BMCR 2008.12.04, Bernard Freydberg, Philosophy and Comedy

Bernard Freydberg, Philosophy and Comedy: Aristophanes, Logos, and
Eros.  Bloomington:  Indiana University Press, 2008.  Pp. 235.  ISBN
9780253219701.  $65.00.

Reviewed by James Brusuelas, California State University at Los Angeles
([email protected])
Word count:  1546 words
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Topical satire set aside, Freydberg endeavors not only to unearth the
serious, "philosophic yield" buried in Aristophanes, but also to make
the poet philosophic.  He argues that the Aristophanic construction of
logos and eros intersects with that of Plato.  If the connection is
made, then Aristophanes' indulgence in comic excess discloses the
limits of logos and eros, and thereby the proper measure for human
existence is elicited.  Thus, according to Freydberg, it is "a very
incomplete picture of his achievement, if not a badly misleading one,
to regard him merely or even primarily as a highly skilled satirist
commentating upon Athenian politics and society" (p. 197).  Now, as
provocative as this may sound, let alone combative with the weighty
tradition of Aristophanic scholarship, this book is beset by a flaccid
methodology and a limited application of Old Comic studies and comic
theory.  And the search for philosophic depth ironically yields the
plain, cultural surface.

The book is divided into two parts that deal respectively with logos
and eros.  Including only Clouds, Wasps, Assemblywomen, and Lysistrata,
Freydberg (F) tackles each play in sequential, isolated chunks. I will
not address all of his readings, but only the highlights of each
chapter.  Moreover, my primary concern rests more with F's overall
reading of Aristophanes than his ideas about Plato.

Chapter one essentially portrays Clouds as a breakdown in Platonic
logos; the more the logos becomes unhinged from normative conceptions,
the more Aristophanes' characters resort to comically excessive action.
The father-son relationship between Strepsiades and Pheidippides
becomes a conflict of logos.  Their comic inability to communicate,
which drives the play, prefigures the Protagoras (337d1-338d1) and Meno
(75d6-7), whereby an agreed upon dialogical logos is the prerequisite
for the emergence of true logos.  Also the caricature of the
philosophic logos itself is comically and failingly unpractical; when
actually applied it produces Pheidippides' comic threats of domestic
violence and Strepsiades' act of arson.  Further, F sees Right's
failing logos as analogous to that of Socrates in the Apology, since he
is concerned with justice rather than victory.  The premise is thus
simple, F conjectures Platonic echoes and Socratic "images" for
Aristophanes' use of logos and its related words.  Each time, the
failure of logos induces comic action and at the same time reveals a
lurking philosophic truth.  An excessive and failingly comic logos
always indicates a balanced and successfully absent one.

In chapter two, Wasps' disclosure exists in the well-known -- and
clearly ironic -- distance it creates between the concept of justice
and the jurors who embody it.  Specifically, F reads the
<greek>kaki/a</greek>-obsessed opening dialogue between Sosias and
Xanthias programmatically.  The abundance of "bad" words produces a
type of philosophic questioning of its definition.  Aristophanes' use
of <greek>filhliasth/s</greek> is thus not a sickness but a Platonic
problem of love; the relationship between the word and the true meaning
is obscured.  Subsequently another breakdown in logos occurs.  This
time it pertains to the <greek>kaki/a</greek>-confused state of the
Aristophanic players: Philocleon plays the problem child; Bdelycleon
treats his father as such; the chorus commits injustice
conscientiously.  Moreover, this breakdown becomes clear through
reading comic scenes seriously.  Philocleon's Homeric parody of
Odysseus' sheep-inspired escape cannot be pure ridiculous fun but is
the admirable act of an old man desperate for respect.  Similarly, the
chorus' predilection for injustice is also a cry for respect--they were
once soldiers of Athens.  F pushes for a tension between despicable
acts and the serious, purportedly just reasons behind them.  As
Philocleon silently entertains his son's offer of endless food,
clothes, and sex, as long as he refrains from jury duty, the chorus
remarks that he is perhaps listening and being sensible.  F reads the
chorus' comments and Philocleon's ultimate capitulation as indicative
of philosophic silence, that quiet reflection essential to logos and
dialogos (Sph. 263e2-5).  Wasps' excess <greek>kaki/a</greek> and
philosophic silence, then, reveals the path to true logos.  And so,
"Philocleon is a vicarious image of all of us, as we attempt to fashion
our lives by allowing the "divine advent" of logos into our souls in
order to clash with our habituated, cultivated, established,
unreflective identities so as so seek a life that is best" (p. 85).

In chapter 3 eros takes center stage.  In F's endeavor to disclose the
philosophic merit of Aristophanes, he suggests that Assemblywomen
reveals the limits of eros by reducing it to sexual gratification.  As
egalitarian as Praxagora's new Athens may be, eros is not.  All this
plays out against the backdrop of an Athens that intersects with the
inner workings of Plato's ideal city.  Praxagora notably becomes
analogous to the philosopher-city founder through her deception and
manipulative recognition of her political limitations (Republic 2).  In
that context, Aristophanes' clever handling of the irony implicit in
the government as <greek>oi)=kos</greek> metaphor, which
syllogistically proves the political ability of women -- who live
within --, becomes linked to the Socratic soul-body / justice-city
analogy.  Yet, as Plato notes in the Laws (838e4-7), eros is not easily
regulated by legislation.  So, Praxagora's Athens is in turn undermined
by eros.  As the contest between the sex-pot and the old crone for
first crack at the young man shows, a pure egalitarianism is
impossible.  Taking the Republic/Laws connection together, F believes
that Aristophanes' politically resistant eros, and one limited to
sexual aesthetics and gratification, reveals an absent eros balanced
between the public and private body.

