Defining the Comic Plot: Genre and Storytelling in Aristophanes Naomi Scott UCL Doctor of Philosophy in Classics 1 I, Naomi Scott, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Abstract This dissertation examines the relationship between inter-generic interaction and plot structure in the plays of Aristophanes. Scholars have long observed that Athenian comedy engages with other poetic forms as part of its self-definition; however, studies have largely treated this as a highly localised phenomenon. By contrast, this thesis will argue that comedy’s sustained reflection on its own generic status informs the construction of plot. The dissertation focuses primarily but not exclusively on the text; I also seek to integrate a consideration of staging, costume, and other visual aspects of Old Comedy into the discussion, and to examine the plays not only as poetic texts but as enacted drama. The dissertation aims to show firstly, that inter-generic interactions are deeply embedded in the plot structures of Aristophanes’ plays; secondly, that these interactions are not exclusively parodic, but rather operate along a spectrum from the overtly antagonistic, to the merely contrastive and even incorporative; and thirdly, that sustained intergeneric engagement is not limited in Aristophanes to ‘high’ genres, such as tragedy and epic, but also encompasses ‘low’ discourses such as Aesopic fable. The dissertation suggests that Aristophanes’ plays display a marked interest in not only the formal differences between genres, in the form of their poetics, aesthetics, or cultural status; but also in the kinds of narratives and modes of storytelling which belong to, and define, different genres. This interest in narrative, plot, and storytelling is in turn self- reflexive, as the plays investigate their own generic status through the prism of their plots, and the kinds of stories which they tell. The dissertation argues that the plays make a series of incursions into modes of storytelling associated with genres other than comedy; and that these different modes are accordingly incorporated not only into the comic plot, but into an expanding and deeply competitive definition of what constitutes comic storytelling. Each of the three chapters examines a different sub-genre of comic plot, namely animal comedy (in the Wasps); mythic comedy (in Peace and Birds); and ‘women on top’ plots (in the Thesmophoriazusae and Ecclesiazusae). 3 All translations of Aristophanes are taken from Alan Sommerstein’s Aris & Phillips series (Aristophanes: Volumes 1-11). All other translations are taken from the relevant volume of the Loeb Classical Library, except where indicated. 4 Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 6 The Plays: Selection and Organisation................................................................................ 28 Scope of the Thesis: Politics and Genre .............................................................................. 29 Chapter Synopses ................................................................................................................ 31 Chapter One: Animal Comedy and the Wasps ................................................................... 36 Animal Choruses and the History of Comedy .................................................................... 37 Aesop and the Wasps ........................................................................................................... 43 Performing the Animal Kingdom: Philocleon and the Chorus ........................................... 55 The Trial of Labes the Dog ................................................................................................. 63 Dancing Crabs and the Wasps’ Grand Finale ...................................................................... 68 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 72 Chapter Two: Mythic Storytelling in the Peace and Birds ................................................ 75 Peace ................................................................................................................................... 85 Tragedy vs. Comedy; Failure vs. Success ..................................................................... 101 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 112 Birds .................................................................................................................................. 113 Myth-Making in the Birds ............................................................................................. 113 Tragedy, Myth, and the Darker Side of the Birds’ Fictional World............................... 125 Staging the City: Space, Dramaturgy, and the Limits of Representation in the Birds .. 136 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 144 Chapter Three: ‘Women On Top’ in the Thesmophoriazusae and Ecclesiazusae .......... 146 Thesmophoriazusae ........................................................................................................... 157 The Comic Frame: Implicating tragedy ........................................................................ 161 The Council of ‘Women’............................................................................................... 170 Euripides on Stage......................................................................................................... 178 Ecclesiazusae .................................................................................................................... 181 ‘Women on Top’ in the Ecclesiazusae........................................................................... 188 The Ecclesiazusae and the Subversion of Masculinity ................................................. 194 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 204 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 207 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 212 5 Introduction This dissertation examines the relationship between storytelling and genre in the plays of Aristophanes. The dissertation suggests that Aristophanes’ plays display a marked interest in not only the boundaries and intersections between genres in terms of their poetics, aesthetics, or cultural status; but also in the kinds of narratives and modes of storytelling which belong to, and define, different genres, and particularly comedy. I argue that the plays make a series of incursions into modes of storytelling associated with genres other than comedy; and that these different modes are accordingly incorporated not only into the comic plot, but into an expanding definition of what constitutes comic storytelling. Recent scholarship on Old Comedy has rightly stressed the genre’s remarkable and persistent self-reflexivity. Comedy’s impulse towards self-examination is most obviously formalised in the self-referential parabasis, in which the chorus ‘step forward’1 to address the audience directly. Earlier scholarship often treated the parabasis as a digression, otherwise irrelevant to the plot and structure of the play, and theorised that it may have been the remnant of an older ritual tradition;2 or otherwise ignored it all together.3 In contrast to this earlier view, Thomas Hubbard’s 1991 monograph The Mask of Comedy: Aristophanes and the Intertextual Parabasis dismissed the argument that the parabasis was the fossil of an earlier cultic element of Old Comedy, and instead suggested that it should be seen as a central component of a play’s structure which, far from being a digression, is in fact integrated into the plot and themes of the play as a whole. Additionally, a series of important publications have argued that overt self-consciousness in Aristophanes is not limited to the parabasis, but rather that metapoetic and metatheatrical reflection is a consistent feature of the plays, and a fundamental characteristic of Old Comedy as a genre. Among the most notable publications 1. Cf. Sifakis 1971: 62-66 for a discussion of the exact meaning of the verb παραβαίνειν, and the act of ‘stepping forward’ in the parabasis. 2. Cf. for example Murray 1933, Cornford 1934. The arguments against this view of the parabasis are outlined in Hubbard 1991: 23-7. 3. Note in particular that Whitman’s highly influential 1964 monograph, Aristophanes and the Comic Hero, contains almost no discussion of the plays’ parabases. 6 on this topic is Niall Slater’s 2002 book Spectator Politics: Metatheatre and Performance in Aristophanes, which argues that metatheatricality is not only a core element of comedy’s aesthetics, but is (in Aristophanes at least) tied to the plays’ function as an act of political discourse embedded in and actively engaged with the institutions and operation of the Athenian state; and Zachary Biles’ 2001 book Aristophanes and the Poetics of Competition, which argues that the plays make constant reference to their agonistic context,