For our Reading Diary this week, please read the following prompt, and post at least two comments in the discussion. To enable everyone to respond to one another’s comments, please post your first comment by Wednesday (2/12) at noon, and your second by Friday (2/14) at 5pm.
Before commenting, make sure you read all the previous comments – be a good citizen of the comments section! You can reply directly to this post if you’d like to take the conversation in a new direction, or to someone else’s comment below if you’d like to respond to them. Make sure your comment adds something to the discussion: you’re not evaluating each other’s contributions, you’re adding something that expands the discussion.
Remember that you’ll also start to see this week’s other students’ “Idea” and “Reflection” posts related to their Appetizer presentations. As you’re considering ways to contribute to the class, consider posting your comments on their posts as well! You can start with Hannah’s first idea post here.
Prompt: We’ll be spending the next two weeks with Aristophanes, the greatest comic dramatist of ancient Greece. Although many later readers have recognized manifestations of the grotesque and carnivalesque in Aristophanes’ plays, Bakhtin himself was famously quite dismissive of Aristophanes. For our reading diary this week, I’d like us to begin a catalogue of grotesque and carnivalesque features of this week’s play, Knights. What grotesque details do you notice? Do they create a carnivalesque atmosphere? Can we transplant Bakhtin’s Medieval and Renaissance categories to ancient Greece? Does the play achieve any of the utopianism, resistance to oppression, removal of fear, or other effects Bakhtin sees in Rabelais?
The first signs of the carnivalesque show up fairly early in the play. We start with two characters, the slaves, who speak in casual language and spend an entire page making a grostesque masturbation joke. Later, these characters briefly discuss whether they believe in deities before consulting an oracle and chasing down a sausage salesman. The religious beliefs and contact with a sausage seller are reminiscent of Bakhtin’s idea of religious feast days being important for carnival.
I think that Knights definitely creates a carnivalesque atmosphere! Especially the parts where the Sausage Seller and Paphlagon are arguing and insulting each other back and forth (for pages and pages) make me think of a skit that might be put on at a carnival, or the billingsgate of the market, where vendors would shout incredibly creative insults at one another. The two men here in knights call each other names, say all the horrible things they will do to the other, threaten violence, make sexual innuendos, and use very vivid, extreme, and fluent language to do so. These are the same features that Bakhtin points out as part of the carnivalesque/billingsgate, and it’s curious to me that he was dismissive of Aristophanes. The fact that these attacks can go on for so long is indicative of how entertaining audiences must have found it; there had to have been pauses for laughter!
From page 247-259 we see the “crowning” of the lowly sausage seller with a destiny from the oracle of poltical greatness from Caria to Carthage. I believe that the way that the sausage seller receives the news is rooted in grotesque degradation. According to the first slave, “The only thing that hurts you is that you’re only damn poor. No, political leadership’s no longer a job for a man of education and good character, but for the ignorant and disgusting.” The qualifying phrase “no longer” suggests that there is a break with the old way of politics that privilege higher class and educated men. Additionally, the sausage seller’s occupation is an urban one that serves only to bring goods to markets from the estates of the countryside. He harks his sausages loudly and gets his hands dirty in flesh. Like Professor Farmer explained in class, these folks did not have status in comparison to the landed gentry.
The mediators of the great prophecy from the oracles are slaves, not a priestly figure. They represent the bottom of ancient Greek society, but here are key advisors to an up and coming popular leader. Many Greek and Roman comedies grant slave characters important roles like these, or even craft their own destines like the clever slave Chrysalus from Plautus’ Bacchides.
Going off of your later point, one of the things that struck me about the second half of the play and added a great comedic effect was that these “low-class” citizens had the power of prophecy. While I’m currently reading Greek tragedies in my other classes, it is odd that Demos would rely on these seemingly unreliable sources for something as important as prophecies since the idea of an oracular prophecy can (literally) make or break the destiny of a character. Of course, Aristophanes would know this, and it was the prophecies that really sold the play for me as a comedy and as a carnivalesque piece of literature. The language is also so vivid and bodily in a way that other oracular prophecies I’ve heard are not, and in that way, I find it interesting that Demos would be convinced for any second that they would be real. Of course, the plot needs to move along, yet I really shows the corruption of Demos under the influence of Paphlagon.
I can’t quite remember who brought it up, but this also reminded me of someone’s comment today in class about how the sausage seller pretty much makes his prophecy a self-fulling one because of the fact that he was given the information before it came true. While a lot of Greek prophecies in literature feel like self-fulling ones, I think the comedic effect really emerges in the way that the sausage seller is so completely invested in his that he entirely devotes himself to making sure he becomes the right-hand man of Demos. He becomes a strange oracle in a different way that Paphlagon does, which I would argue is because he corrupted the city so much that he can pretty much determine its future. But the flipping of roles between someone who was once a “legitimate” (used very lightly) seer to a lowly sausage seller (a profession I’m sure is fabulous in its own right) is another level of absurdity.