Rounding off his project, F presents Lysistrata as final proof of
Aristophanes' philosophic potential.  Apparently the play's hilarity
overshadows its philosophic side.  Here, F conjectures that
Lysistrata's notorious pun in <greek>me/ga</greek> is equivalent to
<greek>ta/ mega/la</greek> in the Phaedo (100b3-4), i.e., "the form of
the cause."  Thus the big issue at hand is not just the war, nor even a
comic penis, but there must be something beyond mortal sight at stake.
Simply put, under the women's silly, provocative humor and the men's
political ineptitude lies the nobility of an eros intrinsic to the
marriage bond.  Thus, "Eros, then, serves not merely as sexual desire
for one beautiful body, but as the seal of a sacred promise" (p.159).
This is the thing absent, that which the play philosophically
discloses.

Each chapter suffers from the use of exegesis by free association in
lieu of a sound intertextuality.  Aristophanes shows no evidence of
engaging Platonic texts.  Nor does the simple occurrence of logos and
its related words, let alone the topic of love/eros, necessitate a
philosophic context.  And in the case of Assemblywomen, F even fails to
address previous scholarship on the possible relationship with the
Republic.  It would be rather uncharacteristic of Aristophanes to
address a philosopher or philosophic concept ambiguously.

This study also pervasively neglects Old Comedy's defining attributes.
For example, in chapter two, F reshapes Aristophanes' ironic
manipulation of <greek>kaki/a</greek> to create his philosophic
questioning.  Further, he ignores the very nature of comic
characterization.[[1]]  To treat these characters as psychologically
real instead of comic constructs or homiletic labels is to misread
comedy.  It deflates the serious, and it's why we laugh instead of gaze
appallingly at the stage.

As for Lysistrata, should we read every scene of sexual titillation and
libidinous banter as representing the eros of marital desire?  Dover
may have read the play as a celebration of marital love, but he is
simultaneously aware that matrimony in Athens was a prearranged affair
and largely a transmission of property.[[2]]

Lastly, to claim that the normative absence implicit in comic excess
functions philosophically is to confound two different genres.  Since
Socrates' irony and humor often relies upon the mortal inability to see
the Forms, F assumes Aristophanes' comedy works similarly.  An
intersection may be possible, but the removal of Old Comedy's topical
satire and comic deflation detracts from its carnivalesque and
Dionysian release.

Unfortunately, I must conclude that Freydberg fails to provide a
credible lens through which to read Aristophanes.  The entire
construction of Aristophanes as philosophic hangs upon a non-existent
textual connection to Plato.  Moreover, the absence of seminal
Aristophanic scholarship is unsettling.  And for a text devoted to
philosophy, it neglects ancient philosophy's long history of discourse
on Old Comedy, in which its impropriety and innuendo is rejected in
favor of the benignity of New Comedy.  The ancients certainly did not
see any philosophic merit in comic excess.  Rather, they praise Old
Comedy for its ability to criticize through topical satire.  And yes,
Aristophanes is serious about comedy.  But we do not have to leave his
comic, satiric stage to find it.  His own discussion of his genre as
<greek>tru/c</greek> and <greek>trugw|di/a</greek> betrays its innate
oscillation between the <greek>spoudai=os</greek> and the
<greek>ge/loios</greek>.[[3]]  More important, even if we totaled up
all of F's philosophic disclosures, we only find the concepts of
measure, balance, and propriety driving the best expressions of logos
and eros.  These concepts, however, are not exclusive to philosophy.
As fundamental aspects of Greek culture, they rest upon the surface of
many ancient genres.  There is nothing really deep about them.
Regardless, if one still wished to use F's philosophic lens, I fear
Aristophanic comedy would be reduced to that of Terence.  All the dung,
sex, and satire would be ultimately swept away.  To date, the best
treatment of how Platonic and Aristophanic comedy intersect is still
Andrea Nightingale's Genres in Dialogue; another important book absent
from F's study.[[4]]

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Notes:


1.  See Silk, M. S. "The  People of Aristophanes," in C. Pelling (ed.)
Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford 1990);
Silk, M. S. Aristophanes and the Definition of Comedy (Oxford 2000).

2.  Dover, K. J. 1972. Aristophanic Comedy. Berkeley and Los Angeles.

3.  Edwards, A. T. 1991. "Aristophanes' Comic Poetics:
<greek>tru/c</greek>, Scatology, <greek>skw=mma</greek>. TAPA 121:
157-179.

4.  Nightingale, A. W. Genres in Dialogue: Plato and the construct of
philosophy. Cambridge 1995).