13/2/07 - Classical Literature - Aristophanes: Old Comedy

There are two types of ancient comedy: old comedy (of which only Aristophanes is extant), and new comedy. There is also such a thing as 'middle comedy', but this is a misleading term. Aristophanes was probably the best poet of the time, but perhaps not the best at comedy. New comedy is simply romantic comedy.

"One way to describe an Aristophanic comedy is a compromise between a musical and a variety show. What I mean by this is that the plot alone does not dictate the structure of the action, but the genre itself, and thus the audience's expectations, compromised a number of features extraneous to the plot and which you may find puzzling. What follows is a sort of statistical average - although it should be stressed that no single extant comedy has all these structural elements in full. But please keep it in mind for later, when we will consider to what extent Thesmophoriazusae and Frogs do and do not conform to this model."
[Simon Trépanier]

Comedies tend not to have a sturdy plot unity but this is not important. Comedies contain political commentary and satire. They could mock people by name and use topical subjects, e.g. politicians and those of more fame than they deserved. Slander laws meant that it was only possible to mock people for reasonable issues. Use of obscenities and curses was allowed. Comedy had less universality than tragedy; they were rooted to a particular culture at a particular time. It reinforced one's sense of the normal by humouring abnormal things. There were racist and sexist jokes, which must nowadays be read historically. There were frequently happy endings, although sometimes the joke was on the audience. Artistic form and structure were discussed in this literary form. Unfortunately, any physical humour and music performed in the comedies is now lost to us.

Both comedy and tragedy dealt with wide issues. Comedy, in Greek, was kommos, which also meant a party or drunken procession. This reflects the idea that comedy is a drunken song. There is a hierarchy of comedy ranging from buffoonish to dignified, based on the level of language used: farce - low comedy involving physical humour and no morals; high comedy involving realistic characters, serious morals and a little farce; parody, involving imitation, sometimes for ridicule, and accuracy; satire - aimed at a specific person or people with malicious intent.

Note that there is a different between laughing at and laughing with. Characters could be eiron, a liar or dissembler, someone who knows more yet pretends to know less, creating irony. Alternatively, there was alazon, a buffoon with whom we do not sympathise, someone who knows little yet pretends to know much. We laugh at their ignorance. Characters don't necessarily fall neatly into one category or another, but can be both eiron and alazon.

Thesmophoriazusae, or Woman at the Thesmophoria (the female religious festival) was an atypical comedy for Aristophanes, because most of his comedies focus on a particular political occurrence. Thesmophoriazusae and Frogs are his most literary plays, written at a time of crisis. Both plays are escapist, and seem unpolitical for the time, because it was too dangerous to write about political subjects at such a delicate time. Most comedy is gestural because the masks restricted the actors' emotional expression.

The structure of Aristophanic comedy

There are perfunctory choral odes; every piece of dialogue is followed by a song which contributes nothing to the plot, but allows for the actors to change. The protagonist uses an agon to win over half of the chorus to his side. It might seem out of sync in terms of comedy and plot, but this is because there is a rigorous formal structure for the theatre. There are episodes after the entire chorus has been won over and the most creative freedom can be used unrestricted. This form probably developed since the performance of the first Greek comedy.