Page 15 - GALIET THESMOPHORIAS and Euphorias IV

Galiet & Galiet
commentary on Athenian law and its prejudices. Like Taaffe, Slater also concurs that Agathon dresses “to be an object of vision and desire,” but adds that Aristophanes also “conflates the notions of poet and performer” in Agathon by confusing physical, visual and verbal signals5 (155): a poetic mimetic device where males need to wear feminine clothes and act and speak in feminine ways in order to effectively write parts for females. Slater disagrees that cross-dressing and cross behaving can truly facilitate this possibility or whether any male writer can say anything about the experiences and feelings of women. Furthermore, Slater recognizes that Taaffe is aware as much as he is that notions of desire and spectatorship are complex by treating Mnesilochus’ transition from male to female as a transition from spectator to actor (158) and by suggesting that Mnesilochus, unlike Agathon, “does not become an object of desire” (158).
In my view, it would be too simplistic to interpret the Thesmophoriasuzae as strictly a comedy. I believe the gender role inversion of this comedy serves purposes that go far beyond Mac Dowell’s undemanding interpretation of pure mockery. The play does show strong socio-political and dramatic elements as suggested by Taaffe and Slater. However, I believe the play also shows strong didactic and tragic elements beyond the gymnastics of gender and language role reversals discussed earlier. At the beginning of the play, after the “Etherean Speech,” Euripides responds to Mnesilochus that he, as poet, will pass to him “much of such knowledge” (331). We ought to remember that poets had been the vital educators of men in ancient Greece and that Plato, in classical Athens, had strongly condemned the poets for their immoral teachings and impoverishing influence on young Athenians. We know that Aristophanes has been blamed for his unfair treatment of Athens’ king philosopher, Socrates, as seen in Clouds.6 We also know, historically, that women had shared none of the
5 While I agree with Slater’s view that Aristophanes confuses verbal signals, I see this confusion as a necessary instability of meaning, a clean deconstruction of traditional language and roles in order to construct a new, more just society.
6 In Clouds, Aristophanes attacks Socrates as a sophist for his lofty pursuit of the just argument. Socrates was the apostle of a new education based on the search for “truth”, for the “good” and the “just” and for the supremacy of reason over passion in handling human affairs. However, this attack may not have been intended to damage Socrates’ reputation entirely. We know Aristophanes is deeply troubled by the effects of the war and the moral decay in Athens; perhaps he wants the citizens of Athens to be aware of new possibilities by showing them how the outcome of their actions depends on their choice of the just or unjust argument.
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