Transcript Aristophanes* Assemblywomen

Aristophanes’
Assemblywomen
Persuasion = Salvation?
Agenda
• Epideixis
• Final preview
• Discussion
• Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen and peithō
• Play and Context
• Athens 404-387 BCE
• Which Lens(es)?
• Assemblywomen via Weber, Michels, Finley
27-Nov 2012
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
2
Epideixis
Final preview
Our Modest Proposal…
We live in a time of overpopulation, we die in a time of great
starvation.
[dicolon: antithesis, anaphora, homoioteleuton]
Though these problems seem infinite, our solution is
infantile:
[dicolon: antithesis, paronomasia]
in conception, in execution, in every conceivable fashion.
[tricolon crescendo]
For I propose we eat our young. “Eat our young?” you gasp.
Yeah, eat them and thereby save them
[paradox]
— save them from privation and our species from extinction.
[dicolon: homoiotelueton]
27-Nov 2012
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
4
Discussion
Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen and peithō
Two Quotes…
Assemblywomen
[CHORUS TO PRAXAGORA]
“Now summon all your
eloquence, / your
shrewdness , wit and
common sense! / Yours is the
skill: to you must fall / the
task of speaking for us all.”
(p. 241)
27-Nov 2012
Isocrates Antidosis
“They recognize that Lady
Persuasion (Peithō) is one of
the gods, ... but when men
aspire to share the power
which the goddess possesses,
they claim that such aspirants
are being corrupted....” (sect.
249)
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
6
Questions
• Aristophanes’
Assemblywomen as…
• endorsement
• critique
of (feminine?) peithō?
27-Nov 2012
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
7
Comments. . .
endorsement
critique
•
•
peitho’s power for good
OR bad
• doesn’t work
• real-world unworkability
• inevitable imperfection
•
combination
implausible scheme
•
•
combination
extreme democracy
• socialism
27-Nov 2012
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
8
Play and Context
Athens 404-387 BCE
Dramatic, Thematic Structure
Crisis. . .
Remedy. . .
•
•
•
•
•
Poverty
Inconstancy
Selfishness
Stasis?
• coup
•
Conception, enactment
• communalism
•
De Luca. Aristophanes' Male and Female
Revolutions.
Rothwell. Politics and Persuasion in
Aristophanes' Eccleziazusae.
Scholtz. Concordia Discors ch4.
27-Nov 2012
Planning, execution
Probation
• collectivization
• tug of war
•
Celebration
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
10
Historical Background (cont’d)
404 Athens’ defeat.
Oligarchic episode.
403 Amnesty decree. (Don’t
think badly!).
Restoration of
democracy.
Establishment of
nomothetai (“lawgivers”).
Pnyx, Assembly meeting
27-Nov 2012
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
11
Historical Background (cont’d)
395-387 Corinthian War.
c. 392 Assemblywomen
produced.
Hoplites fighting
27-Nov 2012
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
12
Historical Background (cont’d)
338
337/6
336-323
322
27-Nov 2012
Battle of Chaeronea.
Anti-tyranny decree.
Reign of Alexander III ("the
Great") of Macedon.
Macedonians overthrow
Athenian democracy.
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
13
Isocrates on stasis and its Avoidance
“And when we have freed ourselves of
material privation, which dissolves
comradeship and drives kin to become
enemies and incites all humanity to war and
stasis, then there will be no avoiding
homonoia among us or genuine good will.”
(Antidosis 174)
27-Nov 2012
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
14
Cognitive Triangle?
homonoia (consensus)
isēgoria (free speech)
stasis (strife)
Which Lens(es)?
Assemblywomen via Weber, Michels, Finley
Lenses
• Despotic/oligarchic gynaecocracy? (Michels)
•
“The preponderant elements of the movement, the men who
lead and nourish it, end by undergoing a gradual detachment
from the masses and are attracted within the orbit of the
‘political class’ ” (Political Parties)
Charismatic gynaecocracy? (Weber)
“… devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary
character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns
or order revealed or ordained by him” (Economy and Society)
• Pragmatic gynaecocracy? (Finley)
Democracy’s “substantive promises”: “what counts is that the
people expected results and at times, sometimes for long
periods, felt satisfied with them” (Ancient History)
27-Nov 2012
Aristophanes Assemblywomen
17