Part of the healthy celebration of what is normal and joyful

• 
  Much interaction between stage and audience
  
• 
  Telling audience in Wasps not to expect “Crude Megarian stuff” guarantees plenty of bawdy
  
• 
  In many plays, audience share their delight at the plight of Cleonymus:
  
• 
  “What creature is it that sheds its shield on land and sea and sky?”
  

• 
  Through caricature, comedy serves serious political aim: curing Athens’ sickness – warmongering, greed, dubious moral standards and the cynical education of the sophists
  
  • 
    Cleon is a horrible whale creature carving up the body politic
    
  • 
    He is the Great Roarer because of his ability to rouse the rabble with his oratory
    
  • 
    Sosias’ nightmare of him stinks of the tanners yard because of his humble origins
    
  • 
    His dupes are like “a cloud of smoke”, Greek ‘kapnos’, also suggests empty boasting
    
  • 
    Self-interest of jurors also satirised by Procleon’s desire to do “solid lasting harm”
    
• 
  Trial of the Dogs satirises Greek courts
  
  • 
    Ready presumption of guilt
    
  • 
    Defendant’s trick of bringing in totally irrelevant arguments
    

• 
  Conditions and rules of performance were milked for fun
  
• 
  Only 3 speaking actors onstage. In encounter scenes in Wasps, Xanthias actor goes offstage & changes mask in a series of rapid transformations
  
• 
  If the best actors’ styles were readily recognisable despite the mask the audience could enjoy the transformations and see through them. In a short time, Xanthias becomes reveller, baking woman, citizen and Xanthias again
  
• 
  In the trial scene, second dog mounts witness stand, but can’t speak as 3 speaking actors onstage.
  

• 
  The deed by which order is restored is clearly pure fantasy (going to underworld)
  
• 
  Heroic scale is one way the writer celebrates poneria, the sly, creative, fertile cunning of his hero.
  
• 
  Such deeds are impossible in the real Athens
  
• 
  Humour derived from the irrepressible nature of characters like Procleon with his gusto for life
  
• 
  Superhuman fantastic element in the plays was probably based on the idea that the renewing of life in spring had to overcome tremendous odds and resistance.
  

• 
  Simplistic stereotypes – abusive baking woman or landladies, yellow-masked & dazed Chaerophon
  
• 
  Grotesque caricatures – unseen politicians- Blear Eyes, Buskin, Great Roarer – or Heracles the glutton with his “pea soup”
  
• 
  Characters taken from real life & transformed into living legends, grotesque distortions of their real selves, such as the ‘great shield dropper Cleonymus himself” or Cleisthenes, the “homosexual on a prodigious scale”
  

• 
  Protagonist dominates the action & speaks between 1/3 and ½ the lines, stands for play’s main idea
  
• 
  Used the stereotype as a powerful vehicle for moral and political comment
  
• 
  Some characters are defined entirely by their symbolic role
  
  • 
    Procleon/Anticleon – names indicate political attitudes toward Cleon. Procleon is also symbol of disappearing traditional values. “He’s a great of for the old songs”. Compared with Aeschylus in Frogs as member of generation of Marathon Men. He & fellow jurors may be stumbling old wrecks now, but “served the city best when those barbarians came”
    
  • 
    Dionysus’ costume disguised as Heracles betrays his split personality. Represents Athens, split by factions & recriminations towards end of the Peloponnesian war.
    
  • 
    Xanthias (Frogs) more complex than stereotype slave, almost as imp. as 1^st actor
    
  • 
    Euripides – represents new sophistical learning & questioning values – “Now the ship drifts all over the place.”
    

• 
  Intensifies personifications, because characters are set up in opposition to each other.
  
• 
  Anticleon versus Procleon, Aeschylus versus Euripides
  

• 
  Dionysus’ 1^st appearance (yellow robes/buskins vs. lion skin/club) reveals lack of fixed identity.
  