Thank you for that background on the role of prophecies! I’m really intrigued in the bawdy language of the prophecy and their sheer prodigality at the end of the play when Paphlagon and the sausage seller compete to impress Demos. There is a carnivalesque effect at play here since it seems like Aristophanes is diluting the power and significance of prophecy as a religio-cultural phenonmenon. I think you could argue that Knights uses comic literature in this way to undermine official narratives of destiny in Greek society. The slaves and this lowly merchant espouse an alternative reality for Athens that is ultimately for the collective good as represented by Demos (page 315). In class Helena qualified this utopic vision by saying that the sausage seller and Demos present the play’s conclusion as the “reappearance of the Athens of old.” One order is replaced with another one.
Bakhtin writes how “the faraway echoes of the Roman Saturnalia can be heard in” the comic literature of the Middle Ages. Indeed Saturnalia has roots form the Greek festival honoring Kronus, Kronia (according to Wiki, I welcome a fact check). By tracing this literary arc I think that Bakhtin’s categories of the carnivalesque can be transfered to the classical. Saturnalia/Kronia differ, however, in their underlying utopia of returning to the good old days of abundance when their respective deities ruled the world. If this pagan message lives on in the medieval and Renaissance carnival it is necessarily subdued by monotheistic Christendom. From our readings it does not seem that Bakhtin’s carnival is centered upon a return to a nostalgic past.
One section that I recognized manifestations of both the carnivalesque and grotesque was from 261-267 when Paphlagon was getting attacked. In describing the Paphlagon’s corruption, the Chorus leader uses grotesque language. For example he says, “…since you gobble up public funds….and like a fig picker you squeeze…” While not directly talking about the body, his diction employs the grotesque by using these verbs typically associated with the body. The physical fighting and chaos that follows points to the carnivalesque. One could imagine the actors on stage fighting physically, while continuing to have dialogue, creating a combo that would be quite chaotic. Like Hannah said, it is interesting that Bakhtin dismissed Aristophanes considering all of the details we have pointed thus far.
While there are so many seemingly overtly grotesque and carnivalesque aspects and images presented throughout Knights, such as much of the language revolving around food and consumption, I do not think this means Bakhtin is obligated to study the play as a remnant of ancient grotesque/carnivalesque art. I keep returning to the final page of the play when we learn of Paphlagon’s final fate. He has been made to take up the lowly role of sausage seller, “hashing up dog and ass meat instead of politics” (405). To me, this is a blatant indicator of hierarchy, or at the very least, proves the existence of a type of hierarchy within Knights. Paphlagon’s new position is seemingly a permanent one or one that he will not rise from; his uncrowning will never be followed by a new crowning, he will only have the insults of Arignotus now. So while there are literal crownings and uncrownings throughout the play, these events have legitimate consequences, therefore alluding to the political weight of the crown itself. I think this is why Bakhtin refuses to acknowledge (at least in terms of this play) the grotesque and carnivalesque in Knights. There is no genuine dissolution of hierarchy, only a change in one.
Although I am not completely convinced that the first half of The Knights presents a utopia, I wanted to comment on point in the prompt that asks about the “resistance to oppression.” The entire first half seems to be a resistance to oppression, the oppression that Paphlagon implements to the other slaves by his kiss-assing of Demos: they are constantly beaten and false accused due to the statements Paphlagon makes to their master. Both slaves only seek out the sausage seller as the tipping force in their battle against unjust treatment. The environment that Paphlagon creates for the two slaves resembles oppression by both something foreign (as Paphlagon is not a traditional slave) and internal (as a fellow slave). Yet what is even more striking is that it is quickly revealed that Paphlagon’s oppression stems beyond the confines of fellow slaves to the city: by accepting bribes and polluting the political sphere, he creates a larger, more abstract oppression of the Athenian democracy via his corruption. Paphlagon then seems to oppress the entirety of the city by making a joke of its political life, AKA the center of Athenian life.
While Paphlagon is a single man, it only makes sense that the slaves will defeat him with the power of the multitude: backed by the knights as well as the sausage seller, the nature of the carnivalesque emerges in the celebration of the many against the oppression of one. As Bruegel painted in The Battle Between Carnival and Lent, here the absurdity of slaves, knights, and a sausage seller represent a carnival battling against the oppression of Paphlagon who seems to have a ridiculous amount of influence. From dialogue to perceived costuming to even just the mental image of what the band of characters would look like in the flesh, the common men of Athens vs a singular force is highly reminiscent of Bakhtin’s satires: instead of the seriousness of a saint versus the devil, it is the heroic sausage seller versus the evil tanner slave. From the details to the bigger picture, I would definitely argue that Aristophanes fits into the category from which Bakhtin wrote him off.
