Classical English literature studies
Comedy – a professional entertainment consisting of jokes and satirical sketches, intended to make an audience laugh. Late Middle English (as a genre of drama, also denoting a narrative poem with a happy ending, as in Dante’s Divine Comedy): from Old French comedie, via Latin from Greek kōmōidia, from kōmōidos 'comic poet', from kōmos 'revel' + aoidos 'singer'. ("Comedy: Definition Of Comedy in Oxford Dictionary (American English)").
Aristotle defines comedy as an imitation of men, who is worse than the average, but not in their perversities, but in hilarious sense. Comedy, as a genre itself has lots of definition and form that is why I decided to concentrate on attic comedy only. The notion of “Antic comedy” includes in itself Ancient antic comedy, middle antic comedy and modern antic comedy.
The Ancien antic comedy was the equal to theatrical performances held in honor of Dionysus side by side with tragedy and satirical drama, beginning from 487-486 years B.C. The frankness of primitive komos made easy the infiltration in it of denunciatory elements, when in process of social stratification were discovered tendencies of rich members of clan in oppression of main mass of farmers. Some old antic sources reported that in that time ordinary people, who were oppressed by some rich man, gathered in night around his house and sung songs, which were exposing the cruelty and avarice of offender.
The funny scene in which foolish rich man, thief or knave tried to cheat or restrain the interests of main hero, but who never won was the other source of comedy, as an ancient and elementary form of folk farce. Acting figures of this farce were also gods and mythical heroes: funny atmosphere of Dionysus celebrations allowed acting that free with such characters.
The genre of folk, household and parody-mythological scenes earned a literary handling for the first time in the creations of Sicilian playwright Epiharm, which is familiar to us only by some names and non-essential fragments of his comedies. Here we can meet among acting figures and gods an insatiable glutton Hercules, knave Odyssey and some household types, specific to antic comedy. One of the main things in antic comedy was active role of choir, which should have the carrier of publicity play idea. The participation of choir created a specific composition structure of ancient comedy, which reflected its main traits of its origin from choir dialogic farce elements.
The comedy opens with prologue – an ordinary dialogue scene where an exposition of plot was along with scheduled arrangement of its members. After prologue there was always, like in tragedy, choir parade, but much more brisk. The choir entered the action, by taking the main hero’s side or, on the other hand, preventing him from his plan. Choir sometimes even was divided into two opposite halves. However, nondependent from this separation there was a symmetrical construction of choir: the songs were performed one by one by two half-choirs.
The costumes of comic choir were not similar to the tragedy ones. They differed by their fantastic meanings (they pictured birds, bees, clouds) and have had an allegorical sense. Actor’s masks should have emphasize the funny und the ugly in heroes; their body-shapes were also ugly. The meaning of this was to show the lowland traits of comedy heroes. The opposition, which were highlighted in prologue and were deepened after the choir performance got its boiling point during the agon scene. During the agon scene, there was a dispute between two rivals, who are inspired and supported by the half-choirs. With the victory of one of two sides, the content of conflict exhausted.
The second half of comedy consisted of many funny and booth scenes, during which the main hero was exposing and casting out those, who tried to use his victory, or, with every next episode, the hero approached his own defeat, and then the earned victory turned out into something transparent. The comedy ended by song of choir, which was leaving the orchestra.
The comparison of two masters of comedy, Aristophanes and Plautus I should begin with the definition of their nationality: Aristophanes was Greek, while Plautus was Roman. Even this “small” difference defines the differences in themes of their comedies, their pathos, mentality and writer’s attitude. Plautus faced the rise of Roma, while Aristophanes saw the Greek fall. Comedies of Aristophanes are filled with sharp irony and satire, while comedies of Plautus are all about the Romanian characteristics outplaying.
Comedies of Plautus has no bright, political-satirical directionality of Aristophanes comedies. Plautus, in his plays, tries to show the inner world of act figures, while Aristophanes shows the most burning and topical problems of his time. Style of Aristophanes comedies is an expressive design of classical style, based not on psychology, analysis of experiences or household pictures, but on pictures of abstract-typical in individual-plastic form; style of Plautus comedies was close and understandable for plebs and low-classes of Romanian theater. Plautus is master of psychology, while Aristophanes is master of satire. There are too many differences between these two playwrights. Nevertheless, there are some similarities between Plautus and Aristophanes: both of them wanted to show life on stage; both of them wanted to tell something to their spectators; both of them have similar receptions of author neologisms, with different goal but still Still, both authors were great for their time.
What is satire and how do the works of Petronius and Juvenal illustrates this genre.