• 
  Xanthias actor in Wasps rapidly changes a series of caricature masks in encounter scenes.
  
• 
  Wasps costumes tells us about old men’s neglected position in society (tattered brown cloaks) & their nature (stings – can be used in the service of the state or misused in the service of politicians)
  

• 
  Dionysus and Procleon have a vitality that means their characters are protean or many-sided
  
• 
  Procleon:
  
  • 
    Stubborn, ingenious, irresponsible, vindictive, old-fashioned, unteachable, vulgar, lecherous, insulting, violent, cowardly, thieving and mildly incestuous
    
  • 
    He is wicked, “poneros”
    
  • 
    Also likeable, larger than life & full of vitality, liked for zest with which he flaunts pretentious rules of polite society or the larger-than-life richness of his character.
    
  • 
    Anticleon is flat by comparison
    

More sides of Procleon’s protean nature are revealed gradually:

• 
  told by his slaves that he is sick
  
• 
  he is a nasty old man, who wants to do “some solid lasting harm in the law courts” and doesn’t care for “wills and solemn seals and signatures.”
  
• 
  He stole on campaign
  
• 
  He wants power and money
  
• 
  Admire his energy and creative escape attempts
  
• 
  Then he and the chorus are no longer sick and feeble old men lying in the arms of their great protector but past defenders of Athens
  
• 
  Have no place in society other than what Cleon has given them
  
• 
  He is not consciously nasty, but misled – suffers from misguided simplicity
  
• 
  No longer misdirects his verity but toward the flute girl
  
• 
  Such a huge capacity for desire and love cannot be sick. It is the objects of desire that a diseased society, suffering from Cleonitus puts before him that are the source of sickness and perversion, not the larger than life capacity for love itself
  

Dionysus’ character develops & changes

• 
  In the prologue he is a buffoon and coward. His costume shows he is a fragmented and divided character needing renewal and integration like the city & theatre
  
• 
  Gradually loses what wavering identity he does have
  
• 
  After the parabasis he is stripped of all false identities during the beating & is recognised by Pluto & Persephone. He gains a new dignity as judge of literary debate. Proves that he has found his real identity as a god of the city, of fertility and rebirth & of the drama when on the basis of instinct he chooses Aeschylus not Euripides to save the city & educate the fools.
  
• 
  Becomes what he should have been all along – god of a stable & secure community as well as god of drama. His rebirth or rediscovery of himself enables him to leap the gap between all the opposites and contrasts in the play:
  

Quotes reflecting themes:
Corruption of the Legal System

Prologue

• 
  “If you provoke this gang of old geezers it’ll be like stirring up a wasp’s nest. They’ve all got sharp stings in their behinds and they know how to sting, too!”
  
• 
  “And he’s so harsh! He scratches a long line on his tablet every time they get a conviction – full damages.”
  

Parados

• 
  “And you heard what the Great Protector said yesterday: ‘Come in good time’ he said, ‘With three days of bad temper in your knapsacks.”
  
• 
  “It’s laches up for trial today, don’t forget. They say he’s got a mint of money tucked away, that Laches.”
  
• 
  “So Cheer up, my old friend; We need you very urgently today: There’s a very juicy case, A conspirator from Thrace, And we can’t afford to let him get away!”
  
• 
  “He’s the keenest stinger of us all. No appeal can make him blench, when he’s sitting on the bench – might as well make speeches to a wall!”
  

Scenes After Parados

• 
  “I long to come to court with you
  Some lasting harm to do
  But now, alas, it cannot be
  For I am under lock and key.”
  

Agon

• 
  “The power of zeus on his throne is scarcely greater than my own.”
  
• 
  “We can’t be held to account afterwards, as the magistrates are. Theirs isn’t real power – that belongs to us.”
  

Scenes after the agon

• 
  “Ha, Wait till he hears his sentence!… What a furtive brute he is.”
  
