OLD COMEDY: SOME CHARACTERISTICS
Fantasy: Aristophanic comedy is outside the real and even mythical
realm of reality. Situations are fanciful and fictional. characters take
positions which violate laws of nature and disregard practical objections.
There is an indifference to the passage of time.
Parabasis: The ancient core of comedy. A choral song where the
poet ‘speaks his mind’ to the audience on a topic of political or personal
importance. In the course of time it degenerated until it was left out
altogether, as in the late plays Ecclesiazusae and Plutus.
Chorus: 24 members. Of primary importance. Many plays take their
names from their chorus. In the course of time, the importance of the chorus
declined, as it did in tragedy. In the Plutus there is only one choral
song. Elsewhere there is only the word chorus written in the manuscripts
where the chorus would come in and do a song and dance between acts.
Agon: Struggle or debate which is at the center of most plays
of Old Comedy. Formal poetic form.
Irreverence: Mythology and gods treated with extreme irreverence.
Gods are made to appear foolish, cowardly and dishonest.
Obscenity. Sex and scatology is discussed without euphemism.
Too graphic for most modern tastes; few translations bring it all across.
Obscenity decreases over time. Aristophanes’ last play has some, but not
much. New Comedy (4th century) has none.
Parody: There are numerous examples of travesties of tragedy and
epic. Euripides was a favorite whipping boy for the comic poets. The Athenians
must have had a high consciousness to literary allusions in order to recognize
these references.
Personal References: Old Comedy is full of remarks directed at
prominent politicians, gluttons, sophists, voluptuaries, and many well-known
figures of the time. They are scarcely spared from biting wit and outrageous
suggestions. Over time, however, such references decline in number, and
New Comedy has none.
Puns: Something very hard to get across in translation. Aristophanes
loves word plays, and takes every opportunity to engage in paronomasia.
Freedom of Speech: It is remarkable that the Peloponnesian War
could be attacked and ridiculed during wartime, and that top officials would
be so lampooned at a religious festival sponsored by the state itself.
All attempts by aggrieved parties to gag the comic playwrights ended in
failure. The Athenian democracy was strong enough to tolerate public criticism
of itself and its leaders, institutions, and gods, but toward the end of
the Peloponnesian War, as the fortunes of Athens ebbed, there was less such
outspokenness.