Startseite Altertumswissenschaften & Ägyptologie Fantastic Beasts and How to Use Them: Animal Characters and Choruses in Old Comedy
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Fantastic Beasts and How to Use Them: Animal Characters and Choruses in Old Comedy

  • Ioannis M. Konstantakos
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Playing in the Sun: Ancient Theatre Between Disciplines
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch Playing in the Sun: Ancient Theatre Between Disciplines

Abstract

The appearance of personified animals as characters or chorus members is a common phenomenon in Old Comedy, especially in plays with fantastic storylines. On the basis of Aristophanes’ extant plays and the remains of other comic playwrights, a number of plot types and thematic patterns may be discerned. The simplest form consists in the amusing portrayal of animals and their lives in their natural habitats. The Archaic proto-comedies depicted in Attic black-figure vasepaintings (ca. 540–480 BCE) must have belonged to this category. Aristophanes’ Frogs and Eupolis’ Goats represent sophisticated and poetically self-conscious revivals of the same early form. In more complex scenarios, the animal characters are involved in typically human activities, similar to the beasts of the Aesopic fables, and also represent anthropological types or attributes of the human psyche. Examples include the trial of the dogs in the Wasps and perhaps Aristophanes’ Storks, in which the storks incarnated the ideal of filial piety. In the most elaborate kind of plot, the anthropomorphic beasts are combined with the creation of fantastic secondary worlds and utopian societies. The dramatic mythopoeia is further enriched with other magical motifs of fairy tale, such as Cockaigne, the animation of objects, and supernatural metamorphosis. The three greatest masterpieces of Attic animal comedy (Crates’ Beasts, Aristophanes’ Birds, and Archippus’ Fishes) exemplify this latter type.

Abstract

The appearance of personified animals as characters or chorus members is a common phenomenon in Old Comedy, especially in plays with fantastic storylines. On the basis of Aristophanes’ extant plays and the remains of other comic playwrights, a number of plot types and thematic patterns may be discerned. The simplest form consists in the amusing portrayal of animals and their lives in their natural habitats. The Archaic proto-comedies depicted in Attic black-figure vasepaintings (ca. 540–480 BCE) must have belonged to this category. Aristophanes’ Frogs and Eupolis’ Goats represent sophisticated and poetically self-conscious revivals of the same early form. In more complex scenarios, the animal characters are involved in typically human activities, similar to the beasts of the Aesopic fables, and also represent anthropological types or attributes of the human psyche. Examples include the trial of the dogs in the Wasps and perhaps Aristophanes’ Storks, in which the storks incarnated the ideal of filial piety. In the most elaborate kind of plot, the anthropomorphic beasts are combined with the creation of fantastic secondary worlds and utopian societies. The dramatic mythopoeia is further enriched with other magical motifs of fairy tale, such as Cockaigne, the animation of objects, and supernatural metamorphosis. The three greatest masterpieces of Attic animal comedy (Crates’ Beasts, Aristophanes’ Birds, and Archippus’ Fishes) exemplify this latter type.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. List of Illustrations XI
  5. Introduction XII
  6. Part I: Dramatic Texts: Form, Music, Narrative
  7. Bacchylides’ Ode 5 and Sophocles’ Trachiniae: Lyric Poetry and Tragedy 3
  8. On Misunderstanding Apollo: The Oracle and Its Consequences in Soph. O.R. 13
  9. “And They Lived Happily Ever After”? A Tentative Taxonomy of (More or Less) Happy Endings in Euripides 21
  10. Fantastic Beasts and How to Use Them: Animal Characters and Choruses in Old Comedy 45
  11. Juxtaposing and Contrasting Modes of Speech Presentation in Aristophanes’ Knights 624–690: Narrative Techniques, Performance, and Plot 81
  12. A ‘Metic’ Prometheus in Aristophanes’ Birds 101
  13. Ein neues Fragment des Komödiendichters Aristomenes 121
  14. “Is Your Roof Leaking Anywhere?” Euripides’ Danae Transformed Into Menander’s Samia 137
  15. Osservazioni sull’uso delle soluzioni anapestiche nei trimetri giambici di Filemone 147
  16. Part II: Theatre, Society, Perception
  17. The Audience in the Time of the Athenian Theatrocracy 171
  18. Tür, Bühnenkran, Ekkyklema: Zu Aristophanes’ Technik der Evokation des Imaginativen 199
  19. Remarks on the Ancient Theatre in Aegina 219
  20. Dikaiopolis’ Spatiotemporal Coordinates in Aristophanes’ Acharnians 235
  21. Spielen und Tanzen für die Demokratie. Zur politischen Funktion des Theaters in den „Fröschen“ des Aristophanes 257
  22. On Comedy, Football and (Once Again) the Impact of Theatre on Spectators’ Reactions 287
  23. Clio Smiles: Greek Comedy As and For Historiography 307
  24. Meditation und Panegyrik in Brixen: Joseph Reschs Pastor bonus (1748) 321
  25. “I Had a Little Nut-Tree” 338
  26. Part III: Dramatic Texts and Theatre Through the Eyes of Ancient Scholars
  27. Un teatro per l’impero. Le citazioni drammatiche in Plinio il Vecchio e Svetonio 347
  28. Julius Pollux on the Theatre (4.99–154) 371
  29. Taking it on Trust?: Euripides and the Epistemological Tradition 389
  30. Scholars on Comedians on Lyric Poets: Ar. Nub. 967 from Stesichorus to Didymus 407
  31. Citazioni di Eschilo negli scholia all’Iliade 431
  32. Where Narrative Meets Drama: argumentum as a Term for (Realistic) Fiction 439
  33. Poetae comici satyrographi. Euanthius’ griechische Komödiengeschichte in bikulturellem Kontext 455
  34. List of Contributors 473
  35. General Index
  36. Index of Passages
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111594804-004

