January Conference 1999
THEATRE
: ANCIENT & MODERN
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Introduction
to Comedy Panel
Stanley
Ireland, University of Warwick, U.K
Of all the genres
still available to us from ancient literature that of comedy is
arguably among the richest and most long lasting. It spans the
culture of both Greece and Rome, manifests itself in a wide range
of major and minor forms in varying states of preservation, and
can be traced for over a thousand years, from the heady days of
Athens' empire to the flowering of Byzantium. In some respects
indeed ancient comedy never did end. Instead, it reached out,
extending its influence into the literature of the Renaissance
and beyond, even to the sitcoms of the present day. Such a genre,
therefore, presents an enormous opportunity for detailed investigation,
and this was amply manifested in the variety of papers presented
at the 1999 conference. Those printed here provide some indication
of the vitality that remains a potent characteristic of scholarly
interest.
Each generation discovers
anew the richness of ancient literature, and we are particularly
privileged that recent decades have seen a veritable explosion
in the avenues of investigation available. One of the factors
involved in this is undoubtedly the realisation that drama is
essentially a dialogue between the playwright, the genre and the
recipients of his art, with each interacting to produce a complex
progression of effects. In the case of comic playwrights, they
work within a genre that possesses a system of definable conventions
shaping the final product; yet these conventions are not immutable
and tyrannical impositions, but open to modification in response
both to the tastes of the audience and the inevitable pressures
upon the poet to innovate, and thus gain the approbation of that
audience. No less an influence in the case of Old Comedy was the
reaction of those prominent figures who were so often the object
of ridicule in the plays. Aristophanes himself felt the effects
of this, and the same was true of the previous generation of playwrights,
when, as Sidwell points out, the decree of 440 BC, banning the
naming of caricatured characters, seems to have forced Crates
into one avenue of comic development, Cratinus into another. In
this respect the scattered fragments of Old Comedy that lie outside
the plays of Aristophanes, meagre crumbs from what was once a
great banquet of invective and enigmatic abuse, become vital evidence
in glimpsing the overall development of the genre.
Sidwell's paper also
illustrates well his recent and stimulating thinking on Aristophanes'
relationship with his fellow comic poets. His suggestion of an
intricate web of cross-reference between playwrights adds a whole
new layer of potential significance to any interpretation of the
text.
The relationship that
existed between playwright and audience is perhaps among the most
complex and paradoxical for any investigation. For Old Comedy
poets the fact that they worked within the ambit of dramatic competitions,
which drove them into the quest for a positive popular response
and obliged them at times to pander to communal prejudices, has
to be set against the treatment they could also give to public
heroes and the foibles of the audience itself. An awareness of
audience response was no less a feature of later comedy, and the
astonishing resurrection of Menander in the present century has
undoubtedly been one of the most significant developments in our
understanding the comic genre. Not only are we now able to see
the plays for ourselves, but we can test objectively the justice
behind Menander's reputation in later antiquity. Before any such
undertaking can be embarked upon, however, there has been the
fundamental need to establish a usable text from the at times
faded and abraded tatters of papyrus emerging from the sands and
tombs of Egypt. In this Arnott has contributed, and continues
to contribute, no small amount, while at the same time reminding
us of the seductive dangers posed by interpretation that goes
beyond the stark evidence of the text.
In moving to Rome
we see in the products of a comic playwright like Plautus not
only the earliest fully extant literature in Latin, but also a
dynamic fusion of two cultures. That the changed circumstances
of dramatic presentation in the city demanded adaptation of his
Greek originals has never been in doubt, but it was only the discovery
of some sixty lines of usable text from Menander's Dis Exapaton,
corresponding to Plautus' Bacchides 494-562, that allowed for
the first time a real comparison of comic technique, not least
the Roman response to the hiatus created by the intervention of
the Greek chorus. What is clear is the degree to which Plautus
actually expands comic potential for its own sake. But the question
of the Roman element is far broader than this, and was well explored
earlier this century by Fraenkel. (Eduard Fraenkel, Plautinisches
im Plautus, Berlin 1922. Re-issued in an italian translation
as Elementi Plautini in Plauto, Florence 1960.) Only now,
though, can we begin to gauge the actuality. Comparison with Menander
also opens up the door to a new interpretation of Roman comedy's
relationship to those other Greek playwrights whose works were
adapted, Diphilus and Philemon, as well as to the native comic
forms of Italy, which were doubtless the mainspring of inspiration
for the adaptations introduced. One aspect of this latter factor,
Plautus' treatment of 'professional' types like the parasite,
is well analysed by Maltby to suggest the injection of what one
might regard as distinctly modern features into their presentation
- not least as stand-up comics designed to 'warm-up' the audience
in the early stages of the plays with standard routines and formulae,
the very language of which indicates a decidedly Roman origin.
That the study of
ancient comedy continues to thrive was clearly one of the clear
messages to emerge from the conference. At the centre new and
fresh approaches to the study of the texts themselves and how
they operate as drama continue to manifest themselves, but beyond
this lie fertile fields of investigation into the relationship
of the plays to society, religion and the rest of ancient literature,
and the very circumstances of their presentation in Greek and
Roman contexts, all of which promise much for the future.
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Classical Receptions in Drama and Poetry in English