Facts as Fiction in the Early Career of Aristophanes

Abstract

Aristophanic parabases regularly pose an interpretive challenge due to the competing objectives of historical inquiry and literary sensitivity, with the former often taking precedence. This article seeks a more balanced analysis in appraising Aristophanes’ representation of his early career in the parabases of Knights, Clouds, and Wasps. Attention to Aristophanes’ representational strategies in these passages reveals his concentration on the same details of his career activity, above all his reliance on didaskaloi to produce his plays; differences of detail that have been taken to point to a more complex picture of his professional development are attributable to differences of rhetorical interest and emphasis in each of these passages, determined further by the metaphors chosen to enliven the discussions. Particular effort is made to explain the unifying rhetorical framework of the Wasps parabasis and show how elements of the poet’s biography are enmeshed in features of the dramatic plot. All of which argues for a need for consistent literary contextualization in analyzing details of Aristophanic comedies.