Politics and Anti-Realism in Athenian Old Comedy: The Art of the Impossible

625 Pages·2012·5.829 MB·English

by  Ian Ruffell

Title Pages
Politics and Anti-Realism in Athenian Old
Comedy: The Art of the Impossible
Ian Ruffell
Print publication date: 2011
Print ISBN-13: 9780199587216
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2012
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587216.001.0001
Title Pages
Published under the supervision of a Committee of the Faculty of Classics in the
University of Oxford
(p.i) Oxford Classical Monographs
(p.iii) Politics and Anti-Realism in Athenian Old Comedy
(p.ii) The aim of the Oxford Classical Monograph series (which replaces the
Oxford Classical and Philosophical Monographs) is to publish books based on the
best theses on Greek and Latin literature, ancient history, and ancient
philosophy examined by the Faculty Board of Classics.
(p.iv)
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Title Pages
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Dedication
Politics and Anti-Realism in Athenian Old
Comedy: The Art of the Impossible
Ian Ruffell
Print publication date: 2011
Print ISBN-13: 9780199587216
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2012
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587216.001.0001
Dedication
(p.v) Xλόῃ (p.vi)
Page 1 of 1
Preface
Politics and Anti-Realism in Athenian Old
Comedy: The Art of the Impossible
Ian Ruffell
Print publication date: 2011
Print ISBN-13: 9780199587216
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2012
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587216.001.0001
(p.vii) Preface
The origins of this book lie in a D.Phil. thesis, ‘A Poetics of the Absurd:
Reforming Attic Old Comedy’, undertaken at Corpus Christi College, Oxford,
supervised in turn by Ewen Bowie and Oliver Taplin. The research built upon my
M.St. thesis on metatheatricality in the fragments of Old Comedy. Both projects
were funded by the British Academy/AHRB. The thesis was examined in
December 1999 by Peter Parsons and Nick Lowe. My thanks are due to my
supervisors and examiners, and also to Robin Osborne, who as both
undergraduate tutor and postgraduate advisor was a constant goad. The thesis
won the 2001 Hellenic Foundation Prize for best doctoral dissertation on a
Greek literary topic, which I would also like to acknowledge here.
The book has been a long time coming, and I owe many other debts of gratitude
to friends and colleagues. Thanks are particularly due to Gideon Nisbet and
Chloe Stewart, who saw the original thesis through to completion in the summer
of 1999. I would also like to thank my colleagues at The Queen’s College and
Wadham College, where I was working from 1998 to 2000: in particular Susanne
Bobzien, Tim Rood, James Morwood and the late Peter Derow. Angus Bowie and
Stephen Heyworth, each of whom I impersonated for a year, were also
tremendously supportive. Angus has since overseen the transition of this book
into an Oxford Classical Monograph. Throughout my time as a postgraduate, I
derived much encouragement and support from friends at the Languages and
Literature Work-in-Progress Seminar, particularly Anton Bitel, Lynn
Fotheringham, and Kathrin Lüddecke.
Christ Church elected me as a Junior Research Fellow in 2000 and provided a
very congenial year, before I left for a permanent post at the University of
Glasgow. Since then, Costas Panayotakis has been a source of encouragement,
innumerable judicious comments, and, of course, humour. Both in Oxford and
latterly in Glasgow, Catherine Steel has provided sensible advice, was instru-
Page 1 of 2
Preface
mental in having me finish the rewrite, and nobly read a complete draft. A
serious diversion into politics took up a lot of spare time in 2003-7, without
which the book would have appeared sooner. This period did, however, present a
very practical guide to politics, both the machinations of the media and the
fierce face-to-face political dialogue on the streets and up the closes of the extra-
ordinary city of Glasgow. These experiences have in their own way contributed
to the argument. I hope that my colleagues in the Scottish Green Party can all
see the funny side.
The AHRC generously funded a period of research leave in 2004/5, in which the
book took its final shape, although it has taken me a while to bring it to
completion. Almost all of the original chapters have been rewritten and restruc-
tured in some form, with the most extensive interventions in Chapters 1 to 3.
(p.viii) The first two chapters are a heavily modified version of the original
introduction, while the third incorporates more material on jokes and cognitive
linguistics. A further, final edit led to the book losing a lot of weight, thanks to
the helpful comments of Angus and the anonymous referee. The revision
amplifies the role of both comic theory and comparative material from other
traditions of narrative humour. The resulting dialogue may not be to every
reader’s taste, but my conviction is that it can be instructive for the study both
of Classical literature and of parallel traditions of comedy.
