In the first of a series of discussions on the historical uses and abuses of myth, By Jovian classicist Alexander Woodward takes a look at the tragedies and comedies of ancient Greece.
Welcome to By Jove Theatre – we turn myths into plays relevant for our contemporaries. I’m Woody. Hello. I am one of By Jove’s resident Classicists, a role which chiefly involves providing cultural and historical background to the ancient myths and feeling overwhelmed at the complexity of the dramatic theory involved in what we do. I thought I’d write a little thing for you about how the writers of ancient Greece and Rome used myth in their work and how this informs and justifies By Jove’s habit of tearing apart stories from the canon to create raw materials for our projects. We in the company do not confine the word ‘myth’ to being solely those 2000 year old stories we’ve inherited from the robey, beardy peoples of two Mediterranean peninsulas (you can see, for example, a post in this very blog claiming Pride and Prejudice as a myth). In this blog post, however, I will be concerning myself only with those ancient stories because, you know – Classicist. I don’t have the space to discuss every genre or period, but I’m aiming to touch on the big hitters.
I’ll deal first with tragedy; jolly us all along a bit. Oh, where to start? The Athenians of the time viewed Aeschylus (the earliest of the surviving tragedians) as the greatest exponent of the art; let’s start with him. Aeschylus, genius that he was, managed to convert the entire Odyssey into three plays each of an hour and a bit in duration. He then did the same thing with the Iliad and just to show who really wears the clever-chiton round there he set all three parts of this trilogy in the same place. None of these plays survive except as odd lines, which is a shame. The point is though that Aeschylus felt no anxiety about taking these great stories from his cultural inheritance and reworking them into his own, new pieces of art.
The same can be held true for the other tragedians. We have from all three of them extant plays telling us of the death of Clytemnestra. They’re all the same basic story, but each has their own take on it. If you like complex verse with bombastic compound adjectives you read Aeschylus’ version, if you want intense pathos Sophocles’ and if you want more human characterisation and an unexpected twist you read Euripides’ version. The audiences knew the stories; they went to see quite how they would be told.
A contrast can be made between this and the work of the great comedian of classical Athens, Aristophanes. Comedy and tragedy came from very different archaic traditions but thought of as separate. The relevant point here is that in tragedy innovation of plot was not what one did, but strange and excitingly imaginative new plots is one of the things most associated with Aristophanes. Although he wasn’t retelling old myths he did make use of that common culture freely and to great effect. In the Frogs the god Dionysus is the protagonist. Dionysus is associated with the East and thus to Athenian eyes effeminate and a little silly. He has to go to the underworld, which is a scary place, and so to try to “front it out” he dresses as Herakles, a demi-god so brave and manly that no one would mess with him. In a series of gags with different people in the underworld who know Herakles from his own mythic adventures the contrast between these two characters and their reputations is played upon for great comic effect. The audience would not have been able to get these jokes without understanding of the common mythic culture; and it is because this culture was common that Aristophanes felt confident in being able to mess around with it for his and his audience’s amusement. I suppose a modern parallel of the technique might be knowledge of cinematic horror tropes to get the jokes in the Scary Movie franchise. (There is no parallel of quality, that being said – Aristophanes is better.)
It would be disingenuous of me to let you think that every time an ancient writer appropriated a myth it was a success; that clearly can’t be the case. I would give you an example of a failed attempt, but unfortunately those don’t survive. These texts are transmitted to us via the manuscript tradition, that is, each subsequent generation had copy out a new copy when the old one wore out. For a work to survive it has to be consistently popular with each generation until Europeans started writing on parchment which survives better than papyrus in the European climate. Or similarly popular with each generation until it was properly preserved by the great Islamic scholars of Baghdad and Al-Andaluz.
“But Woody!” I hear you cry, and you shouldn’t cry it’s just a theatre blog – everything will be alright. “But Woody! This is all very interesting, but what direct relevance does it have to By Jove?” Well, it’s quite simple really. This has been a refutation of something I’ve heard one or two people say, that we’re “ruining the cultural hereditary of the Western canon!” No, we’re not. We’re creating new works of art in accordance with a three-thousand year old tradition of Western literature and story-telling. And we’re doing it very well indeed, thank you. So keep an eye out so you can come see us be excellent and creative and ingenious.
One hopes you’re well,
Yours,
ADWoodward
