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Summary OCR Classical Civilisation A Level: Notes on Aristophanes' Frogs
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Used for Summer 2024 exams
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COMEDY THEMESSCHOLARSHIP: DEATH & AFTERLIFE
The Representation and Satire of Tragedy
CHARACTERS: Aeschylus, Euripides, Dionysus
Comedy is interested in tragedy:
Tragedy was central to Athenian life
Some of Aristophanes' other plays include parody of tragedy - Women at the Thes-
mophoria presents the women of Athens secretly plotting against Euripides.
Frogs – the plot is dominated by:
o The personalities of the individual tragedians.
See 1.2 tragedy notes & satirising tragedians
E presented as rejecting of the Gods with slippery arguments that ap-
peal to the masses ‘when E came down he began to show off to the
villians and muggers.
o The idea that tragic poetry can save Athens.
It begins with Dionysus deciding to go to Hades to recover a tragic
playwright for personal reasons.
He tells Heracles that he is pining for the work of Euripides,
since the tragedians left in Athens are inferior
‘a craving consumes me – for Euripides’
At the end of the play, however, when unable to determine which
playwright is better, Dionysus reveals that there is another factor that
will influence his decision ‘I came down for a poet. Why? So that the
city could be saved and put on plays.’
Tragedy as a civic function is explored
The right playwright will save Athens from the crisis that is engulfing her.
Dionysus expands upon this by asking both tragedians for political advice – about Al-
cibiades and how to save the city
o Ancient poetry should be didactic - aim was to offer moral guidance and
make them better citizens.
o ‘why should we admire a poet’ ‘because we make people in our cities better’
Diff views on tragedies role:
o Euripides states that a tragedian should be admired 'because we make
people in our cities better'
o Whereas, Aeschylus comments 'Children have teachers to instruct them,
young men have poets’
They agree on the educational importance of tragedy
But disagree on how this should be fulfilled:
, o SCHOLAR Ruffel: the tragedians disagree violently on how they are to make
citizens better | A believes characters should be models of good behaviour or
the audience, E believes tragedy should be o examine conventional wisdom,
to scrutinize and provoke.
o Aeschylus: claims that Euripides has corrupted Athenian morals by presenting
wicked deeds on stage, and argues that a tragedian should conceal bad beha-
viour, not encourage it by presenting it on stage i.e. Phaedra and Stheneboea
(see women below).
Half a century later we find the same argument used by Plato in his
Republic - he criticises all the tragedians (including Aeschylus) for pro-
moting immoral behaviour.
o SCHOLAR Dover: A is said to have moral characters and E has immoral BUT in
reality, they both have these. Just in E he makes us sympathise with those
who behaved badly i.e, Medea.
Satirising the tragedians:
The 3 tragedians:
o Frogs parodies the style of the individual tragedians:
This assumes a high level of knowledge on the part of Aristophanes'
audience: indeed the chorus encourage Aeschylus and Euripides not
to worry that the audience will not follow – ‘for the audience, at any
rate, is smart’
SCHOLAR Griffith: states that the audience were experienced theatre-
goers and used to making judgements about the relative merits of
competing tragedies.
o The focus on Aeschylus and Euripides also demonstrates how the formation
of the three great tragedians was already well underway in Aristophanes' life-
time.
Sophocles probably died shortly before Frogs was first performed, and
so too late to be fully incorporated into the script.
o His insistence in Frogs that no playwrights other than Aeschylus, Sophocles
and Euripides wrote anything of merit itself probably played a role in the ex-
clusive focus on these playwrights, and the loss of the works by others.
o Aristophanes’ presentation needs to be viewed with scepticism, especially
since the personalities of Aeschylus and Euripides are derived from stereo-
types about their work.
1.2 tragedy has their personalities.
SCHOLAR Ruffel: ‘both these positions are travesties of what we know
of each poet’
Other tragedians mentioned:
o Dionysus makes it clear that these are the only playwrights worth considering
truly great.
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