Aristophanes similarly situates his female characters within a domestic context as the site of sexual and social legitimacy. It begins by examining a parallel debate in contemporary Attic red-figure vase paintings of women at home to show that displays of female sexuality are not incompatible with marriageable maidens and wives. This essay provides a reassessment of the increasingly popular view that the young wives of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata are represented as hetaeras. Ambivalence, role-playing, and even jingoism are exploited in this comic attempt to enforce a hard-earned mythopoeic unity on a reality of profound civic discord.
By means of this double-sided rhetoric, Aristophanes hopes to transmit his anti-war message and simultaneously avoid the displeasure of the belligerent faction of his audience. But in the parabasis the poet fosters an image of himself as an excellent war councilor that will help the Athenians defeat Sparta - an image analogous to Dicaeopolis’ self-presentation as a patriotic soldier. The entire play, like Dicaeopolis’ discourse, is an advocacy of peace and a denunciation of warmongering. To ensure the favour of both parties and win the prize, the comic poet adopts an ambiguous rhetorical strategy similar to his hero’s tactics.
Some of the spectators would have been weary with the war and ready to embrace Dicaeopolis’ peace project others would have shared the vengeful will to pursue the conflict with Sparta. In the embattled Athens of 425 B.C., Aristophanes would be facing a divided audience in the theatre, resembling the Acharnians’ Chorus.
This core situation of the play provides an intra-dramatic reflection of the relationship between the poet and his audience, as set up in the parabasis. Thus, the remaining pro-war Chorus-men are also convinced for the justice of Dicaeopolis’ cause. Dicaeopolis then employs demagogic rhetoric in order to denounce Lamachus as a coward and simultaneously promote himself as a good soldier that conscientiously fights for the city. Dicaeopolis makes a speech on the origins of the war, a masterful piece of comic oratory, which divides the Chorus half of the Acharnians are won over to the hero’s side, but the other half persist in their warlike attitude and call general Lamachus to assistance. Dicaeopolis, the hero of Aristophanes’ Acharnians, wishes to end the Peloponnesian war but meets with opposition from the Chorus of Acharnian elders, ardent supporters of military action against Sparta.
0 kommentar(er)
