AGAINST A DIDACTIC READING OF THE PARABASIS IN ARISTOPHANES’ FROGS

Abstract

Given its topicality, it is tempting to suppose that one may find important insights into the politics of late 5th C. Athens in Aristophanes’ comedies. The problem, I contend, is when scholars think they can discern Aristophanes’ own political views simply by supposing that some character in the play (or the chorus leader in the parabasis) directly presents the author’s views. As tempting as such an inference sometimes is, it is one that should be made with extreme caution. For each example of what might seem to some scholars as serious political advice, one may find many other instances that cannot possibly be taken to represent Aristophanes’ real views in the lines he has written. In this discussion, I take up just one case of political speech in an Aristophanic play, Frogs, and argue (contrary to most existing scholarship) that it should not be interpreted as didacticism. Instead, I argue that Aristophanes gives samples of political advocacy from the most extreme poles of contemporary ideology, in such a way as to highlight how dangerous and foolish such policies would be. Aristophanes was mocking, not endorsing, the follies that would soon prove to be so ruinous for Athens.