea of rebirth/renewal that is needed for Athens

• “Shine for us and we will follow.”
• “And I will bear the holy torch for the girls and women.”
• “We may shine above the rest.”
• “We don’t want the leaders who stoke party strife.” – violence
• “The greedy official who’d even be willing to sell his own city just to make a killing.” – corruption
• “We don’t want the traitor who sides with the foe. We don’t want the soldier who lets the fort go.” – unpatriotic
• “We’ve no use for heathens who don’t understand conventions of comedy, noble and grand; who snigger and leer till the festival’s ended, and find double entendres where none are intended.” – ignorant
• “He’s lost his precious lover boy; his sad cries rend the air, as he takes a pair of tweezers to his last superfluous hair.” – un-masculine
• “His parentage is doubtful and he isn’t on the books.” – not citizens
• “Some people, there are who, when mocked in a play, vent spleen on a poet by cutting his play.” – spiteful
• “Yet up among the dead men he’s the prince of all the crooks – It’s the way they do things now.” – wicked
• “Last night as we revelled from twilight till dawn, my clothes and my sandals to ribbons were torn. It’s the fault of the god, but perhaps his defence is that it raises a laugh and cuts down the expenses.” – expense of mounting a chorus in time of war

Parabasis

• “When once translated from the thracian.” – criticizing Cleophon for not being an athenian citizen
• “When history is penned they’ll say we must have gone clean around the bend.”
• “There was a time when you’d have scorned to use men so debased, so far beyond the pale.”

Scenes after Parabasis

• “Well, you see, there ain’t many decent folk down here: just take a look for yourself.”

The Agon

• “And now even the sailors argue with their officers.”
• “And now the ship drifts all over the place.”

Exodos

Forgive those who supported the oligarchs
Parabasis

• “The time has come to forgive and forget.”
• “Come, wise Athenians, come swallow your pride! We need those loyal kinsmen on our side.”
• “And first for those misguided souls I plead who in the past to Phrynicus paid heed.”
• “When history is penned they’ll say we must have gone clean around the bend.”

The Agon

• “If we are now putting our trust in certain persons, and not putting our trust in certain other persons, and the City is not being saved, then it seems to me that the only reasonable hope of saving the City lies in reversing the procedure.”

Role Reversal
Prologue

• “I am carrying the luggage, aren’t I?’ (xanthias) ‘Of course you’re not. You’re riding.” (dionysus)
• “If I’d only been in that sea battle, I’d be a free man now. And if I got my hands on you…”
• “Mistook you for a madman, I expect, sir.”

Scenes after Parados

• “Well, if you’re feeling so brave and resolute, how about taking my place? Here you are, you take the club and lion skin. Chance to show your courage. And I’ll carry the luggage for you. There!”
• “Boy, bring the luggage in, will you?”
• “Rack, thumbscrews, gallows, cat-nine-tails; pour vinegar up his nostrils, pile bricks on his chest – anything you like. Only don’t hit him with a leek or a fresh spring onion. I won’t stand for that – brings tears to my eyes.”

Dionysus’ identity confusion & development of self-awareness
Prologue

• “I, Dionysus, son of jug”
• “Mistook you for a madman I expect, sir.”
• “Shh! Don’t call me that, for heaven’s sake: don’t breathe that name down here.”

Scenes after Parados

• “Well, if you’re feeling so brave and resolute, how about taking my place? Here you are, you take the club and lion skin. Chance to show your courage. And I’ll carry the luggage for you. There!”
• “No, no, look here. You can’t, I’m immortal. I say. I’m a god. Dionysus, son of Zeus. And this fellow’s a slave.”

The war should be ended
Exodos

• “And give this (*hands him a vicious-looking knife*) to cleophon with my compliments.”

Structure
Prologue

• Introduces characters of Dionysus & Xanthias
• Learn that Xanthias the slave is smarter than Dionysus, the master

Parados

• The parados of initiates encourages a return to a simpler life/pastoral life

Mini Agon

• Dionysus’ claim of identity

Parabasis

• Advises Athenians to unite & forgive the supporters of Phrynicus and those who were linked to the oligarchic revolution and restore their citizenship rights
• Put an end to the Peloponnesian War. Advises Athenians not to listen to Cleophon

Scenes after Parabasis

• Poetry of Euripides only appeals to criminals & lowlife
• Shows sickness of the city

The Agon

• What should be done about Alcibiades – Aristophanes advice is to learn to tolerate him
• Encourages a return to traditional values
• Aeschylus represents the traditional old-fashioned values of heroes of Marathon & Salamis while Euripides represents the new generation educated by the Sophists whose modern values have led to the denigration of Athens.

Exodos

• Pluto tells Aeschylus to go back to Athens and educate the fools and save the city

Source : http://skc-scholars.wikispaces.com/file/view/Aristophanes.doc

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