Tereus in the Fifth and Fourth Century: From Paratragedy to Mythic Burlesque
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Maria Haley
Maria Haley is a researcher on Greek and Roman drama specialising in tragic fragments. Her monograph on theMyth of Thyestes in Greece and Rome is forthcoming. Maria has published on tragicomedy inRamus and mythic burlesque inLogeion and has a particular interest in lesser-known performance genres.
Abstract
No complete fourth-century mythic burlesque survives, leaving classicists to consider how comedies with titles from dark, tragic myths such as Tereus, Medea and Thyestes could have been funny. Whereas comedies such as Aristophanes’ Birds could reference tragic themes in a domestic plotline, a technique Manuwauld terms paratragedy, these mythic burlesques based their plotline on the tragic myths, travestying infanticide and cannibalism. Thus, Tereus provides a fruitful case study for considering how fourth-century burlesques turned into tragicomedy. In terms of evidence, the myth emerges in both Attic tragedy and comedy, along with three fragmentary Tereus burlesques. In terms of content, mutilation, infanticide and cannibalism are tragic, whilst extramarital sex, the jealous wife and the feast are familiar comic themes. So, whilst Dobrov and Nesselrath has provided an extensive comparison of Tereus in Sophocles’ and Aristophanes’ works, this chapter intends to examine the fragments of Anaxandrides’, Cantharus’ and Philetaerus’ Tereus plays to uncover how Tereus’ story was travestied. Having explored the comic potential of the story, this chapter then compares these fragments with Sophocles’ Tereus to argue that, beyond travestying the tragic plot, the Tereus myth also burlesques the tragic mode to comic effect; thus, these lost Tereus plays present a story that is tragicomic in both form and content.
Abstract
No complete fourth-century mythic burlesque survives, leaving classicists to consider how comedies with titles from dark, tragic myths such as Tereus, Medea and Thyestes could have been funny. Whereas comedies such as Aristophanes’ Birds could reference tragic themes in a domestic plotline, a technique Manuwauld terms paratragedy, these mythic burlesques based their plotline on the tragic myths, travestying infanticide and cannibalism. Thus, Tereus provides a fruitful case study for considering how fourth-century burlesques turned into tragicomedy. In terms of evidence, the myth emerges in both Attic tragedy and comedy, along with three fragmentary Tereus burlesques. In terms of content, mutilation, infanticide and cannibalism are tragic, whilst extramarital sex, the jealous wife and the feast are familiar comic themes. So, whilst Dobrov and Nesselrath has provided an extensive comparison of Tereus in Sophocles’ and Aristophanes’ works, this chapter intends to examine the fragments of Anaxandrides’, Cantharus’ and Philetaerus’ Tereus plays to uncover how Tereus’ story was travestied. Having explored the comic potential of the story, this chapter then compares these fragments with Sophocles’ Tereus to argue that, beyond travestying the tragic plot, the Tereus myth also burlesques the tragic mode to comic effect; thus, these lost Tereus plays present a story that is tragicomic in both form and content.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- (Re)assembling the Tereus Myth: Vase Painting, Memory, and the Senses 15
- Lamenting about the Wrong Crime: Homer, Sophocles and Demonising the Other 41
- Hunting Tereus: Rubens, Shakespeare, Sophocles 61
- Passion, Knowledge and Truth: Second Thoughts on Sophocles’ Tereus 77
- ζηλοτυπ[ίᾳ ......] οἰστρηθεισ̃ α: Domestic Violence and Revenge in Sophocles’ Tereus 95
- Tereus’ Illicit Penetration(s): A New Reading of Fragment 581 R 115
- The Voice of the Shuttle: The Tereus Myth in Aristophanes’ Birds 131
- Tereus in the Fifth and Fourth Century: From Paratragedy to Mythic Burlesque 153
- The Tereus Myth in Roman Republican Drama 179
- “(In)Human, All Too (In)Human”: Ovid’s Tereus and the Vulnerable Body 191
- Postface 205
- Methodological Appendix: The Orchid and the Wasp — Reading Fragments with Assemblage Theory 223
- List of Contributors 241
- General Index
- Index of Sources
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword VII
- Contents IX
- Introduction 1
- (Re)assembling the Tereus Myth: Vase Painting, Memory, and the Senses 15
- Lamenting about the Wrong Crime: Homer, Sophocles and Demonising the Other 41
- Hunting Tereus: Rubens, Shakespeare, Sophocles 61
- Passion, Knowledge and Truth: Second Thoughts on Sophocles’ Tereus 77
- ζηλοτυπ[ίᾳ ......] οἰστρηθεισ̃ α: Domestic Violence and Revenge in Sophocles’ Tereus 95
- Tereus’ Illicit Penetration(s): A New Reading of Fragment 581 R 115
- The Voice of the Shuttle: The Tereus Myth in Aristophanes’ Birds 131
- Tereus in the Fifth and Fourth Century: From Paratragedy to Mythic Burlesque 153
- The Tereus Myth in Roman Republican Drama 179
- “(In)Human, All Too (In)Human”: Ovid’s Tereus and the Vulnerable Body 191
- Postface 205
- Methodological Appendix: The Orchid and the Wasp — Reading Fragments with Assemblage Theory 223
- List of Contributors 241
- General Index
- Index of Sources