The definition of satire in Oxford Dictionary is:
Satire is the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues. It can be a play, novel, film, or any other work that uses satire. In Latin literature, satire is a literary miscellany, especially a poem ridiculing prevalent vices or follies. According to this dictionary, this word came from early 16th century: from French, or from Latin “satira”, later form of “satura” ‘poetic medley’. ("Satire: Definition Of Satire In Oxford Dictionary (American English)").
Satire, in the beginning of its appearance was a definite lyrical genre. Satire was a poem, which is, mostly, was big and consisted of mockery and gibes over some dedicated people or events. Satire, as genre appeared only in Roman literature. Now, genres of satire are diverse, there can be satirical novel, satirical drama, comedy, epigram, anecdote, satirical feuilleton, caricature.
This word originates from Latin name of mythical half-god half-animal creatures, who used to ridicule everything – satyrs. It has it roots to the word “satura” which was a demotic notion of a mash-up dish. This name pointed on mashing up different features (saturical rhyme with the Greek standard size) and on existence of many manifold facts and occurrences, in contrast to the other lyrical genres, which had their strictly limited sphere of representation.
There are two actual definitions of satire: the one, mentioned above and the second – dialogical genre, which first appeared in Hellenistic period. It evolved from the philosophical diatribe, conversed and redone by cynic Menippus and called Menippian satire; late samples of the Menippian satire in Greek language were introduced to us in Lucian’s art, in Latin there were satires of Varro (“Saturae Menippeae”); Seneca’s “Apocolocyntosis”, and finally, Satyricon made by Petronius. Form of Menippian satires covers many works made even until not-far-from-us-centuries: “The Golden Ass” by Apuleius, “Don Quijote de la Mancha” by Cervantes, “The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel” by Francois Rabelais and many other.
Two main satirics of that day Roma were Juvenal and Petronius. Juvenal was the last satiric poet of Roma, who wrote some of his works during the years of Trajan. All his satires yield many hilarious vignettes, which are mostly about his life in capital, big city. There are many mythological and contemporary allusions. Humor in poems of Juvenal does not shine itself through. Probably, Juvenal conceived reader to break through the walls of rhymes; the text should be read carefully, so there should not be possibility to lose any bit of satire. His works should be read carefully also not only because of chance to lose some irony, but because the text is not that truthful as it could be, we cannot believe all things Juvenal says about it.
The last, but not least phase of Roman satire development were Juvenal works. From the formal-artist point of view, satire of Juvenal is degenerate, but then again, there is a sharper folk basis. Juvenal has a new tone in the attitude of disclaimed reality – indignation (indignatio). He admits indignation as a driving force of his satire. Indignation takes place of satirical laughter; people call this satire as “lashing”. Satire of Juvenal has a conversational-dialogical character, a little bit rhetorized. He did not understand how to write long poems with some mythological aspects. The difficulty of the century is that it’s “hard not to write satires”.
He denied modern reality, from emperor’s palace to small details of roman life (for example, morning use of time of Romanian matron in 6th satire). The statement if Juvenal, with which he ends his first satire: “Then I will try what I may say of those worthies whose ashes lie under the Flaminian and Latin roads.” (Juvenal. and Mayor) means that he criticizes and attacks only those who were dead or in past (Domitian epoch). This statement has a twofold sense:
In setting of imperial Roma (even in soft regime of Trojan), this slip of the tongue is essential.
Juvenal used the folk-festive mockery and ribaldry against leaving, dying and old things (winter, previous year, and previous emperor).
Petronius lives for about 60 years before Juvenal and wrote about the Nero’s Romanian Empire, where he was an “Arbiter of good Taste”. Satyricon of Petronius is one of the most controversial works in classical literature. This work is something like a work, which parasites on mostly every known literature of those days. Satyricon is a first person narrative, made by Encolpius, who is the main hero in events about he talks.
This narrative is hard to trace and follow since it varies a lot in its tone and pace. The main character, Encolpius is a giddy and inventive dreamer, who lives in his sexual fantasies, who flies near epic and tragic poses, who falls to illusions and tricks and loses his way. This novel is has a lots of satire in it revolves around the narrator and his homosexual lover Giton. They wander Rome like the wanderings of Odysseus in the Mediterranean. Nevertheless, well, instead of having Poseidon god as a barrier, narrator confronts with the god of fertility Priapus, who have pilfered the sexual potency of Encolpius. Most of novel Encolpius tries to find something to heal the potency loss. During his adventures, he has dinner party with his boy Giton and Ascyltus (sexual rival from house of Trimalchio). This scene is something like a decadence of Roman society of the Nero period. The “problem” of Satyricon is the embracing of both Roman satires: verse satires and Menippea satire. Satyricon shows the portraits of classes, aristocracy of the Nero’s Rome period, and serves as a good example of something like a Menippean satire’s mixed form. The scene of “Cena Trimalchionis” is a good example of the Menippean satire tradition used by combining epic form, tragedy and philosophy.
