Comedy and the Satyr-Chorus

Abstract

Despite a superficial kinship, Old Comedy and satyr-play avoid each other. Tragedy has extensive ties with both. Comedy engages tragedy but systematically ignores satyr-play. This "firewall" is documented across the entire comic corpus (e.g., Cratinus' Dionysalexandros). The "hauling scene" in Aristophanes' Peace emerges as the unique exception. Here comedy reproduces a visual from Sophocles' satyr-play Pandora (Sphyrokopoi). Comedy needs to invoke the primordial world of satyr-play that is uniquely relevant to a scene representing the utopian heuresis of peace by a pan-Hellenic discovery team. The two genres located at opposite ends of a political-cultural polarity uniquely cooperate in Peace.

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