subjects is treated in a frank, uncompromising spirit of criticism and satire, a spirit of broad fun, side-splitting laughter and reckless high spirits. Whatever lends itself to ridicule is instantly seized upon; odd, eccentric and degraded personalities are caricatured, social foibles and vices pilloried, pomposity and sententiousness in the verses of the poets, particularly the tragedians, and most particularly in, Euripides—the pet aversion and constant butt of Aristophanes’ satire—are parodied. All is fish that comes to the Comic dramatist’s net, anything that will raise a laugh is fair game.
“It is difficult to compare the Aristophanic Comedy to any one form of modern literature, dramatic or other. It perhaps most resembles what we now call burlesque; but it had also very much in it of broad farce and comic opera, and something also (in the hits at the fashions and follies of the day with which it abounded) of the modern pantomime. But it was something more, and more important to the Athenian public than any or all of these could have been. Almost always more or less political, and sometimes intensely personal, and always with some purpose more or less important underlying its wildest vagaries and coarsest buffooneries, it supplied the place of the political journal, the literary review, the popular caricature and the party pamphlet, of our own times. It combined the attractions and influence of all these; for its grotesque masks and elaborate ‘spectacle’ addressed the eye as strongly as the author’s keenest witticisms did the ear of his audience.” [1]
Rollicking, reckless, uproarious fun is the key-note; though a more serious intention is always latent underneath, Aristophanes was a strong—sometimes an unscrupulous—partisan; he was an uncompromising Conservative of the old school, an ardent admirer of the vanishing aristocratic régime, an anti-Imperialist—‘Imperialism’ was a demo-
- ↑ Ancient Classics for English Readers: Aristophanes, by Lucas Collins, Introductory Chapter, p. 2.
