Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genre

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 159 attitude towards life, as background to a close reading of the passage in the chorus and the O.C. Michael Lloyd, in “The Mutability of Fortune in Euripides” (205–226), argues that despite Euripides’ reputation for being an innovative thinker, the archaic notion of the mutability of fortune is more prominent in his plays than in those of either Aeschylus or Sophocles. He demonstrates that fortune in Euripides is particularly mutable for those who believe that misfortune will never strike them, especially those who, already fortunate, inflict harm on someone in a vulnerable position in order to further better their own lot (e.g., Jason or Polymestor). The papers in this collection are thoughtful, well argued, and useful contributions to the study of the relationship between Greek tragedy and archaic Greek thought. It is less clear that traditional scholarship, of the kind found in this volume, needs the defense Cairns mounts for it in his introduction. Traditional approaches—especially close textual analysis—and traditional questions have continued to inform the large majority of the scholarship published on tragedy in the last three decades. A quick JSTOR search, for example, reveals that roughly ninety per cent of the work published in Greek tragedy since 2007 features traditional philological approaches and subject matter.3 Even the work in tragedy with an anthropological or cultural focus overwhelmingly depends on close reading of the texts. In his defense of “classical” scholarship against cultural, anthropological, or other contextual approaches, Cairns is creating a false dichotomy. Traditional scholarship does not need to retake the helm of classical discourse on tragedy; it has never lost it. University of Victoria Laurel Bowman Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genre. Edited by Emmanuela Bakola, Lucia Prauscello, and Mario TelÁ o. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2013. Pp. xvi, 404. It is an exciting time to work on Greek comedy, with its dynamic appropriation of literary and subliterary forms and its impact on fifth- and fourth-century literary culture. This volume, containing the proceedings of a July 2009 conference, shifts the discussion beyond comedy’s privileged relationship with tragedy to other texts and modes of inquiry. Although some chapters are more successful than others, every study will affect discussion of its topic. Things begin with three chapters on genre. Michael Silk’s lively discussion (Chapter One) introduces three areas for conceptualizing fifth-century dramatic genre, beginning with text vs. context and modern theory’s overemphasis on socio-cultural context as determinative of genre.1 While operative on one level, contextual assessments can be qualified by textual interpretation and its focus upon specific generic features. Discussions of genre 3 Using the search terms “title includes ‘Aeschylus,’ ‘Euripides,’ ‘Sophocles,’ or ‘Traged*’,” 95 out of 107, or 89%, of the articles published since 2007 in the 64 journals categorized by JSTOR as being part of “Classical Studies” can be called traditional using Cairns’s terms. If one includes results from Arion, the ratio is 95/116, or 82%. 1 “Modern theory” here refers primarily to ideas of the last hundred years, as exemplified by J. Frow, Genre (London and New York 2006). 160 PHOENIX development via the incorporation of nonliterary content and the value of the anomalous satyr play are followed by a bold theory about the generic hybridity of Clouds. In what is sure to become a classic in the study of comedy’s evolution, Eric Csapo (Chapter Two) convincingly argues that one such nonliterary genre to influence Old Comedy was the phallic procession of the Dionysiac pompe. A series of fifth-century Attic vases depicting (originally misidentified) dancing phallophoroi—in belted, shin-length garments, decorated with ivy, and, most importantly, bearing phallus-tipped sticks—attest to the colorful, transgressive character of processions that likely influenced comedy’s repertoire and were in turn influenced by comedy. Although unlikely to be comedy’s source, as Aristotle famously asserted (Poet. 1449a11–12), the phallic procession was critical to the creative energy driving comedy’s evolution. Ralph Rosen (Chapter Three) explores the complexity of generic affiliation in response to E. Bowie’s objections to his case for iambos ’ direct influence on late fifth-century comedy.2 Rosen successfully argues that the...

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