Both the thesis and the book have been deeply affected by two great Oxford
Classicists who are no longer with us: George Forrest and Don Fowler. I was
fortunate to have a term’s tutorials with George shortly before his death. He was
undoubtedly the most politically acute person I have known. As an under-
graduate, I attended (twice) Don’s lectures on ‘101 Things to do With a Book and
a Library’ and tried desperately to understand this thing called literary theory—
a project still in progress. At postgraduate level, he was a constant challenge in
seminars and in many respects my entire project was shaped by that. I doubt
very much that either George or Don would have agreed with the answers that I
have come up with in this book, but I hope that they would have approved of the
questions.
Finally, my biggest debt is, once again, to my partner, Chloe, my constant
companion on the personal and academic roller-coaster. She has heroically read
numerous drafts and set unfailing standards of sense and readability, and has
consistently brought to bear her own incredibly wide reading to our discussions
of ancient and modern comedy, politics, and culture. I am quite sure that she
does not agree with me either, but the book is dedicated to her.
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Abbreviations and References
Politics and Anti-Realism in Athenian Old
Comedy: The Art of the Impossible
Ian Ruffell
Print publication date: 2011
Print ISBN-13: 9780199587216
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2012
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587216.001.0001
(p.xi) Abbreviations and References
ABL
C. H. E. Haspels, Attic Black-Figured Lekythoi (Paris: Boccard, 1936).
ABV
J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1956).
ARV2
J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, second edition (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1963).
D-K
H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds.), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,
seventh edition (Berlin: Weidmann, 1954).
FGH
F. Jacoby (ed.), Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin:
Weidmann and Leiden: Brill, 1923-).
G-P
A. S. F. Gow and D. L. Page (eds.), The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic
Epigrams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965).
IG
Inscriptiones Graecae (Berlin, 1873-).
K-A
R. Kassel and C. F. Austin (eds.), Poetae Comici Graeci (Berlin and
New York: de Gruyter, 1983-).
LGPN
P. M. Fraser et al., Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 1987-).
LIMC
Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (Zurich: Artemis
Verlag, 1981-97).
Page 1 of 3
Abbreviations and References
ML
R. Meiggs and D. M. Lewis (eds.), A Selection of Greek Historical
Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Century B.C., revised edition
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
PA
J. Kirchner, Prosopographia Attica (Berlin: Reimer, 1901-3).
PhV
A. D. Trendall, Phlyax Vases, BICS supplement 19 (London: Institute
of Classical Studies, 1967).
PMG
D. L. Page (ed.), Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1962).
RE
G. Wissowa et al. (eds), Realencyclopädie der classischen
Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1893-1978).
RVAp
A. D. Trendall and A. Cambitoglou, The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978-82)
SIG3
W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (Leipzig: Hirzel,
1915-24).
W(est)
M. L. West (ed.), Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum Cantati
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989-92).
Texts of Aristophanes are cited and quoted from the new Oxford Classical Text
by N. G. Wilson (2007b), with occasional variation, and their titles are given in
the following forms: Akharnians, Knights, Wasps, Peace, Clouds, Birds, (p.xii)
Lysistrata (Lys.), Thesmophoriazousai (Thesm.), Frogs, Ekklesiazousai (Ekkl.),
Wealth. In addition to the abbreviations above, the following texts are used.
Scholia and late antique treatises on comedy are quoted from Koster and Hol-
werda (1960-2007). All comic fragments are from K-A, tragic fragments from
Snell, Radt and Kannicht (1971-2004) and epic fragments from M. Davies
(1988). Otherwise, ancient authors are generally cited from the Oxford Classical
Text (OCT) series or, where unavailable, the most recent Teubner edition. A
notable exception is Demetrios, On Style (Innes 1995). The author-date system is
used, except that modern commentaries on ancient texts are cited by author’s
name only. Journals are cited in accordance with L’Année philologique.
I have preferred to use a strict transliteration scheme (-ou- for -oυ-, -y- for -υ-,-
kh- for -χ-), except where a strongly anglicized form is common currency in the
English-speaking world. Thus I give Homer, Plato, and Aristotle, not Homeros,
Platon, and Aristoteles, but Aiskhylos, Kratinos, and Pherekrates rather than
Aeschylus, Cratinus, and Pherecrates. The poet of Old Comedy who shares a
name with the philosopher is referred to as Platon rather than Plato Comicus.
