Gavin Kentch

Euripidaristophanizing: Tragedy and Comedy in Four Plays of Aristophanes Gavin Kentch

While Greek tragedy endures as the best-known dramatic form from Ancient Greece, its cognate genre, Greek comedy, is perhaps the most literate genre of that period. Ancient comedy was a conspicuously self-aware and intertextual genre, and drew upon contemporary tragedy in remarkably nuanced, literate, and humorous ways. In Euripidaristophanizing - a classical neologism meaning to write like Aristophanes parodying Euripides" - Gavin Kentch considers the relationship between comedy and tragedy in four plays of the Greek comic poet Aristophanes arguing that Aristophanes consistently draws attention to the limitations posed by the strict norms and generic expectations of the tragic stage. Aristophanes' Acharnians he argues reveals the inapplicability of tragedy to contemporary political advice; Lysistrata to female mores; Thesmophoriazusae to practical action; and Frogs to the ability to advise the city. Taken together Kentch argues the four plays reveal Aristophanes' developing critique of the limitations of tragedy and his emerging argument for the flexibility and applicability of comedy. An epilogue considers the role of both comedy and tragedy in the fourth century."