![]() ![]() ![]() Ancient writers most often coordinate stylistic features with country settings, where authoritative performers such as Muses, poets, and eventually critics or theorists view, appropriate, and emulate their bounties (for example springs, flowers, rivers, paths). This study explores a previously uncharted area of ancient literary theory and criticism: the ancient landscapes (such as the Ilissus river in Athens and Mount Helicon) that generate metaphors for distinguishing styles, which dovetail with ancient conceptions of metaphor as itself spatial and mobile. Unlike his low-comic rivals, however, Aristophanes imbues the low-comic mode with novelty, contemporary relevance, and sophistication, resulting in a dual low-high poetics. In each case I demonstrate that the comedies metatheatrically enact the dichotomy revealing the necessity of low comedy as a foundational element of the comic genre. In part two I analyze how the low-high dichotomy functions in Wasps (chapter four), Lysistrata and Thesmophoriazusae (chapter five), and Frogs (chapter six). Despite clear differences between these two modes, Aristophanes often comically conflates them, destabilizing his claim to be a high-comic poet. I identify two distinct modes that Aristophanes opposes to the low: the political mode (angry, aggressive, didactic, offers advice to the city) and the intellectual mode (restrained, verbal, includes parody of tragedy and philosophy). In chapter three I tackle Aristophanes’ definition of the high-comic mode. This analysis results in a much broader understanding than previous scholarship has offered of the types of humor that could be classed as low comedy. In part one I analyze the concept of low comedy by considering the evidence in Aristophanes’ plays (chapter one) and in the fragments of Sicilian and fifth-century Athenian comedy, testimonia, scholia, and vase paintings (chapter two). I argue rather that Aristophanes’ ironic disavowal of the low serves paradoxically to emphasize its necessity for the comic genre. This irony has long been noted by scholars but it is usually claimed that Aristophanes includes low comedy as a concession to the uneducated masses in his audience. Herein lies the problem of Aristophanic poetics: Aristophanes makes extensive use of all the low comic routines that he disparages so vehemently. His own comedy, he claims, is always produced in the high mode. He frequently accuses his rivals of producing low comedy and claims that he would never stoop to such frivolity himself. Aristophanes consistently speaks of the low-comic mode in negative terms. The high-comic mode is politically engaged, didactic, sophisticated, novel, and concerned with contemporary events. The low mode is characterized by stock characters and routines, physical humor, obscenity, and a sense of antiquity. When he articulates his own comic preferences, his “poetics,” he does so using the framework of a dichotomy that contrasts a low-comic mode and a high-comic mode. Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.The Greek comic poet Aristophanes often comments on the value of different comic modes.Britannica Beyond We’ve created a new place where questions are at the center of learning. ![]() 100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.COVID-19 Portal While this global health crisis continues to evolve, it can be useful to look to past pandemics to better understand how to respond today.Student Portal Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more. ![]()
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