Comedy and conflict: The modern reception of Aristophanes

"Comedy and Conflict: The Modern Reception of Aristophanes" is a contribution to reception studies, Victorian cultural studies, translation studies, and the history of classical scholarship. It investigates Aristophanes' reception in Britain from the mid-seventeenth century to the present, and it is organized around the large interpretative questions that Aristophanic comedy provokes. It tracks how the plays of Aristophanes were assimilated with the ideas and ideals of later antiquity and the modern world, and it charts the cultural fault lines that they touched. It argues that Aristophanes had a far more vexed and ambivalent relationship to Romantic and Victorian Hellenism than did the Greek tragedians, and insofar as Aristophanes is valuable to understanding the history and culture of fifth-century Athens, understanding our historical relationship to the comic plays is crucial to an astute and comprehensive reading.;Chapter one surveys Aristophanes' reception in the ancient world, as well as in continental Europe, paying close attention to positions that wielded significant influence on his reception in eighteenth-century Britain. In this discussion it situates the comic plays within contentious debates over the effects of wit, theatrical satire, and censorship. Chapter two tracks how critical attitudes towards Aristophanes' politics and influence developed and changed in Romantic and Victorian Britain. It also contextualizes current scholarship in light of these positions, noting direct parallels and resolving contradictions. Chapter three analyzes significant English translations and performances of Aristophanes by exploring the ways in which they reflect and engage contemporary interpretative attitudes towards Old Comedy. Chapter four investigates adaptations of Aristophanes in British literary culture. Foregrounding Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations of the Lysistrata (1896), it demonstrates how nineteenth-century Britain came to grips with Aristophanes' representations of women, gender politics, obscenity, and sexuality. The dissertation also includes an annotated appendix recording published English translation of Aristophanes (1651--1902) and British adaptations of the plays of Aristophanes (1657--1900).