• 
  “Prosecution intiated by The Dog, of Cydathenaeum, against Labes of Aexone, on the ground that the said Labes did wilfully and feloniously wrong and injure one Sicilian cheese by eating it all himself.”
  

Parabasis

• 
  “By stinging all and sundry we contrive to make ends meet.”
  

Scenes after Parabasis

• 
  “I see I’m going to have to learn a lot of these stories if i want to avoid getting fined.”
  

Encounter Scenes

• 
  “Bah! In court? You old fogies! I can’t even bear to hear the place mentioned. Balls to the voting urn!”
  

Generation Gap

Prologue

• 
  “You’re a nasty, crafty, foolhardy old man.”
  
• 
  “Oh the disgusting old rascal.”
  
• 
  “He’s ordered us to stand guard over his father”
  

Parados

• 
  “If you’re going to start using your fists on us, we’ll jolly well blow the lamps out and go home. And you can just jolly well find your own way in the dark, splashing around in the mud like a lot of old peewits.”
  

Scenes After Parados

• 
  “I long to come to court with you Some lasting harm to do But now, alas, it cannot be For I am under lock and key.”
  
• 
  “Outrageous! It’s a threat to democracy! He’d never dare to do such things unless he was planning to overthrow the constitution. Traitor! Conspirator!” – (about anticleon locking up procleon)
  
• 
  “Remember the Naxos campaign, and the way you stole Those spits and climbed down the wall?”
  
• 
  “Agreement? with you? An enemy of the people, a monarchist, a long-haired, tassel-fringed pro-Spartan, hand in glove with Brasidas.”
  

Agon

• 
  “Go on. Have your say; you can’t go on forever. And when you’re finished, I’ll show you where to stick your precious power.” (disrespect to father)
  

Scenes after agon

• 
  “Father, I beg you, do as I ask.’ ‘What is it? Ask what you will, except for one thing.” (ordered by son)
  

Parabasis

• 
  “Our gallant three-tiered ships we manned and closing in on every hand we walloped them at sea.”
  
• 
  “Twas we who served the city best when those barbarians came and tried to smoke us from our nests and filled the streets with flame.”
  
• 
  “We carried all before us Both in battle and in chorus And no one could have questioned our virility.”
  
• 
  “And among barbaric nations they’re respected to this day – ‘there is nothing so ferocious as an attic wasp,’ they say.”
  
• 
  “Of course we have our drones, dull, stingless brutes who shirk their military duties, letting others do the work.”
  
• 
  “Yes we may be poor old crocks but the whiteness of our locks does the city far more credit, I should say, than the ringlets and the fashions and the pederastic passions of the namby pamby youngsters of today.”
  

Scenes after Parabasis

• 
  “Fat lot of good having sons and bringing them up if all they do is try and suffocate you.”
  
• 
  “You really are hopeless! It’s an extremely expensive Persian weave – at least sixty pounds of wool went into making this.”
  

Encounter Scenes

• 
  “Then with a telling punch, he floored the young man, like so.” *punches Anticleon* “Well, you certainly seem to remember that lesson.”
  

Exodos

• 
  “With soaring leg I touch the sky Can modern dancers kick so high?”
  

The War on Morals and Values

Prologue

• 
  “He’s so mean that he scratches the long line on his tablet every time.”
  
• 
  “Dipsomania… Cubomania”
  

Parados

• 
  “Of course it was all lies But it brought tears to our eyes And the bounder very nearly got acquitted. But we got him in the end.” – care more about the result than true justice
  
• 
  “He’s the keenest stinger of us all. No appeal can make him blench, when he’s sitting on the bench – might as well make speeches to a wall!”
  

Scenes After Parados

• 
  “Agreement? with you? An enemy of the people, a monarchist, a long-haired, tassel-fringed pro-Spartan, hand in glove with Brasidas.” – anti-patriotism in younger generation
  

Agon

• 
  “Isn’t that power for you? Doesn’t that make mere wealth look silly?”
  
