Aristophanes

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Aristophanes Birds 2

• Dystopic Utopia?

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Agenda

• Recap and Update
• Form and Theme
• Theme, Setting
• Dystopic Utopia?

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Recap and Update

• Form and Theme

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Play Facts, Background
tyranny

• Playwright
• ca. 450-ca. 388 BCE
• Production
• City Dionysia, 414
• Current events
• Melos, 416
• Sicilian exp., 415-413
• mutilation of Herms, 415

• Cast
• 22 solo roles
• Euelpides Hopeful
• Pisthetairos Persuasive Buddy
• Tereus-Hoopoe
• gods, humans etc.
• non-speaking Basileia-Kingship
• 24 choristers

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Athens as Tyrant
So be aware that you hold this empire of yours
as you would a tyranny, one that you may well
have got unjustly, though for you to let it go
would be disastrous.(Pericles in Thucydides
History of the Peloponnesian War 2.63.2)
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Birds Analysis (nums. pages)
1st parabasis

• prologue (189 ff.)
• complaint
• backstory prologue
• solution
• parodos (215 ff.)
• entry parade, battle scene
• agon (epirrhematic scene, 215 ff.)
• Pisthetairos debate with/pitch to birds
• first parabasis
• avian validation
• episode (epirrhematic, 234 ff.)
• inauguration
• construction
• pop-up, drubbing of interlopers

• 2nd parabasis (250 ff.)
• playwrights pitch
• episode (epirrhematic, 252 ff.)
• more pop-up, drubbing
• choral song
• Kleonymos the deserter
• exodos (epirrhematic, 271 ff.)
• divine embassy
• matrimony
• apotheosis
• celebration

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1st Parabasis - Analysis

• kommation
• may nightingale accompany chorus
• parabasis proper
• Ornithogony
• Night gt Eros
• Eros Chaos gt Birds
• pnigos (choker)
• rewards for worshipping birds

• epirrhematic syzygy
• ode
• forest birds
• epirrhema
• audience invitation
• antode
• swans song
• antepirrhema
• advantages of wings

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The Comic Formula

• Dilemma
• Solution
• Celebration

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The Comic Formula in Birds

• Dilemma
• Solution
• Celebration

• polupragmosune
• Escape
• Wedding feast

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Polupragmosune
meddlesomeness impertinence disturbance
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Subversion of Formula? (2ndary plot trajectory)

• Fraudulent persuasion
• Usurpation
• Domination

• polupragmosune
• Escape
• Wedding feast

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Theme, Setting

• Dystopic Utopia?

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Do You Agree?
The fantasy of Birds fits the utopian mold .
birds, humans, and even gods are better off
under the new regime than they had been under
the old. (Henderson on Birds)
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Some Vocabulary

• Utopia
• an imaginary, typically idyllic place, a
  nowhere
• Eutopia
• a (typically imaginary) good place
• Dystopia
• a (typically imaginary) bad place

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Comic Utopianism

• Longing for
• some-where
• some-time
• some-thing
• else

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Performance Interpretation

• Scene at pp. 256 ff.
• Pisthetairos
• Iris
• character motivation

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Questions

• Is Cloudcuckooland a Better Place?
• Birds, humans, and even gods are better off
  under the new regime, Henderson
• Is Pisthetairos a Creon?
• I dont care if youre a fleet of Irises /
  youve committed a violation, and the penalty /
  for that is death, Pisthetairos

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Answers

• good only if youre a bird
• limited
• underlying bad
• police force working birds

• clockwork-orange subversion
• mankind has overarching control
• p is hubristic
• play doubts utopia
• a frighteningly efficient eutopia