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Fifth-century tragedy and Comedy: A synkrisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Oliver Taplin
Oliver Taplin*
Affiliation:
Magdalen College, Oxford
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Extract

At the very end of Plato's Symposium our narrator awakes to find Socrates still hard at it, and making Agathon and Aristophanes agree that the composition of tragedy and comedy is really one and the same thing:… προсαναγκάӡειν τὸν Σωκράτη ὁμολογεῖν αὐτοὺс τοῦ αὐτοῦ ἀνδρὸс εἷναι κωμωιδίαν καὶ τραγωιδίαν ἐπἰсταϲθαι ποιεῖν, καὶ τὸν τέχνηι τραγωιδοποιὸν ὄντα καὶ κωμωιδοποιὸν εἷναι. ταῦτα δὴ ἀναγκαӡομένουϲ αὐτοὺϲ … the two playwrights succumb to sleep, leaving Socrates triumphant. Socrates had to ‘force’ his case; and it is a fact that, though we know of well over 100 fifth-century playwrights, we do not know of a single one who produced both tragedy and comedy. In a famous fragment the comedian Antiphanes (fr. 191K) complains that the tragedians have an easy time—familiar stories, the deus ex machina etc.—ἡμῖν δὲ ταῦτ' οὐκ ἔсτιν … It is a matter of ‘them’ and ‘us’. Furthermore, there was an entire separate genre besides tragedy and comedy. As Demetrius put it (de eloc. 169), τραγωιδία χάριταϲ μὲν παραλαμβάνει ἐν πολλοῖϲ, ὁ δὲ γέλωϲ ἐχθρὸϲ τραγωιδίαϲ· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐπινοήϲειεν ἄν τιϲ τραγωιδίαν παίӡουϲαν, ἐπεὶ ϲάτυρον γράψει ἀντὶ τραγωιδίαϲ.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 106 , November 1986 , pp. 163 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1986

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References

1 The nearest thing to a counter-example is the scholion on Ar. Peace 835 which says that Ion of Chios wrote comedies as well (see TrCF 19 T2b). Athenaeus ix 407d says the same of a fourth-century Timocles (86TI). It is worth note that actors also seem to have been split exclusively between the two genres.

2 The distinctive middle ground of satyr-play is well discussed in the Introduction III A (pp. 10 ff.) to Seaford's, R. Cyclops (Oxford 1984)Google Scholar. Of special interest for this discussion is his suggestion (18, 32) that satyr-play stood outside τὸ πολιτικόν, the sphere of both tragedy and comedy though in very different ways.

3 Winnington-Ingram, R., ‘Euripides, poietes sophos ’, Arethusa ii (1969) 127 ff.Google Scholar, Knox, B., ‘Euripidean comedy’, Word and action (John Hopkins 1979) 250 ffGoogle Scholar. (first published in 1970).

4 Palintonos Harmonia. Studien zu komischen Elementen in der griechischen Tragödie, Hypomnemata lxxii (Göttingen 1982)Google Scholar.

5 Zeitlin, F., ‘The closet of masks: role-playing and myth-making in the Orestes of Euripides’, Ramus ix (1980) 51 ffGoogle Scholar. This virtuoso piece is evidently becoming a classic.

6 This position is approached by Goldhill, S., Language, sexuality, narrative: the Oresteia (Cambridge 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. It may be epitomised by his attempt (119) to improve on a bon mot of Vernant: ‘tragédie … ne reflète pas cette réalité; elle la met en question’: Goldhill adds ‘“En jeu”, he might have said’.

7 Seidensticker 245 n. 33 quotes George Bernard Shaw: ‘the popular definition of tragedy is heavy drama in which everyone is killed in the last act, comedy being light drama, in which everyone is married in the last act’.

8 This way of approaching ‘theatrical texts’ may be becoming the focus of some contemporary theoretical work. Nothing much is to be found in Elam, K., The Semiotics of theatre and drama (London 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar—see his index s.v. ‘transaction performer—audience’—but rather more in the last few pages of Carlson, M., Theories of the theatre (Cornell 1984). He writes (p. 508 Google Scholar): ‘the relatively minor attention given to the audience's contribution by the first generation of modern theatre semioticians is demonstrated by the fact that Elam's book devotes only 9 of 210 pages to this subject, but more recent work suggests that this may develop into one of the major areas of theoretical investigation of the 1980's’. In its concern with the stage—auditorium relationship my approach looks to the school of ‘Rezeptionsästhetik’ rather than to that of Derrida and de Man which is trapped within the framework of ‘text-reader’.