• 
  “The power of Zeus upon his throne is scarcley greater than my own.”
  

Scenes after Agon

• 
  “You can do exactly what you do in court. Say one of the slave girls leaves the door open on the latch – you can give her a stiff… sentence. That’s the usual procedure, isn’t it?”
  

Parabasis

• 
  “We are organised in swarms; and according to the jury that we’re priveleged to be on we buzz about the Archon’s Court or nest in the Odeon. And some like grublets in the cells are packed around the wall.”
  

Scenes after Parabasis

• 
  “What in god’s name is this horrible thing?’ ‘It’s a persian gown.”
  
• 
  “These are made in Ecbatana”
  
• 
  “Now take off those dreadful felt shoes and put on these Spartans instead.”
  

Second Parabasis

• 
  “Can you guess who I mean? He has upper class hair It’s done up in a bun at the top And he gambles on dice, which is quite a nice vice Provided you know when to stop.”
  

Encounter Scenes

• 
  “On top of everything else he has the gall to laugh in my face. All right then, whatever your name is, I’m summoning you before the Market Court for damages.”
  

Exodos

• 
  “You’ve no idea the chaos that’s erupted in this house. The old man just isn’t used to drinking and listening to music like this.”
  

Democracy is corrupt

Prologue

• 
  “These sheep were all listening to a harangue by a rapacious looking creature with a figure like a whale and a voice like a scalded cow.”
  
• 
  “And this horrible whale creature had a pair of scales and was weighing up bits of fat from a carcass’… ‘Dividing up the body politic. I see.”
  

Parados

• 
  “And you heard what the Great Protector said yesterday: ‘Come in good time’ he said, ‘With three days of bad temper in your knapsacks.”
  

Scenes After Parados

• 
  “Like politician’s words I’d rise in gaseous vapour to the skies.”
  

Agon

• 
  “Where does the rest of the money go?’ ‘To those fellows you mentioned… the people you elect to rule over you.”
  
• 
  “They want you to be poor and I’ll tell you why: they’re training you to know the hand that feeds you.”
  

Scenes after Agon

• 
  “…ran away into a corner and sicilated a large quantity of cheese and stuffed himself with it in the dark.”
  

Parabasis

• 
  “…his voice was like the roar Of mighty floods descending from the hills Bearing destriction: noisome was the stench That issued forth from the brute as it slid forth.”
  
• 
  “And in a grisly circle round its head Flickered the tongues of servile flatters.”
  
• 
  “Smothered fathers, choking grandfathers And pinned lawsuits, summonses and writs on harmless peaceful folk, till many leapt in terror from their beds, and formed a queue Outside the office of the Polemarch.”
  

Athens is experiencing economic hardship

Parados

• 
  “Suppose they don’t summon a jury today, how are we going to buy our dinner?”
  
• 
  “Don’t you realise there’s an oil shortage?”
  
• 
  “Figs indeed! Don’t you realise I have to buy porridge and firewood and meat for the three of us, all out of my jury pay? And you ask me for figs!”
  

Scenes After Parados

• 
  “You’re just a lackey. I know – as an athenian you can squeeze the rest of the Greek world drym but can you tell us what you get out of it personally?”
  

Agon

• 
  “Think how rich you and everybody else could be, if it wasn’t for this gang of demagogues that keep you trapped right where they want you.”
  
• 
  “You never spot what they’re up to, because you’re too busy gaping at the paymaster.”
  
• 
  “Isn’t it slavery when these men… hold overpaid executive posts, while you’re over the moon about your three obols?”
  

Parabasis

• 
  “Our economic system too, is practical and neat: by stinging all and sundry we contrive to make ends meet.”
  

Scenes after Parabasis

• 
  “The only state mission I’ve ever been on was to Paros – at two obols a day.”
  

Encounter Scenes

• 
  “Ten obols’ worth of loaves he knocked off this tray, plus four more loaves.”
  

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