The Old Comedy proved to be completely a contrast to Tragedy--Parody--
Ideality of Comedy the reverse of that of Tragedy--Mirthful Caprice--
Allegoric and Political Signification--The Chorus and its Parabases.
We now leave Tragic Poetry to occupy ourselves with an entirely opposite
species, the _Old_ Comedy. Striking as this diversity is, we shall,
however, commence with pointing out a certain symmetry in the contrast and
certain relations between them, which have a tendency to exhibit the
essential character of both in a clearer light. In forming a judgment of
the Old Comedy, we must banish every idea of what is called Comedy by the
moderns, and what went by the same name among the Greeks themselves at a
later period. These two species of Comedy differ from each other, not
only in accidental peculiarities, (such as the introduction in the old of
real names and characters,) but essentially and diametrically. We must
also guard against entertaining such a notion of the Old Comedy as would
lead us to regard it as the rude beginnings of the more finished and
cultivated comedy of a subsequent age [Footnote: This is the purport of
the section of Barthélemy in the _Anacharsis_ on the Old Comedy: one
of the poorest and most erroneous parts of his work. With the pitiful
presumption of ignorance, Voltaire pronounced a sweeping condemnation of
Aristophanes, (in other places, and in his _Philosophical Dictionary_
under Art. _Athée_), and the modern French critics have for the most
part followed his example. We may, however, find the foundation of all the
erroneous opinions of the moderns on this subject, and the same prosaical
mode of viewing it, in Plutarch's parallel between Aristophanes and
Menander.], an idea which many, from the unbridled licentiousness of the
old comic writers, have been led to entertain. On the contrary the former
is the genuine _poetic_ species; but the New Comedy, as I shall show
in due course, is its decline into prose and reality.
We shall form the best idea of the Old Comedy, by considering it as the
direct opposite of Tragedy. This was probably the meaning of the assertion
of Socrates, which is given by Plato towards the end of his _Symposium_.
He tells us that, after the other guests were dispersed or had fallen
asleep, Socrates was left awake with Aristophanes and Agathon, and that
while he drank with them out of a large cup, he forced them to confess,
however unwillingly, that it is the business of one and the same man to be
equally master of tragic and comic composition, and that the tragic poet
is, in virtue of his art, comic poet also. This was not only repugnant to
the general opinion, which wholly separated the two kinds of talent, but
also to all experience, inasmuch as no tragic poet had ever attempted to
shine in Comedy, nor conversely; his remark, therefore, can only have been
meant to apply to the inmost essence of the things. Thus at another time,
the Platonic Socrates says, on the subject of comic imitation: "All
opposites can be fully understood only by and through each other;
consequently we can only know what is serious by knowing also what is
laughable and ludicrous." If the divine Plato by working out that dialogue
had been pleased to communicate his own, or his master's thoughts,
respecting these two kinds of poetry, we should have been spared the
necessity of the following investigation.
One aspect of the relation of comic to tragic poetry may be comprehended
under the idea of _parody_. This parody, however, is one infinitely
more powerful than that of the mock heroic poem, as the subject parodied,
by means of scenic representation, acquired quite another kind of reality
and presence in the mind, from what the épopée did, which relating the
transactions of a distant age, retired, as it were, with them into the
remote olden time. The comic parody was brought out when the thing
parodied was fresh in recollection, and as the representation took place
on the same stage where the spectators were accustomed to see its serious
original, this circumstance must have greatly contributed to heighten the
effect of it. Moreover, not merely single scenes, but the very form of
tragic composition was parodied, and doubtless the parody extended not
only to the poetry, but also to the music and dancing, to the acting
itself, and the scenic decoration. Nay, even where the drama trod in the
footsteps of the plastic arts, it was still the subject of comic parody,
as the ideal figures of deities were evidently transformed into
caricatures [Footnote: As an example of this, I may allude to the well-
known vase-figures, where Mercury and Jupiter, about to ascend by a ladder
into Alcmene's chamber, are represented as comic masks.]. Now the more
immediately the productions of all these arts fall within the observance
of the external senses, and, above, all the more the Greeks, in their
popular festivals, religious ceremonies, and solemn processions, were
accustomed to, and familiar with, the noble style which was the native
element of tragic representation, so much the more irresistibly ludicrous
must have been the effect of that general parody of the arts, which it was
the object of Comedy to exhibit.
But this idea does not exhaust the essential character of Comedy; for
parody always supposes a reference to the subject which is parodied, and a
necessary dependence on it. The Old Comedy, however, as a species of
poetry, is as independent and original as Tragedy itself; it stands on the
same elevation with it, that is, it extends just as far beyond the limits
of reality into the domains of free creative fancy.
