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Information to Users INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand com er and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 MENANDER AND THE SUBVERSION OF TRAGEDY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Paul A. Iversen, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 1998 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor William W. Batstone, Adviser Professor Stephen V. Tracy Adviser Professor Bruce Heiden Graduate Program in Classics UMI Number: 9834005 Copyright 1998 by Iversen, Paul Andrew All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9834005 Copyright 1998, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Paul A. Iversen 1998 ABSTRACT In this study the model of literary influence promulgated by Harold Bloom in The Anxiety o f Influence (Oxford 1973) is used as a way of understanding the comedy of Menander in its local context It is argued that Menander, like many a modem and ancient writer, was not innocendy imitating Tragedy, but he was engaged in an agon or struggle for his fjoetic life, not with Old Comedy, but with the tragic canon that was still being performed on the stages of Attica. In particular, it is argued that Menander struggled for survival in the face of the great traditions that preceded him, and that part of this stmggle included the subversion of Tragedy and tragic role-playing, especially Euripidean Tragedy as it was defined by Aristotle. In the first chapter, the nature and significance of this view of Menander’s relationship with Tragedy is outlined in contrast to other views of imitation and influence. Here the application of "Bloomian" theory to an ancient author is justified. It is shown that if we understand Euripides' influence on Menander in the traditional terms of imitation, then in Menander we are left with nothing but a kind of Euripidean Tragedy with a few comic additions thrown in. It is then demonstrated how the ancients, including Menander, were anxious to overcome their poetic precursors just as modem authors are. In the second chapter all the surviving comic fragments through the time of Menander that refer to, burlesque, parody, or imitate Tragedy, with the exception of Aristophanes (because his references to Tragedy have already been catalogued and analyzed), are reviewed. Here evidence is found for a developing ideological agon. As u long as Tragedy was a living genre. Comedy maintained a parasitic or symbiotic relationship in that it depended on the living voice of Tragedy for its comic effects. There was a collision on the stage between Comedy and Tragedy: Tragedy was parodied or burlesqued and Comedy was another voice competing in the dialectic of the fifth-century polis for the attention of citizens. Then, as the great period of Tragedy ended and Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides became canonical, that is, no longer the living voice of the contemporary stage but the bearers of traditional values, the relationship of Comedy to Tragedy began to change. For a time collisions between the genres continued: Comedy still parodied or burlesqued the three tragedians, but it also began to recognize and engage them as a canon from the past, not the living voice of the present. Finally in Menander, and presumably in New Comedy in general, the tragic staples were no longer parodied or burlesqued, but incorporated into Comedy in order for the poet to finally subvert them by imposing on events a sense of the "human comedy of the mundane" rather than a celebration of human greamess and human suffering. Accepting the tragic staples, as defined by Aristode, of pathos, anagnorisis, and peripeteia, in chapters three through six these ideas are explored in terms of specific plays. In the third chapter, Tyche andpathos in the Aspis are explored. Here it is argued that Menander rewrites these heroic and tragic concerns both as temporary m is understandings in the larger course of life and as manageable elements in the petite dramas of life. In the fourth chapter, anagnorisis and peripeteia in the Epitrepontes, Perikeiromene, and Sicyonius are evaluated. Here, the staples of Tragedy become devices for the self- interested rhetorical contests that engage the characters. In the Epitrepontes it is shown that Smicrines’ character is assimilated to the tragic mythical patterns (mythemes) of father- figures in Tragedy who persecute their unwed pregnant daughters and grandsons. As the presence of Tragedy in the play, he must be overcome and mocked by play’s end. In the fifth chapter, Menander’s interest in the consequences of tragic orge and role-playing is lU discussed as they arc found in the Samia , where anger and tragic diction continually reinforce each other. Here it is shown that Menander subverts the tragic "performance" of anger. At the end of the play, the comic perspective imitates Niceratus' response to the tragic "paradigm" of Euripides' Danàe cited by Demeas to calm Niceratus: "What does the D ome have to do with us?" In the sixth chapter, it is argued that theDyscolus is Menander's response to the isolated, self-determined, unyielding type of the "heroic temper" represented by Cnemon, who, like other blocking-figures in Menander, is assimilated to tragic norms as the Comedy enacts its own ideological struggle. In the end Cnemon undergoes a peripeteia or metabole as he "falls" fiom misfortune to fortune. Cnemon, who represents the presence of Tragedy within the play, is overthrown, mocked, and forcibly brought back into society against his will for the good of himself and his oikos. In the process. Tragedy's dialectic, as represented by Cnemon, is undermined by the Comedy, which is represented by the clever slave and cook. Finally, it is concluded that Menander exploited the image of Tragedy and tragic mythemes, but tried to mirror a more realistic world, one in which ordinary men and women could live with their ordinary problems. Menander’s personal struggle for survival amongst a people who held great reverence for the traditions that preceded him is thus an instance of the survival of the human spirit in a society that perhaps viewed itself less heroic and less tragic. IV For Suzanna. où ijèv yàp ToO ye Kpeîaaov Kal âpeiov, 68" ôno<ppovéovTE voT^paaiv oTkov âv5pa ii5e yuvq- irôXX’ âXyea SuanevÉEoai, x é c p u a r a S’ EÙUEvénnai- nàXiora Sé t ’ ékXuov oùtoî. -Odyssey 6.182-185. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost I wish to thank my adviser, William Batstone, for his guiding hand throughout this endeavor. His classes on Menander and Plautus, which he taught simultaneously one quarter and in which I was enrolled, sparked in me an interest to pursue New Comedy. There is scarcely any page of this dissertation that was not influenced in some way by his stimulating class lectures and our private conversations. I also wish to thank Stephen V. Tracy for his help and encouragement, especially for his expertise on the history of the Hellenistic period during the reign of Demetrius of Phalerum. I am grateful to Bruce Heiden, who was gracious enough to step up to the plate at the last minute and pinch hit as my third reader. 1 wish to express thanks to Kathryn A. Morgan, who provided invaluable assistance and criticisms on the first five chapters. I also thank Philip Forsythe, who carefully proofread the manuscript late one nighL Naturally, any remaining shortcomings or errors are my own. 1 would like to thank The Ohio State University Department of Greek and Latin and especially The Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies, both of which were unstinting in their financial support of me to finish this project. Finally 1 would like to thank my wife Suzanna for her love, encouragement, support, and good cheer. VI VITA January 16, 1964 ............................. Bom - Oak Park, Illinois 1989 ................................................. B.A. Classical Studies, Michigan State University 1991 ................................................. M.A. Classical Studies, The Ohio State University 1989 - 1996 .................................... Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, The Ohio State University 1993-1994 ....................................... Adjunct Professor, Wittenberg University 1994-1995 ....................................... Regular Member, The American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece 1996-1998 ....................................... Full-time Research Associate, The Ohio State University Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies 1997-1998 ....................................... Adjunct Professor, Ohio Wesleyan University FIELDS OF STUDY Greek and Roman Comedy Greek Epigraphy vu FREQUENTLY CITED WORKS Austin, NFEPR Austin, Colin.
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