Comedy during the Peloponnesian War.
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2020-07-01
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en
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While many literary scholars have already examined Aristophanes’ extant plays featuring the Peloponnesian War and a utopian peace, their conclusions oftentimes lack an academic justification for the occurrence of political criticism, or the presence of critique is rejected altogether on account of the generic qualities of comedy. However, this thesis focuses explicitly on the display of criticism towards the Peloponnesian War in two of Aristophanes’ fifth-century comedies: Acharnians and Lysistrata. The theory of carnival by Mikhail Bakhtin has been applied as a methodology, in order to acquire more insight in the intersection between humour and criticism. This has been done by investigating the occurrence of five carnivalesque characteristics. While no direct comments on contemporary legislature can be identified within Acharnians or Lysistrata, the presence of these characteristics supports the notion that comedy may serve as an effective medium for political criticism and that Aristophanes may have indirectly influenced war politics.
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Faculteit der Letteren