9 Although not entered in Supplement II to the OED (1976), this term, presumably formed by analogy with ‘metalanguage’, goes back to at least 1963, when it was used as the title of a book by Lionel Abel.

10 For recent studies of self-reference in Greek comedy see Russo, C. F., Aristofane autore di teatro 2 (Firenze 1984) 85 Google Scholar, Bain, D., Actors and audience (Oxford 1977) 208 Google Scholar ff., Muecke, F., Antichthon xi (1977) 52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff., Chapman, G. A. H., AJP civ (1983) 1–23 Google Scholar. Chapman contrasts comedy with tragedy, but without going into detailed discussion of tragedy. (The wide-ranging study by Görler, W., A und A xviii (1973) 41 Google Scholar ff. does not say much about fifth-century comedy.)

11 Easterling, P., ‘Anachronism in Greek tragedy’, JHS cv (1985) 6 Google Scholar. I am most grateful for an advance view of this valuable article.

12 See, for example, de Romilly, J., JHS xciii (1973) 155 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 On knocking at the door see Taplin, , Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977) 340–1Google Scholar; on time id. 291–4, 377– 9; on place id. 103–7, 377–9.

14 See Knox (n. 3) 260–3, Taplin, , Greek tragedy in action (London and Berkeley 1978) 137–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Foley, H., TAPA cx (1980) 107 Google Scholar ff. (the quotation is from p. 122); see now Ritual irony. Poetry and sacrifice in Euripides (Cornell 1985) 205 ffGoogle Scholar.

16 Bain, D., ‘Audience address in Greek tragedy’, CQ xxv (1975) 13 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also cf. Taplin (n. 13) 130–32, 394–5. I am inclined to agree with Bain 23–5 that Astydamas 60F4 is wrongly attributed to satyr-play rather than comedy (i.e. the author is wrong also); but Sutton, D. F., The Creek satyr play (Meisenheim am Glan 1980) 82–3Google Scholar prefers the explanation that comedy and satyr-play were losing their generic distinctions in the fourth century. For illustrations from Old Comedy see, for instance, Chapman (n. 10) 3, 8–9.

17 Against authenticity see Barrett on Hipp. 1462–6; he is followed by Diggle OCT ad IT 1197–9.

18 As it is in chapter 7, ‘Metatragedy’, of Segal, C., Dionysiac poetics and Euripides' Bacchae (Princeton 1982)Google Scholar.

19 At first sight Orestes the highwayman looks like an exception (Acharn. 1167, Birds 712, 1482 ff.); but that is in fact a nickname.

20 On this see Macleod, C., JHS cii (1982) 131–2Google Scholar, reprinted as Collected essays (Oxford 1983) 27–8.

21 POxy 663 col. ii = PCG iv p. 140 lines 44–8. For a discussion of ἕμφαϲιϲ see Janko, R., Aristotle on comedy (London 1984) 202–3, 206 Google Scholar.

22 Seaford (n. 2) 18–19. Sutton (n. 16) 162–3. Sutton 10 writes ‘Satyr play was rarely if ever a vehicle for the expression of opinion about contemporary events in the arts or in any other sphere, and even veiled personal attacks are not found’. I am not sure what to make of Sophocles fr. 887R which contains the coined epithets νικὁμαχον and παυϲανίαν. See Radt, , Fondation Hardt, Entretiens xxix (1983) 210, 227 Google Scholar (where I suggested it might come from satyr-play).

23 Snell, B., Scenes from Greek drama (Berkeley 1964) 113 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Sutton (n. 16) 77 ff.

24 This point is well discussed in Bain (n. 16) 14–17; see also Kaimio, M., The chorus of Greek drama within the light of the person and number used, Soc. scient. Fenn. comm. hum. litt. xlvi (Helsinki 1970) 92–103 Google Scholar.

25 For evidence see PCG iv p. 219.

26 I now feel that in Taplin (n. 13) 12–16, where my prime purpose was to argue that reading plays was only a secondary substitute for seeing them, I underrated the literacy of the dramatists, and indeed of the fifth century as a whole. For a better balance see Knox, B. in The Cambridge history of classical literature I (Cambridge 1985) 6–12 Google Scholar. Bear in mind also that in Acharnians Euripides' plays are presented as texts which are equated with his ragged costumes (see C. Macleod, Essays [n. 20] 47–8); and that on the ‘Pronomos vase’, where the auletes is the centre of attention, the playwright is shown sitting with a finished roll of papyrus in his hand. This is unique, but for allied material see Immerwahr, H. R., Studies in honour of B. L. Ullmann, ed. Henderson, C. I (Rome 1964) 17 ffGoogle Scholar.