Tragedy is the highest earnestness of poetry; Comedy altogether sportive.
Now earnestness, as I observed in the Introduction, consists in the
direction of the mental powers to an aim or purpose, and the limitation of
their activity to that object. Its opposite, therefore, consists in the
apparent want of aim, and freedom from all restraint in the exercise of
the mental powers; and it is therefore the more perfect, the more
unreservedly it goes to work, and the more lively the appearance there is
of purposeless fun and unrestrained caprice. Wit and raillery may be
employed in a sportive manner, but they are also both of them compatible
with the severest earnestness, as is proved by the example of the later
Roman satires and the ancient Iambic poetry of the Greeks, where these
means were employed for the expression of indignation and hatred.
The New Comedy, it is true, represents what is amusing in character, and
in the contrast of situations and combinations; and it is the more comic
the more it is distinguished by a want of aim: cross purposes, mistakes,
the vain efforts of ridiculous passion, and especially if all this ends at
last in nothing; but still, with all this mirth, the form of the
representation itself is serious, and regularly tied down to a certain
aim. In the Old Comedy the form was sportive, and a seeming aimlessness
reigned throughout; the whole poem was one big jest, which again contained
within itself a world of separate jests, of which each occupied its own
place, without appearing to trouble itself about the rest. In tragedy, if
I may be allowed to make my meaning plain by a comparison, the monarchical
constitution prevails, but a monarchy without despotism, such as it was in
the heroic times of the Greeks: everything yields a willing obedience to
the dignity of the heroic sceptre. Comedy, on the other hand, is the
democracy of poetry, and is more inclined even to the confusion of anarchy
than to any circumscription of the general liberty of its mental powers
and purposes, and even of its separate thoughts, sallies, and allusions.
Whatever is dignified, noble, and grand in human nature, admits only of a
serious and earnest representation; for whoever attempts to represent it,
feels himself, as it were, in the presence of a superior being, and is
consequently awed and restrained by it. The comic poet, therefore, must
divest his characters of all such qualities; he must place himself without
the sphere of them; nay, even deny altogether their existence, and form an
ideal of human nature the direct opposite of that of the tragedians,
namely, as the odious and base. But as the tragic ideal is not a
collective model of all possible virtues, so neither does this converse
ideality consist in an aggregation, nowhere to be found in real life, of
all moral enormities and marks of degeneracy, but rather in a dependence
on the animal part of human nature, in that want of freedom and
independence, that want of coherence, those inconsistencies of the inward
man, in which all folly and infatuation originate.
The earnest ideal consists of the unity and harmonious blending of the
sensual man with the mental, such as may be most clearly recognised in
Sculpture, where the perfection of form is merely a symbol of mental
perfection and the loftiest moral ideas, and where the body is wholly
pervaded by soul, and spiritualized even to a glorious transfiguration.
The merry or ludicrous ideal, on the other hand, consists in the perfect
harmony and unison of the higher part of our nature with the animal as the
ruling principle. Reason and understanding are represented as the
voluntary slaves of the senses. Hence we shall find that the very
principle of Comedy necessarily occasioned that which in Aristophanes has
given so much offence; namely, his frequent allusions to the base
necessities of the body, the wanton pictures of animal desire, which, in
spite of all the restraints imposed on it by morality and decency, is
always breaking loose before one can be aware of it. If we reflect a
moment, we shall find that even in the present day, on our own stage, the
infallible and inexhaustible source of the ludicrous is the same
ungovernable impulses of sensuality in collision with higher duties; or
cowardice, childish vanity, loquacity, gulosity, laziness, &c. Hence, in
the weakness of old age, amorousness is the more laughable, as it is plain
that it is not mere animal instinct, but that reason has only served to
extend the dominion of the senses beyond their proper limits. In
drunkenness, too, the real man places himself, in some degree, in the
condition of the comic ideal.
The fact that the Old Comedy introduced living characters on the stage, by
name and with all circumstantiality, must not mislead us to infer that
they actually did represent certain definite individuals. For such
historical characters in the Old Comedy have always an allegorical
signification, and represent a class; and as their features were
caricatures in the masks, so, in like manner, were their characters in the
representation. But still this constant allusion to a proximate reality,
which not only allowed the poet, in the character of the chorus, to
converse with the public in a general way, but also to point the finger at
certain individual spectators, was essential to this species of poetry. As
Tragedy delights in harmonious unity, Comedy flourishes in a chaotic
exuberance; it seeks out the most motley contrasts, and the unceasing play
of cross purposes. It works up, therefore, the most singular, unheard-of,
and even impossible incidents, with allusions to the well-known and
special circumstances of the immediate locality and time.
