|
|
 |
|
English 223
Greek and Roman Literature
Wendy Furman-Adams
Some Notes on Aristophanes' The Birds |
|
|
|
|
|
|
I. Old Comedy, 427-404
"Old Comedy": a topical, socially relevant form
of comedy that flourished in Periclean Athens,
ending abruptly with the end of the
Peloponnesian War (between Athens and Sparta) in
404.
After that time comedy became less topical and
specific--giving rise to the "New Comedy" of
Menander (342 - 290), and through his influence to
the Roman comedies of Plautus (254 - 184 B.C.E.)
and Terence (190 - 159 B.C.E.)--and from there
(English majors) to Shakespeare and especially
Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's best known
contemporary.
The best way to think of Old Comedy is as a kind
of cracked mirror image of tragedy (which it
typically followed in the program of the
Festival of Dionysus). Both tragedy and comedy
provide a ceremonial, sacred release (1) from
our central human anxiety about death and the
unknown; (2) from our frustration at
metaphysical and social constraints:
Tragedy: reveals our limitations, both
metaphysical and social.
Comedy: overcomes every constraint, both
metaphysical and social.
A. The comic hero: not a great man who falls
"from prosperity to misery . . . due . . . to
some great error" (Aristotle, Dorsch, 48 /73);
but rather, typically, a clever Athenian
underdog who frees himself from every limitation
by some ingenious (often utopian) scheme (such
as founding Cloudcuckooland).
Pisthetairos--an ordinary old lecher (a man
"worse than . . . nowadays" [Aristotle, Dorsch,
33 /59]) apotheosized into the absolute ruler of
the universe--of gods, human beings, and nature.
We should be so lucky. (We are--by identifying
with his triumph, as we have identified with the
tragic hero's catastrophe.)
B. The comic plot: both lyrical and satirical;
both fantasy and social comment.
The action and language always ribald, often
obscene: allows the audience (like the
protagonist) to free themselves from the
restraints of mortality and the responsibilities
of a polite society, and join with nature in an
earthy appreciation of the body.
Pisthetairos--interested in every kind of body
(see 198, 228, 259).
C. Origins of Old Comedy: Aristotle notes that
as tragedy had its beginnings in the ode (c.f. Pindar), comedy had its beginnings in "phallic
songs" (p. 36 /62), still sung in his day.
Originally, scholars believe, obscenity was used
to drive away evil spirits; in a far less
literal way this purpose remains as comedy (like
tragedy) channels Bacchanalian impulses into a
socially useful (or at least controlled) form.
Pisthetairos and Euelpides (and some birds) wear
gigantic (Priapus - like) leather phalluses on
their costumes.
Also, bird signs used in divination; here the
world of oracles and superstition savagely
lampooned.
D. Comic catharsis: As tragedy purges fear and
pity (terror and compassion), comedy purges the
less exalted human drives--e.g. greed,
untrammeled sexual license, etc. (Note
references to Tereus, Procne, and Itys; to
Prometheus; etc.)
Exodos, 283 - 84.
E. Comedy as Parody:
Choral meters are drawn from odes and tragedies
to heighten comic effect (e.g. the Birds'
Theogony [c.f. Hesiod's], 229-33).
F. Aspects of Old Comedy:
an original plot (not familiar mythic or
legendary material).
a fantastic plot (literally)--allows the hero to
accomplish the impossible.
very topical and specific satire of institutions
and attitudes in Athens (in this case, ca. 414).
G. Parts of the Play:
prologue (exactly parallel to tragedy--sets the
scene and situation--but leggy and formless
rather than precise. No episodes for almost 40
pages!). See 189 - 204.
parodos (choral procession--in this case a
spectacular parade of birds).
agon--mock debate or argument, very stylized
(e.g. the debate on forming Cloudcuckooland,
215 - 28). See especially 217-18; 221 - 22.
parabasis (choral address to the audience--e.g.
the theogony, 229 - 33.
episodes--any number (no sense of "order" and
"necessity"--in contrast to tragedy, with
its "inevitable" progression toward
catastrophe).
machina--e.g. the Isis scene (256 - 59).
kordox--a lascivious flute dance.
Costumes: fabulous, both funny and beautiful
(and often obscene).
H. Popular humor--an attack on the polis which
ironically brings the whole polis together
(ideally) in the relief of laughter as in the
relief of fear and pity.
II. The Birds
Note: the play won second place at the Great
Dionysia of 414 B.C.E. (Notice the
self-referential humor.)
A. Some aspects of the play to think about:
1. Note the (comic) irony that Pisthetairos and
Euelpides flee Athens only to recreate exactly
what they have fled; take the pastoral world of
the birds ("one long honeymoon") and build
another Athens. (See 197 - 202.)
2. What does Cloudcuckooland represent? How is
it a kind of Athens and anti-Athens in one?
B. The "action" of the play--four episodes:
(1) The rise and naming of Cloudcuckooland and
the arrival of the first six of a whole company
of sycophants and charlatans: a priest, a poet,
a prophet (compare to Teiresias), an
alchemist-magician (spoofing the pre-Socratics),
an inspector, and a decree vendor (234 - 50).
(2) The wall is completed and urban problems
begin in earnest: two messengers, Iris on a
machina, a herald, a parricide (262 - 64), a dithrambic poet, and an informer (266-70).
(3) Prometheus arrives in scarlet tights and
promises Pisthetairos Basileia for a wife
(271-74).
(4) The visit of the Olympian delegation and the
completely satisfactory negotiation with the
gods (275
- 82).
C. Some important scenes in the context of the
course:
1. The Pindaric poet (239 - 42) and the role of
poetry in the polis.
2. Iris, goddess of the rainbow (256 - 59)--c.f. Euripidean tragedy.
3. The parricide (262 - 64): Oedipus (like Tereus!)
as a comic figure.
4. Promethius the rebel and champion of
humankind who wins (271 - 74).
5. The ending, in which "God's service perishes"
(275 - 82) --and everything turns out fine.
Negotiation with the gods really the final
extension of flouting parental
authority--exactly the opposite of both the
historical pattern (279 - 80 vs. the Trojan war)
and of the tragic pattern (where one never can
second guess one's fate).
Play ends in an apotheosis (the overcoming of
mortality) and a marriage dance, a cosmic
epithalamion joining birds, men, gods--with "one
of us" in charge of everything. Even the
audience is given wings (233).
Thus comedy the balancing "other half" of
tragedy--achieving a similar end (and a kind of
catharsis) by opposite means:
In tragedy, we can come to see glory in our
limitations.
In comedy, we can come to see the ridiculousness
in our pretensions to glory.
Comedy deflates our self-spiritualizing (taking
ourselves too seriously), and by cutting free
from all constraints we can come to see their
usefulness in curbing our urges.
Thus to see "steadily and whole" requires both a
comic and a tragic vision.
On the other hand, a lot of social satire here:
Cloudcuckooland not just an anti-utopian polis,
but a polis, with all the usual characters.
Think about what kind of polis Cloudcuckooland
is--how it reflects both the ideals and the
reality of Athenian life as seen in Kebric.
Finally, in the context of Theocritus and
Moschus, think about the comedy as a kind of
pastoral, with its ideal of unity--in contrast
to the violence, fraud, and greed of urban life.
(As we shall see in Roman literature, pastoral
and satire really two sides of the same coin.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
