Cratinus and Tragedy

Through examination of four of Cratinus' comedies, Ch 3 challenges the generally accepted argument that Aristophanes is unusual in his engagement with tragedy and demonstrates that paratragedy was also a major feature in Cratinus' comedy. It shows that Cratinus' Plutoi had an intertextual relationship with Prometheus Lyomenos and the Prometheus trilogy (which has survived under the name of Aeschylus) more generally, as well as with Aeschylus' Oresteia, especially as far as the characterization of their choruses is concerned. Drapetides is shown to have been a pastiche of suppliant tragedies, with special reference to Aeschylus' Hiketides. Seriphioi is argued to have contained paratragic metatheatre, and Nemesis parody of tragic manner. Finally, Cratinus' Eumenides, like his Plutoi, seems to have engaged with the homonymous tragedy of Aeschylus. Looking back to Ch 1 (fr. 342), the unusually intense interest of Cratinus in the old master of tragedy who had recently acquired canonical status, is argued to have been part of Cratinus' rhetoric of self‐presentation.

Argument (complex analysis) · Art · Comedy · Linguistics · Literature · Rhetoric · Tragedy (event) · Trilogy · Chemistry · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Organic Chemistry Synthesis Methods · Philosophy