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. List of Illustrations XI
  5. Introduction XII
  6. Part I: Dramatic Texts: Form, Music, Narrative
  7. Bacchylides’ Ode 5 and Sophocles’ Trachiniae: Lyric Poetry and Tragedy 3
  8. On Misunderstanding Apollo: The Oracle and Its Consequences in Soph. O.R. 13
  9. “And They Lived Happily Ever After”? A Tentative Taxonomy of (More or Less) Happy Endings in Euripides 21
  10. Fantastic Beasts and How to Use Them: Animal Characters and Choruses in Old Comedy 45
  11. Juxtaposing and Contrasting Modes of Speech Presentation in Aristophanes’ Knights 624–690: Narrative Techniques, Performance, and Plot 81
  12. A ‘Metic’ Prometheus in Aristophanes’ Birds 101
  13. Ein neues Fragment des Komödiendichters Aristomenes 121
  14. “Is Your Roof Leaking Anywhere?” Euripides’ Danae Transformed Into Menander’s Samia 137
  15. Osservazioni sull’uso delle soluzioni anapestiche nei trimetri giambici di Filemone 147
  16. Part II: Theatre, Society, Perception
  17. The Audience in the Time of the Athenian Theatrocracy 171
  18. Tür, Bühnenkran, Ekkyklema: Zu Aristophanes’ Technik der Evokation des Imaginativen 199
  19. Remarks on the Ancient Theatre in Aegina 219
  20. Dikaiopolis’ Spatiotemporal Coordinates in Aristophanes’ Acharnians 235
  21. Spielen und Tanzen für die Demokratie. Zur politischen Funktion des Theaters in den „Fröschen“ des Aristophanes 257
  22. On Comedy, Football and (Once Again) the Impact of Theatre on Spectators’ Reactions 287
  23. Clio Smiles: Greek Comedy As and For Historiography 307
  24. Meditation und Panegyrik in Brixen: Joseph Reschs Pastor bonus (1748) 321
  25. “I Had a Little Nut-Tree” 338
  26. Part III: Dramatic Texts and Theatre Through the Eyes of Ancient Scholars
  27. Un teatro per l’impero. Le citazioni drammatiche in Plinio il Vecchio e Svetonio 347
  28. Julius Pollux on the Theatre (4.99–154) 371
  29. Taking it on Trust?: Euripides and the Epistemological Tradition 389
  30. Scholars on Comedians on Lyric Poets: Ar. Nub. 967 from Stesichorus to Didymus 407
  31. Citazioni di Eschilo negli scholia all’Iliade 431
  32. Where Narrative Meets Drama: argumentum as a Term for (Realistic) Fiction 439
  33. Poetae comici satyrographi. Euanthius’ griechische Komödiengeschichte in bikulturellem Kontext 455
  34. List of Contributors 473
  35. General Index
  36. Index of Passages
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