Final Exam

1. Final Exam Review

2. Why do Homeric gods laugh? • Name three reasons: • Physical handicap • Defeat in battle • Public humiliation

3. Obscenities linked to the cult of Demeter • Insults • Dirty jokes • Blasphemies • Representations of genitals carried in a solemn procession • Feast celebrated only by women (cakes in the shape of genitals were on the menu).

4. Early history of Greek comedy • Komos • Wild celebrative processions, • Phallus • Heavy wine drinking; • Rural Dionysia • Performers’ faces painted or masked • Obscene refrains • Phallus

5. ‘Comedy’ • komos = procession • ode = song

6. Early history of Greek comedy • Pharmakos • Thargelia & adverse periods (plague, famine, etc.) • Scapegoat chosen from among the poor and ugly. • Received special treatment • Led in a procession around the city • unharmonious music, • beaten on the penis • pelted with stones and chased over the border.

7. Great Dionysia • The festival during which • literary comedy was performed • Introduced by • PEISISTRATOS • Presided over by • a state official called “archon” • Lasted • three to five days

8. ‘Literary’ drama performed at the Great Dionysia • Serious drama • tragedy • dithyramb • Comic drama • satyr plays • comedy

9. Aristophanic laughter • Did the comic theater exist in the 5th century BCE? • an independent institution • Was comedy is still linked to festive humor? • Yes. • Arsistophanes and carnival? • A. mocks a world upside-down, reinforcing the pre-existing order.

10. Aristophanes and the City? • Dominant concern In A’s plays? • the welfare of his POLIS, the city-state, • Purpose of sexual metaphors and obscenities • Primarily a means for denouncing the degradation of political life.

11. Lysistrata 411 BCE • Plot • Women go on sex strike and occupy the Acropolis • Old men try to defeat them, with no success • The play ends with the restoration of love and marriage

12. Gender and Greek theater • Who compose the plays, played in them, and constituted the audience of Athenian theater? • men • Are there any female roles? • Numerous and notable.

13. Athenian women • were legal non-entities. • did not take part in any public events, except for certain religious activities

14. COMOEDIA PALLIATA • Meaning ‘comedy in Greek mantle’ • How was it related to Greek now comedy? • used the scripts of Greek New Comedy • adapted them to suit the taste of Roman audiences, often combining several plays into one.

15. Plot Conventions • Boy wants girl BUT rival/pimp has girl • Boy with the help of slave overcomes obstacles • Boy acquires girl

16. Dramatis personae • Boy: • a bit dumb • Girl: • clever (prostitute) or innocent (virin) • Old man: • does not want to share • Matron: • owns husband or serves him • Maid: • devoted to mistress

17. Slave, trickster, and director • Often referring to himself as imperator, architect, engineer • The poet’s self-centered and conceited alter-ego • Indulges in dialogues with the audience

18. The chief divinity… • Fortuna reigns supreme over all comic plots

19. Plautus • Full name: • Titus Macc(i)us Plautus = Dick Clowns’son Flatfooted • Facts • Activebetween the end of the third and the beginning of the second century BCE • We have the dates of two plays. • Cicero gives us the date of Plautus’ death.

20. Theater at the time of Plautus • Stages • Temporary • Troupes • slaves under the direction of dominus gregis • Actors • slaves, yet organized into a guild

21. BACCHIDES = Wild, Wild Women • Young Athenian travels in business; he asks his friend to take care of his courtesan girlfriend Bacchis. • YA comes back with a sum of money to buy B, but hears that his friend and girlfriend are having an affair and gives the money back to his father. • Too late, he realizes that his faithful friend was kissing the twin sister of his beloved…

22. Bacchiac laughter and Roman attitudes towards homosexuality • The original title of the Wild, Wild Women was BACCHIDES • In Dionysus = Bacchus was the official patron of theater • Guild of actors = Artisans of Dionysus • Roman actors were probably worshipers of Bacchus • THUS actors = Bacchae = Bacchides = wild women

23. What cult of Bacchus? • The worship of Bacchus (=Bacchanalia) • was prohibited by the Roman senate in 186 BCE • Those involved • were punished by death

24. Bacchides and Bacchanalia • Male actors wearing women’s clothing • Male worshipers wearing women’s clothing • Old and young mixing together • Old and young mixing together • In a “temple of Bacchus” • In a temple of Bacchus • Criticized by severe moralist (Zeugma). • Criticized by severe moralists (the senate)

25. So what? • When the Bacchides entice the (originally severe) fathers join their sons, • Plautus’ message may pertain to a hot social and political issue. • This would contradict the belief that new comedy and palliata are APOLITICAL

26. TERENCE • Name: • Publius Terentius Afer • Facts • Born in Cartage • Educated by Terentius Lucanus • Part of Scipio’s circle of intellectuals • At the age of 32 leaves Rome setting out for Greece, and never comes back.