Page 2 of 3
Abbreviations and References
Works which have a widely accepted English title are given in English
translation. Almost all others are given in transliteration; translated titles can be
found in the Index locorum.
Page 3 of 3
Tripping Over the Light Fantastic
Politics and Anti-Realism in Athenian Old
Comedy: The Art of the Impossible
Ian Ruffell
Print publication date: 2011
Print ISBN-13: 9780199587216
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2012
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587216.001.0001
Tripping Over the Light Fantastic
I. A. Ruffell
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587216.003.0001
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter situates the book in the context of arguments about conceptually
demanding popular culture, from philosophers complaining about comedy
through to modern complaints in and about science fiction. It outlines the
problems that critics have had in understanding how comedy works, and in
particular how comic claims to be making political interventions are regularly
set against the impossible and the absurd.
Keywords:   popular culture, comedy, science fiction, Plato, Aristotle, Eco, scholarship
Well, Montag, take my word for it, I’ve had to read a few in my time, to
know what I was about, and the books say nothing! Nothing you can teach
or believe. They’re about non-existent people, figments of imagination, if
they’re fiction. And if they’re non-fiction, it’s worse, one professor calling
another an idiot, one philosopher screaming down another’s gullet. All of
them running about, putting out the stars and extinguishing the sun. You
come away lost.
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 4511
Ever since Plato floated his infamous proposal to expel poets from his Republic,
it has been a commonplace of the utopian and anti-utopian tradition that poetry,
drama, and literature are dangerous and problematic. Ray Bradbury’s 1954
science-fiction classic Fahrenheit 451 takes the idea of book-burning to an
extreme: an entire society structured around the fire service, which disposes of
the troublesome books. The fire chief, Beatty, provides a rationale for the
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Tripping Over the Light Fantastic
antiknowledge society: books encourage free-thinking; free-thinking leads to
chaos; people form ideals, make demands and have arguments; expectations are
raised and passions are excited. For Beatty, like Mustapha Mond in Aldous
Huxley’s Brave New World, literature is divisive, detrimental to good social
order. The twist in Fahrenheit 451 is that the assault on books was not an act of
top-down repression, but came from below. As Beatty explains and the narrative
shows, the society required easy stimulation not intellectual provocation. And so
that is what they were given.
Unlike the Republic, fiction still has a place in Bradbury’s fictional world. It lies
in the mass entertainment industry: cheap comics and interactive television
relentlessly piping into people’s living rooms a mass-participation soap opera, a
prescient anticipation of today’s interactive and ‘reality’ programmes.
Bradbury’s narrative explores in its futuristic context a well-worn distinction
between mass or ‘popular’ culture and the ‘serious’ or high literature that
dominates aca-demic and political discourse. The former, it is claimed, is devoid
of much by way of either form or content, the latter nourishes the imagination in
some way. As his anti-hero argues, popular culture easily manipulates the
audience’s emotional buttons, and with that comes social stability:
‘Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap
ending.’2
(p.2) An irony here is that Bradbury’s own genre of science fiction was, and
largely still is, a manifestation of popular culture, a ‘pulp’ format. From the
1950s to the 1970s, Bradbury and his contemporaries—not least Isaac Asimov,
Philip K. Dick and Ursula LeGuin—were combining cheap, popular writings with
the kind of intense metaphysical and ideological inquiry that normally attracts
critics when pursued by paid-up writers of avant-garde works little read outside
the academy.3 Fahrenheit 451 poses a sharp dilemma. Beatty is no straw man.
Like Mustapha Mond, his voice dominates the book. Both have made a rational
choice to join the ‘barbarians’. What is more, Beatty’s complaints about the
impossibilities of fiction and philosophy also resonate. We may know instinctively
how fictionality works, but finding a rational basis for it has kept philosophers at
work for centuries. Science fiction goes further: one of the reasons why the
genre continues to evade respectability is that it not only deals with fictional
characters, but embeds the notion of impossibility into the heart of its
narratives. Indeed it is through these impossible narratives that its most telling
ideological, cultural, and political points are made.
The problems of fictionality and impossibility are at the heart of this book. I aim
here to join Beatty’s legion of professors and philosophers endlessly disagreeing
with each other about something that is not real. I am not, however, writing
about twentieth-century science fiction, or even primarily the twentieth century
at all. My area of interest is a cultural form that has the same, at best marginal
level of respectability, the same populist appeal and an equally impenetrable
Page 2 of 33