Greek Comedy and Ideology

257 Pages·1995·15.46 MB·English

by  David Konstan

GREEK COMEDY
AND IDEOLOGY
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GREEK COMEDY
AND IDEOLOGY
David Konstan
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1995
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay
Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi
Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne
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and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1995 by David Konstan
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Konstan, David.
Greek comedy and ideology / David Konstan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-509294-5
1. Greek drama (Comedy]—History and criticism. 2. Political
plays, Greek—History and criticism. 3. Politics and literature—
Greece. 4. Literature and society—Greece. 5. Social problems in
literature. I. Title.
PA3166.K66 1995
882'.05230901—dc20 94-6730
135798642
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
For Alan and Susan Ruskin
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Preface and
Acknowledgments
This book is conceived as a companion to my Roman Comedy. Once
again, I interpret the texts as vehicles of social or ideological tensions
in the classical city-state, which show up in the plays as complex or
overdetermined elements in plot and characterization. However, the
time span covered in this book is more generous, the kinds of comedy
are more various, and evidence is drawn not only from Greek originals
but also from Roman and modern adaptations. All translations from
ancient and modern languages are my own, unless otherwise indicated.
Each of the eleven chapters has appeared elsewhere in one form or
another,- all have been brought up to date and revised, in some cases so
extensively as to amount to entirely new essays. I wish to thank the
following journals and publishers and their editors for permission to
reprint relevant parts of the following materials:
"The Politics of Aristophanes' Wasps," which appeared in Trans-
actions of the American Philological Association 115 (1985) 27-46, and
is here adapted in Chapter 1.
"Aristophanes' Birds and the City in the Air," which appeared in
Arethusa 23 (1990) 183-207, and is here adapted in Chapter 2.
"Women and the Body Politic: The Representation of Women in
Aristophanes'Lysistrata," which appeared in S. Halliwell, J. Henderson,
A. H. Sommerstein, and B. Zimmerman, eds., Tragedy, Comedy and
the Polis, published by Levante Editori in Bari (1993) 431-44, and is here
adapted in Chapter 3.
viii Preface and Acknowledgments
"Politique, poetique, et rituel dans les Grenouilles d'Aristofane,"
which apeared in Metis 1 (1987) 291-308, and is here adapted in Chap-
ter 4.
"The Ideology of Aristophanes' Wealth," written jointly with Mat-
thew Dillon, which appeared in the American Journal of Philology 102
(1981) 371-94, and is here adapted in Chapter 5.
"A Dramatic History of Misanthropes," which appeared in Com-
parative Drama 17 (1983) 97-123, and is here adapted in Chapter 6.
"Between Courtesan and Wife: A Study of Menander's Perikei-
romene, " which appeared inPhoenix, journal of the Classical Associa-
tion of Canada, 41 (1987) 21-39, and is here adapted in Chapter 7.
"The Young Concubine in Menandrean Comedy," which appeared
in Ruth Scodel, ed., Theater and Society in the Classical World, pub-
lished by the University of Michigan Press in Ann Arbor (1993) 139-
60, and is here adapted in Chapter 8.
"Love in Terence's Eunuch: The Origins of Erotic Subjectivity,"
which appeared in the American Journal of Philology 107 (1986) 369-
93, and is here adapted in Chapter 9.
"Premarital Sex, Illegitimacy, and Male Anxiety in Menander and
Athens," which appeared in Alan Boegehold and Adele Scafuro, eds.,
Athenian Identity and Civic Ideology, published by the Johns Hopkins
University Press in Baltimore (1994) 217-35, and is here adapted in
Chapter 10.
"The Dramatic Fortunes of a Miser: Ideology and Form in Plautus
and Moliere," which appeared in Andrew Milner and Chris Worth, eds.,
Discourse and Difference: Post-Structuralism, Feminism and the Mo-
ment of History, published by the Centre for Comparative Literature
and Cultural Studies (formerly the Centre for General and Compara-
tive Literature) of Monash University in Melbourne (1990) 177-89, and
is here adapted in Chapter 11.
I am especially grateful to Matthew Dillon of Loyola Marymount
University for permission to include our jointly written paper on
Aristophanes' Wealth.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge here my intellectual debts. Col-
leagues at Wesleyan University, where I taught from 1967 to 1987,
Brown University, where I now teach, and the University of Sydney,
where I spent a year's leave in 1990-91, were helpful at successive stages.
I wish especially to mention Henry Abelove, Marylin Arthur, Elizabeth
Bobrick, Stephen Dyson, the late Rena Grant, Barbara Harlow, Jonathan
Haynes, Carol Kelley, Frances Muecke, Pura Nieto Hernandez, Geor-
gia Nugent, Kenneth Reckford, Michael Roberts, Ellen Rooney, Adele
Preface and Acknowledgments ix
Scafuro, Richard Slotkin, Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, Elizabeth Traube,
Ruthann Whitten, and Bronwyn Williams.
I am very pleased to acknowledge grants by the National Endow-
ment for the Humanities and by the American Council of Learned
Societies, as well as a sabbatical leave from Brown University, which
permitted me the freedom from other academic duties needed to com-
plete the final version of the book.
It is a particular delight to acknowledge my dear friend Khachig
Tololyan, who urged me to undertake this book and gave me constant
encouragement. I am grateful also to my children, Eve (called Tupi) and
Geoff, and to Robyn Sprigg, for their love and friendship. To my father,
Harry, my deepest thanks and love. Alan and Susan Ruskin, to whom I
dedicate this book, know what they have meant to me.
Providence, Rhode Island D.K.
August 1994