The Mask of Comedy : Aristophanes and the Intertextual Parabasis

by: Hubbard, T.K.

A choral interlude distinctive to Greek Old Comedy, the parabasis treats a variety of literary and political topics that critics have generally considered tangential to the themes of the play in which it appears. Reading closely each of Aristophanes comedies, Thomas K. Hubbard here demonstrates that, far from being a digression or a relic of long-forgotten rituals, the parabasis provides a critical link between the identities of the poet, chorus, and protagonist, and between the play and its audience. The parabasis, according to Hubbard, offers an interesting theoretical problem the seeming intrusion of autobiographical allusion and literary dogma into the poetic text. He argues that the parabasis is not in fact intrusive, but presents the poet s role and identity as a paradigm for the satirical concerns of the play. After a review of ancient theories of the comic and their modern counterparts, Hubbard examines the parabasis within the framework of Greek traditions of poetic self-awareness and self-citation. He shows that the function of the parabasis is primarily "intertextual," echoing not only other poets but also the comic poet himself. Hubbard maintains that the parabases of Aristophanes plays, taken together, form an important autobiographical subtext, which allows readers to trace the poet s career as he wished it to be seen. The poet, in his various struggles with Athenian society, is himself revealed to be a comic hero on a par with many of his protagonists. Analyzing Aristophanes plays sequentially through the lens of the parabasis, The Mask of Comedy gives us a new perspective on the significance of his entire dramatic corpus. It will be welcomed by classicists and by compara-tists and literary theorists interested in the development of comedy. - Thomas K. Hubbard is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Texas, Austin. A graduate of Santa Clara University, he received his M.A. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. from Yale University. He is also the author of The Pindaric Mind: A Study of Logical Structure in Early Greek Poetry.

The Mask of Comedy : Aristophanes and the Intertextual Parabasis

by: Hubbard, T.K.

• ISBN-13: 9780801425646 / 978-0-8014-2564-6
• ISBN-03: 0801425646 / 0-8014-2564-6
• Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1991

Priere et conceptions religieuses en grece ancienne jusqu'a la fin du Ve siecle av. J.-C.

by: Aubriot-Sevin, D.

• ISBN-13: 9782903264147 / 978-2-903264-14-7
• ISBN-03: 2903264147 / 2-903264-14-7
• Maison de l'Oriene et de la Mediterranee, Lyon, 1992

Price: 145,00 EURO

1 copy in stock

Old Age in the Roman World : A Cultural and Social History

by: Parkin, T.G.

• ISBN-13: 9780801871283 / 978-0-8018-7128-3
• ISBN-03: 080187128X / 0-8018-7128-X
• The John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 2003

Price: 89,00 EURO

1 copy in stock

Die Geschichte der Musikinstrumente des Agaischen raumes bis um 700 vor Christus : Ein Beitrag zur Vor- und Fruhgeschichte der griechischen Musik

by: Aign, B.

• , Frankfurt am Main, 1963

Storia dell'urbanistica : il mondo romano

by: Gros, P. Torelli, M.

• ISBN-13: 9788842032649
• ISBN-03: 8842032646
• Editori Laterza, Bari, 1988

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by: Vikan, G.

• ISBN-13: 9780691038896
• ISBN-03: 0691038899
• Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1973