27 See Easterling (n. 11) 4–6.

28 Cited by Rutherford, R., JHS cii (1982) 160 Google Scholar n. 69 as refuting the contention that ‘no case of theatrical self-reference can be found in Greek tragedy’.

29 For a full, if rather rough, collection see Chapman (n. 10) 4–10.

30 See especially Arnott, W. G., G and R xx (1972) 50–2Google Scholar.

31 The ancient concept of progress (Oxford 1973) 75 Google Scholar, reprinted in Oxford readings in Greek tragedy ed. Segal, E. (Oxford 1983) 186 Google Scholar. (Dodds' article was first published in 1966.)

32 If this is right, it is in itself evidence that the audience did not know the titles of the plays in advance.

33 Muecke, F., Antichthon xvi (1982) 17 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. (the quotation is from p. 29). For raw material, rather than interpretation, see Chapman (n. 10) 10–22.

34 Segal (n. 18) 248 n. 33 offers Acharn. 990, Peace 524, Frogs 912.

35 I have in mind particularly Aesch. Eum. 990, where the Erinyes' frightening faces are a permanent feature not a temporary mask; and it would be even less appropriate at Soph. El. 1297 where Electra's expression is now habitually grim, as she herself explains at 1309 ff. I am not even persuaded by Seaford (n. 2) ad loc. that there is a reference to Silenus' mask at Eur. Cyclops 227.

36 See E. Simon, SHAW 1981.5.

37 Tragedy may ‘borrow’ from comedy, as is argued, for example, by Dover, K. J., Aristophanic comedy (London 1972) 148–9Google Scholar with reference to Birds 209 ff. and Helen 1187 ff. But this is not parody and docs not draw attention to its intertextual relation.

38 See Bain, D. BICS xxiv (1977) 104 ffGoogle Scholar.

39 This may also be the point of Hecuba's reference at Troades 1242–5 to the ἀοιδἀϲ ὑϲτέρων βροτῶν: this is the nearest that Troades has to a prediction ex machina.

39a Plato Ion 535e portrays a silent and motionless, though highly moved, audience at performances of epic (and humorously alludes to the danger of laughter): καθορῶ γὰρ ἑκάϲτοτε αὐτοὺϲ ἄνωθεν ἀπὸ τοῦ βήματοϲ κλάοντάϲ τε καὶ δεινὸν ἐμβλέπονταϲ καὶ συνθαμβοῦνταϲ τοῖϲ λεγομένοιϲ. δεῖ γάρ με καὶ ϲφόδρ' αὐτοῖϲ τὸν νοῦν προϲέχειν· ὡϲ ἐὰν μὲν κλάονταϲ αὐτοὺϲ καθίϲω, αὐτὸϲ γελάϲομαι ἀργὺριον λαμβάνων, ἐὰν δὲ γελῶνταϲ, αὐτὸϲ κλαύϲομαι ἀργύριον ἀπολλύϲ.

40 For the material see Pickard-Cambridge, , The dramatic festivals of Athens 2 rev. Gould, J. and Lewis, D. (Oxford 1968) 272–6Google Scholar. Chapman (n. 10) 1 notes the contrast between the appropriate audience responses to tragedy and comedy.

41 Cf. Zimmermann, B., Untersuchungen zur Form und dramatischen Technik der Aristophanischen Komödien (Königstein 1984) chapter IGoogle Scholar.

42 YCS xxvi (1980) 99–151, esp. 117–24Google Scholar.

43 For some new discussion of self-reference in New Comedy see Hunter, R. L., The new comedy of Greece and Rome (Cambridge 1985) 73–82 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the ‘Table Ronde’ of the Groupe de recherches sur la tragedie grecque held at Paris X-Nanterre in May 1985. I am most grateful to Professors F. Jouan and S. Saïd for the invitation which prompted me to get my ideas down on paper—and to those present for the discussion. I am also indebted to Michael Silk and to the Journal's referee for thought-provoking criticism, not all of which I have been able to meet.