What has been the influence of the literature of classical antiquity on later generations? Give examples.
It is standard practice to call literature of Ancient Greece and Ancient Roma as a Literature of classical antiquity. Italian humanists of the Renaissance called Romanian-Greek culture as an antique. Literature of this period still has this name, though there were much older cultures discovered.
Chronological borders of antique literature are from IX-VII BC to V AD. Literature of classical antiquity has always attracted to itself those who loves high ideals, heroism, and courtliness of form. Classical antique literature is the eternal curative source, model of beauty, which had always helped to people with building of modern and future culture.
Greek literature is written in ancient Greek, which consisted of dialects: Aeolic, Doric and Ionic. Starting with the 3rd century BC in womb of Greek literature started its developing Roman literature, which in the course of time poured together with the Greek literature and created the Attic literature. Society of that time used its own original ideology – mythology, which was together with fantastic and religious beliefs.
Literature, which is made in assumptions of mythological ideology, becomes an essential part of mythology: it uses mythology plots and images. Its subject is also mythological, and that is the main feature of the Attic literature, since this literature is the wealth of genre forms and stylistic devices, which are from time to time successfully absorbed young European literati. Attic literature leads mostly all of known genres of today; it also saves its Attic names: epos, drama, mime, tragedy and many more.
Thanks to Attic literature, in XIV century the new cultural epoch of Western Europe began – Renaissance. It was a renaissance of interest in antique and primary Christianity. The name of this epoch itself means the “reborn of antiquity”. For example, William Shakespeare wrote poems based on antiquate history, mythology and literature topics: “The Rape of Lucrece”, “Venus and Adonis” and others. In other works of Shakespeare, there are many Attic names of characters, images from mythology and history; antique literature “created” classicism and the enlightenment classicism.
French playwrights Corneille, Moliere reworked classical works of Euripides and Plautus by using mythological plots and antiquated images. By orienting on poetics of Aristotle and Horace, school of Boileau-Despreaux stated main esthetic principles and laws of classicism in a rhyme treatise “Art of Poetry” which had a high profile for developing of European literature.
Weimar classicism came out of Enlightenment, brightest writers of which were Goethe and Schiller. Weimar classicists considered attic as an empire of ideal beauty and harmony; as a beautiful humanity, which embodies the “pure humanity” by dreams about the harmonized unanimity of human and society. They believed in pedagogical power of art, which is able to form harmonically developed personality, which will aspire to the ideal of freedom. As a bright example there is, a conversion of Goethe to antiquity is the hymn “Prometheus”, which is written in form of monologue of the titan itself.
Goethe was the first in European poetry who revived the image of good titan from ancient Greek myths. He made him as a symbol of protest against dying traditions and authorities, symbol of pure and true love to humanity. In this poem, there is an antiquated spirit, which is also presented in poem “Faust” – the greatest achievement of Goethe. The plot of this story is somewhere near the medieval antiquity by its roots.
Even romanticists, who were opposing against the over-indulgence in Attic and who came forward for addressing to national folklore found it indispensable in turn: Prometheus of Byron, and Francesco Petrarchan, who gained his glory not by Italian rhymes, but by Latin poetry. Many writers used Attic literature: Ukrainian writer Kotlyarevskiy rewrote on his own Aeneid of Virgil.
Pursuing the wide comprehension of real life and reflecting the diversity of social-historical actuality by portraying human in the most troubles in his connections with nature and society. Greek, Roman and Christian literature of antiquity came up with the questions and problems, which are still valuable, essential and actual for today by not losing its common to all humankind significance.
These literatures opened eternal ethical values to the humankind: kindness, humaneness and mercy, love to motherland, readiness to feat and sacrifice, courage, fortitude and impregnability, great faith in humanity, in its unlimited abilities, its need to kindness and capability to self-development, faith in power of poetic word, song and art. In antique literature, there are many examples of magnificence of human spirit, poeticization of high and ethical values, and fight for high spiritual and morally perfect human, which are the greatest treasure of the Romanian-Greek and Christian literature.
References
"Comedy: Definition Of Comedy In Oxford Dictionary (American English)". Oxforddictionaries.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 3 May 2016.
Juvenal., and John E. B Mayor. Thirteen Satires Of Juvenal. Hildesheim: Gg. Olms, 1966. Print.
Petronius Arbiter., J. P Sullivan, and Lucius Annaeus Seneca. The Satyricon. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1986.
"Satire: Definition Of Satire In Oxford Dictionary (American English)". Oxforddictionaries.com. N.p., 2008. Web.