27. Features typical for Terence • Young man falls in love but cannot marry until obstacles are overcome + a side-plot • Focus on relationships & misunderstandings • Interest in human nature; homo sum humani nil a me alienum puto.

28. TERENCE’s Mother-in-Law • Trust and loyalty • Pamphilus disloyal to Bacchis • His father mistrusts his wife Sostrata • His father-in-law mistrusts his wife—Myrrina • Philumena gives birth to an illegitimate child • Myrrina lies to her husband about the child • Pamphilus lies to his parents about the reason for his rejection of Philumena…

29. Characters against stereotypes: • The most loyal and honest figure in this play is • the prostitute (recall the women in Major Blowhard and Wild, Wild Women). • The clever slave is • unable to fulfill the simplest task • The mother-in-law • loves her daughter • The selfish lover • shows compassion.

30. SATIRE • Name: SATURA • Satyrus • may be associated with Greek satyr plays • Lanx satura • a full dish, an offering at a harvest home including a variety of fruit = pot pourri

31. Ritual equivalents • Cursing • Shaming • Improvised Versus Fescennini • Public ritualized blame used to enforce community values and punish transgressions • Akin to, but more aggressive than, carnivalesque laughter

32. Greek precedents • Diatribe (ethical sermon preached by a philosopher) • Menippus of Gadara (3rd BCE) a Cynic philosopher writing diatribes in a mixture of prose and poetry.

33. Roman Satire before Horace • Quintus Ennius (3rd-2nd BCE) • four books in a variety of meters. • Lucilius (2nd BCE) • Inventor of the genre • Personal invective • Varro (1st BCE) • volumes of satire imitating Menippus

34. Horace (1st BCE) • Born at Venusia in 65 BCE • Son of a freedman, educated in Rome and Athens. • 40 – 30 BCE Epodes and Satires

35. Themes of Horace’s Satires • Literary & programmatic • Human vices: greed, adultery, indulgence • Friendship • Tableaux: traveling, struggling with a bore • Impersonations: e.g., Davus the Philosophizing Slave

36. Horace, Satire 1.1 • Why are people unhappy about their fate? Why do they envy others? • Because we constantly seek wealth • Why is that? • Because we are unable to be satisfied with what is necessary

37. Reading Satire 1.1 • Images of people who envy each other • Soldier and merchant • Lawyer and farmer • In making provisions we behave like ants mindful of our future. • But ants are wiser than people; they know when to stop.

38. Horace’s recipe for happiness • To be happy we need to control our desires, satisfying them only as far as it is absolutely necessary… .

39. Horace on writing satire • Teachers coaxing children to learn the alphabet • “Let us explore serious matters while joking”

40. Horace Satire 1.2 • Some people spend too much • Others spend too little • Thus nil est medium • There is no moderation, or: no one is moderate

41. Examples of excess • Some men prefer to have affairs with society ladies • Others prefer the lowest prostitutes • Some people suffer when pursued by angry relatives • Others spend too much on high-class prostitutes

42. Solution • Do not let your sexual desire disturb you • Ordinary prostitutes or household slaves will “serve you” best.

43. Moral Inquiry • Horace’s criticism is informed by • a search for a new enlightened way of life. • Instead of attacking individuals, • Horace focuses on typical figures, almost comic stock types

44. Style • Horace says that satire is not true poetry, • because it does not require inspiration. • Its style is close to everyday conversation in verse.

45. Juvenal 1st to 2nd CE • Writing after the death of DOMITIAN • Good rhetorical training • Little interest in philosophy • Sixteen satires in hexameter, subdivided into five books.

46. Goals of Juvenal’s Satires • Juvenal criticizes corruption of the political and social life in Rome • BUT he does not believe that satire can help anyone become a better or happier person.

47. Tragic Satire • Juvenal’s Satires are inhabited by monstra (freaks) • rather than by comic characters

48. Style • Shocking contrasts between lofty and obscene • Surprising statements: • Ambiguity • Dense and memorable formulations

49. Juvenal Satire 1 • Introduction • I have suffered listening to poor writing • It is now my turn to make others suffer (?)

50. “This monstrous city” • Gallery of male freaks • Eunuch getting married • Foreigners who ‘made it’ • Informers • Actors • Gallery of female freaks • Poisoners • Incestuous Adulteresses