The comic poet, as well as the tragic, transports his characters into an
ideal element: not, however, into a world subjected to necessity, but one
where the caprice of inventive wit rules without check or restraint, and
where all the laws of reality are suspended. He is at liberty, therefore,
to invent an action as arbitrary and fantastic as possible; it may even be
unconnected and unreal, if only it be calculated to place a circle of
comic incidents and characters in the most glaring light. In this last
respect, the work should, nay, must, have a leading aim, or it will
otherwise be in want of _keeping_; and in this view also the comedies
of Aristophanes may be considered as perfectly systematical. But then, to
preserve the comic inspiration, this aim must be made a matter of
diversion, and be concealed beneath a medley of all sorts of out-of-the-
way matters. Comedy at its first commencement, namely, under the hands of
its Doric founder, Epicharmus, borrowed its materials chiefly from the
mythical world. Even in its maturity, to judge from the titles of many
lost plays of Aristophanes and his contemporaries, it does not seem to
have renounced this choice altogether, as at a later period, in the
interval between the old and new comedy, it returned, for particular
reasons, with a natural predilection to mythology. But as the contrast
between the matter and form is here in its proper place, and nothing can
be more thoroughly opposite to the ludicrous form of exhibition than the
most important and serious concerns of men, public life and the state
naturally became the peculiar subject-matter of the Old Comedy. It is,
therefore, altogether political; and private and family life, beyond which
the new never soars, was only introduced occasionally and indirectly, in
so far as it might have a reference to public life. The Chorus is
therefore essential to it, as being in some sort a representation of the
public: it must by no means be considered as a mere accidental property,
to be accounted for by the local origin of the Old Comedy; we may assign
its existence to a more substantial reason--its necessity for a complete
parody of the tragic form. It contributes also to the expression of that
festal gladness of which Comedy was the most unrestrained effusion, for in
all the national and religious festivals of the Greeks, choral songs,
accompanied by dancing, were performed. The comic chorus transforms itself
occasionally into such an expression of public joy, as, for instance, when
the women who celebrate the Thesmophoriae in the piece that bears that
name, in the midst of the most amusing drolleries, begin to chant their
melodious hymn, just as in a real festival, in honour of the presiding
gods. At these times we meet with such a display of sublime lyric poetry,
that the passages may be transplanted into tragedy without any change or
alteration whatever. There is, however, this deviation from the tragic
model, that there are frequently, in the same comedy, several choruses
which sometimes are present together, singing in response, or at other
times come on alternately and drop off, without the least general
reference to each other. The most remarkable peculiarity, however, of the
comic chorus is the _Parabasis_, an address to the spectators by the
chorus, in the name, and as the representative of the poet, but having no
connexion with the subject of the piece. Sometimes he enlarges on his own
merits, and ridicules the pretensions of his rivals; at other times,
availing himself of his right as an Athenian citizen, to speak on public
affairs in every assembly of the people, he brings forward serious or
ludicrous motions for the common good. The Parabasis must, strictly
speaking, be considered as incongruous with the essence of dramatic
representation; for in the drama the poet should always be behind his
dramatic personages, who again ought to speak and act as if they were
alone, and to take no perceptible notice of the spectators. Such
intermixtures, therefore, destroy all tragic impression, but to the comic
tone these intentional interruptions or intermezzos are welcome, even
though they be in themselves more serious than the subject of the
representation, because we are at such times unwilling to submit to the
constraint of a mental occupation which must perforce be kept up, for then
it would assume the appearance of a task or obligation. The Parabasis may
partly have owed its invention to the circumstance of the comic poets not
having such ample materials as the tragic, for filling up the intervals of
the action when the stage was empty, by sympathising and enthusiastic
odes. But it is, moreover, consistent with the essence of the Old Comedy,
where not merely the subject, but the whole manner of treating it was
sportive and jocular. The unlimited dominion of mirth and fun manifests
itself even in this, that the dramatic form itself is not seriously
adhered to, and that its laws are often suspended; just as in a droll
disguise the masquerader sometimes ventures to lay aside the mask. The
practice of throwing out allusions and hints to the pit is retained even
in the comedy of the present day, and is often found to be attended with
great success; although unconditionally reprobated by many critics. I
shall afterwards examine how far, and in what departments of comedy, these
allusions are admissible.
To sum up in a few words the aim and object of Tragedy and Comedy, we may
observe, that as Tragedy, by painful emotions, elevates us to the most
dignified views of humanity, being, in the words of Plato, "the imitation
of the most beautiful and most excellent life;" Comedy, on the other hand,
by its jocose and depreciatory view of all things, calls forth the most
petulant hilarity.