3 - Comic inversion and inverted commas: Aristophanes and parody

Summary

In this chapter, I discuss the voice of the comic poet in the city and, specifically, Aristophanes. Two interrelated questions provide a focus: how does the comic poet ’speak out’ before the city? What is the role of parodic quotation in Old Comedy, the voice within the voice (’speaking out’)? I begin with some general remarks about the role of poetry in the fifth- and fourth-century Athenian democratic polis, that leads into a discussion of the institution of Old Comedy in the light of modem treatments of carnival and the idea of ’ritual reversal’. The second part of the chapter – focused on the Acharnians and the Frogs – looks first at the comic poet ’speaking out’ to the city through the parabasis in particular, and second at how the poet uses other voices, especially the voice of tragedy, in parodic quotation.