Provocative Statements. Discuss with your partner the questions you receive from the professor.
1. The fact that Aristophanes and other comic poets treat the gods with irreverence in their plays proves that they were atheists, and that the Athenian audience did not take their religion seriously.
2. The fact that Plato has Socrates say that prejudice against him resulted from a comic playwright’s portrayal of him as “making the weaker argument stronger”, and of “not believing in the gods which the city worships” proves that Aristophanes’ play CLOUDS was responsible for Socrates’ execution (399 BCE).
3. The fact that comedies were produced at two different places (Theater of Dionysos and Lenaion) proves that they were more popular than tragedies, which were only produced in one place (Theater of Dionysos).
4. The fact that comedies were performed after tragedies proves that they were more popular, because they were saved for last, as a treat, and a ‘payoff’ for sitting through the boring tragedies and satyr
plays.
5. The fact that comedies had diction more colloquial and realistic than tragedy and satyr plays, and that they contained obscenities, proves that people liked them more, because they were easier to understand, and to relate to.
6. The fact that it cost money to attend a dramatic performance in Athens proves that the poor attended seldom, if at all.
7. The fact that Dionysiac religion is the ultimate origin of Greek dramatic festivals proves that there is somewhere in every play a reference to his worship.
8. The fact that some modern scholars use the time designations “BC” (before Christ) and “AD” (Anno Domini, Year of our Lord) proves that they value Christianity over all other religions.
9. The fact that Aristophanes wrote his plays for white slave-owning imperialistic males proves that he was a racist war-mongering chauvinist, and has nothing to say to women, people of color, or third-world victims of colonialism.
10. The fact that women were in the audience for all dramas proves that the ancient Athenians had an open society and equal rights.
11. The fact that women were forbidden from attending the theater in ancient Athens proves that the ancient Athenians had a closed society and did not care about equal rights.
12. The fact that Athenian comedies were based on obscenity proves that the ancient Greeks were sex-obsessed and lost their civilization because of their homosexual relations and preoccupation with the phallus.
13. The fact that only eleven of Aristophanes’ plays survive from antiquity proves that early Christians rightly destroyed two-thirds of his output on moral grounds.
14. The fact that eleven of Aristophanes’ plays survive from antiquity proves that early Christians lovingly preserved these rare examples of pure Attic dialect and Athenian cultural values.
15. The fact that Aristophanes was a right-winger and hated the radical democracy proves that Athenian comedy was a Republican stronghold
that believed in small government, tax cuts for the rich, the death penalty,
and a strong military.
16. The fact that the “agon” was a central part of Athenian Old Comedy proves that the Athenians loved to hear debates, and didn’t care who won them, thus showing that they were bereft of absolute moral beliefs about what is right and what is wrong.
17. The fact that Attic comedies and tragedies were paid for by public funds and approved by public magistrates proves that the people of Athens themselves, personally, approved of the contents of each play.
18. The fact that Aristophanes has upper-class and conservative biases proves that his audience shared his views.
19. The fact that Aristophanes ridiculed the general Cleon so much and the fact that Cleon was re-elected general right after a particularly bitter attack on him in the first-prize-winning Knights (424) proves that the Athenians could enjoy political satire and still approve of its victims.
20. The fact that there were legal restrictions on what comedy writers could say in their plays had a tremendous effect on Aristophanes.
21. The fact that there were no legal restrictions on what comedy writers could say in their plays resulted in Cleon’s personal legal attacks on Aristophanes.
22. We can tell the purpose of Aristophanes in every play he writes, because the Parabasis tells us how he really feels.
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