Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T07:20:31.229Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

WISDOM IN INVERTED COMMAS: GREEK COMEDY AND THE QUOTABLE MAXIM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2021

Matthew Wright
Matthew Wright*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Greek comedy is full of quotable maxims. According to a literal reading, the comedians might be seen as custodians of traditional gnomic wisdom, along with their tragic counterparts. Nevertheless, it is argued here that maxims in comedy are different from maxims in other contexts. Comic maxims typically appear ‘within inverted commas’, not just in a literal sense (because of their inherent ‘quotationality’) but in a figurative sense (because of their pervasive irony and self-consciousness). Examples from Menander, Antiphanes, Diphilus and others are used to demonstrate that the comedians can be seen as playing around with the content and form of traditional wisdom. Sometimes they seem to be poking fun at the maxim as a medium of expression, or at tragic maxims, or at the habit of quotation itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Cambridge Classical Journal , Volume 68 , December 2022 , pp. 244 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Cambridge Philological Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works cited

Arnott, W. G. (ed.) (1979) Menander. Vol. i, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Arnott, W. G (2000) ‘On editing fragments from literary and lexicographic sources’, in Harvey, F. D. and Wilkins, J. M. (eds.), The rivals of Aristophanes: studies in Athenian Old Comedy, London and Swansea, 1–13.Google Scholar
Bain, D. C. (ed.) (1983) Menander: Samia, Warminster.Google Scholar
Bakola, E., Prauscello, L. and Telò, M. (eds.) (2013) Greek comedy and the discourse of genres, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barigazzi, A. (1965) La formazione spirituale di Menandro, Turin.Google Scholar
Bosher, K. (2014) ‘Epicharmus and early Sicilian comedy’, in Revermann (2014) 79–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowie, A. M. (1997) ‘Thinking with drinking: wine and the symposium in Aristophanes’, JHS 117, 1–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cinaglia, V. (2014) Aristotle and Menander on the ethics of understanding, Leiden.Google Scholar
Collard, C. and Cropp, M. J. (eds.) (2005) Euripides: selected fragmentary plays. Vol. ii, Oxford.Google Scholar
Cusset, C. (2003) Menandre ou la comédie tragique, Paris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cusset, C. and Lhostis, N. (2011) ‘Les maximes dans trois comédies de Ménandre’, in Mauduit and Paré-Rey (2011) 93–108.Google Scholar
Dover, K. J. (1974) Greek popular morality, Oxford.Google Scholar
Empson, W. (1930) Seven types of ambiguity, London.Google Scholar
Farmer, M. (2017) Tragedy on the comic stage, Oxford and New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furley, W. (2009) (ed.) Menander: Epitrepontes, London.Google Scholar
Garber (2003) Quotation marks, London and New York.Google Scholar
Genette, G. (1997) Palimpsestes, Paris.Google Scholar
Gomme, A. W. and Sandbach, F. H. (1973) Menander: a commentary, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, P. (1990) Alexander to Actium, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Gutzwiller, K. (2000) ‘The tragic mask of comedy’, ClAnt 19, 102–37.Google Scholar
Hunter, R. (2014) Hesiodic voices, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurst, A. (2015) Dans les marges de Ménandre, Paris.Google Scholar
Ireland, S. (2010) (ed.) Menander: the Shield and the Arbitration, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Konstan, D. (2011) ‘Excerpting as a reading practice’, in Reydams-Schils, G. (ed.), Thinking through excerpts: studies in Stobaeus, Turnhout, 9–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, M. (ed.) (2003) La comédie de proverbes. Pièce comique: d'après l’édition princeps de 1633, Paris.Google Scholar
Kurke, L. (2002) ‘Gender, politics and subversion in the Chreiai of Machon’, PCPhS 48, 20–65.Google Scholar
Lardinois, A. (2006) ‘The polysemy of gnomic expressions in Ajax's deception speech’, in de Jong, I. and Rijksbaron, A. (eds.), Sophocles and the Greek language, Leiden, 213–23.Google Scholar
Liapis, V. (ed.) (2002) Menandrou gnomai monostichoi, Athens.Google Scholar
Martin, R. P. (2011) ‘Gnomes in poems: wisdom performance on the Athenian stage’, in Karamalengou, E. and Makrygianni, E. D. (eds.), Antiphilesis: studies on classical, Byzantine, and modern Greek literature and culture, Stuttgart, 116–27.Google Scholar
Mauduit, C. (2011) ‘Les poètes tragiques “forgeurs de sentences” dans les comédies d'Aristophane’, in Mauduit and Paré-Rey (2011) 69–92.Google Scholar
Mauduit, C. and Paré-Rey, P. (eds.) (2011) Les maximes théâtrales en Grèce et à Rome: transferts, réécritures, remplois, Paris.Google Scholar
Morson, G. S. (2011) The words of others: from quotations to culture, New Haven.Google Scholar
Morson, G. S (2012) The long and the short of it: from aphorism to novel, Stanford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nervegna, S. (2013) Menander in antiquity: the contexts of reception, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nünlist, R. (1999) ‘Ein neu identifiziertes Buchfragment aus Menanders Epitrepontes‘, ZPE 128, 54–6.Google Scholar
Olson, S. D. (ed.) (2007) Broken laughter: select fragments of Greek comedy, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perlman, S. (1964) ‘Quotations from poetry in Attic orators of the fourth century BC’, AJPh 85, 155–72.Google Scholar
Pernigotti, C. (2008) Menandri sententiae, Florence.Google Scholar
Pompella, G. (ed.) (1997) Menandro: sentenze. Introduzione, traduzione, e note, Milan.Google Scholar
Powell, J. U. and Barber, E. A. (1929) New chapters in the history of Greek literature, Second series, Oxford.Google Scholar
Pütz, B. (2003) The symposium and komos in Aristophanes, Stuttgart.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Revermann, M. (ed.) (2014) The Cambridge companion to Greek comedy, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruffell, I. A. (2014) ‘Character types’, in Revermann (2014) 147–67.Google Scholar
Russo, J. (1997) ‘Prose genres for the performance of traditional wisdom in ancient Greece: proverb, maxim, apophthegm’, in Edmunds, L. and Wallace, R. (eds.), Poet, public and performance in ancient Greece, Baltimore, 49–64.Google Scholar
Scafuro, A. (1997) The forensic stage, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, S. (2000) ‘Proverbial wisdom in Herodotus’, TAPhA 130, 89–118.Google Scholar
Storey, I. C. (2003) Eupolis: poet of Old Comedy, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verdenius, W. J. (1974) ‘Notes on Menander, Epitrepontes‘, Mnemosyne 37, 17–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilde, O. (2007) The epigrams of Oscar Wilde, London.Google Scholar
Wilkins, J. M. (2000) The boastful chef: the discourse of food in ancient Greek comedy, Oxford.Google Scholar
Wright, M.E. (2012) The comedian as critic: Greek Old Comedy and poetics, London.Google Scholar
Wright, M.E. (2013) ‘Poets and poetry in later Greek comedy’, CQ 63, 603–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, M.E. (2016) ‘Euripidean tragedy and quotation culture: the case of Stheneboea F661’, AJPh 138, 601–23.Google Scholar