Though this may be kind of cheating since I know how the rest of the comedy plays out, I might want to resist characterizing the plot as resistance to oppression all the way down. Yes, the two slaves seek out another champion to replace Paphlagon, who is cruel, but this is only a replacement–Demos is rejuvenated for basically no *earned* reason, since the sausage seller is beating Paphlagon only as his own game and not refusing to play that might actually give us hope (within the ‘universe’ that Arisophanes has depicted). The sausage seller seems (to me at least!) Demos’ savior just because he *happened* to save him and not because he’s really a hero with virtues. That being said, the sausage seller never (that I recall) actually hurts/is said to hurt anyone, so he’s more likable by far–this still doesn’t mean that his success is necessarily a successful instance of resistance, since he’s just another tyrant unfairly positioned in terms of hierarchy. Moreover, he’s endorsed by knights, hardly a class of people that we would associate with true folk humor from a Renaissance perspective (though I’m not sure of how class manifested itself culturally in Athens). This is all informed by the fact that I’m still pretty suspicious of looking for the utopian in Aristophanes, mostly because it’s so easy to fall into that trap with certain plays as a modern reader (I’m thinking of the Women at the Thesmophoria specifically) that one assumes a level of sincerity that one cannot, I think, assume from the poet.
As we discussed in class, the obviously grotesque doesn’t always present a utopian vision, and I don’t think it slights Aristophanes to say that his use of grotesqueness fails to be utopian in the way Bakhtin describes because I don’t think he would have particularly cared (and this reassurance is aimed more at me than anyone else). If we’re looking for true utopian carnivalesqueness in Old Comedy, I think it’s more to be found in its performance than its narrative. Though we won’t ever know how exactly the audience reacted to these works, it seems more likely to me that they laughed at themselves along with everyone else when a character on stage pointed them out in mockery. This, along with the constant blurring of lines between audience/character, seems uniquely carnivalesque to me. I’m totally open to being wrong on this, though!
Update on this line of thought: I’ve changed my mind about resistance specifically– the sausage seller’s intentions are actually to improve Demos’ condition and resist Paphlagon’s behavior (and not just to beat Paphlagon to take this place). This is particularly clear on page 327. These lines make it seems like he really *is* a hero with virtues who seeks to actively undermine conditions of cruelty or abused hierarchy.
Helena, your point about the sausage seller as a hero of sorts (or the opposite in your argument) brought me back to the conversation we had in class yesterday. I’d actually say that the sausage seller is intended to be a savior in some sense; he represents the common people and the grotesque and carnivalesque concept of the peoples’ indestructible body. The sausage seller’s defeat of Pahlagon is representative of a victory for the common people; Demos’ seemingly random rejuvenation is a manifestation of the freedom and power that is metaphorically taken back by the sausage seller.
Agreed! Similarly I observed how the sausage seller could be viewed as the common person’s hero. Additionally, I viewed the scene of the Sausage seller telling Demos that Paphlagon had been relegated to his original job (selling sausages!) was a manifestation of this “hero” characteristic. Watching Paphlagon “fall” from a confident and overbearing character is in a way satisfying to the audience, and attempts to equalize the those who get too out of hand. In a way, I think that this speaks to the “utopia” that we thought about in class.
In addition to the scenes already mentioned involving the Sausage Seller and Paphlagon arguing, another scene in Knights that I think demonstrates the Grotesque and especially the Carnivalesque is when the Sausage Seller is talking about the Councillors leaving their positions because of the announcement of cheap fish on page 309-311. This is the scene that my group in class primarily focused on, and we discussed the Carnivalesque nature (the Carnivalesqueness?) of a group of serious and formal people (the Councillors) leaving their jobs, “jumping over the turnstiles every which way” (311), and undermining the seriousness of their roles with their hunger. I think that this is a great example of the eradicating of social hierarchy associated with the Carnivalesque, as the characters in serious roles are equals of the Sausage Seller and the people of the marketplace in their wants and motivations in this scene. In this scene, the Councillors are degraded, as their formal role is flipped on its head and satirized. This is especially consistent with Bakhtin’s ideas because of the political implications of the degradation, suggesting that Councillors are not so much above other citizens that they cannot be bought by cheap food.
I would like to add to this comment because this part of the Knights play really struck me with the Bakhtin’s political thoughts behind the grotesque and carnivalesque. As was described before, in the scene from 309-311 the Council is overjoyed by the cheap food that they have. So much so that they want to keep the war on and not even work on the peace treaty that they were going to discuss. They specifically say that “a peace treaty now? How convenient…when anchovies are a bargain here! We don’t need a peace treaty let the war drag on!” When a councilor says this, war and peace are being determined with a good deal. This shows how corrupt these officials are and how seriously they take their positions. This is spot on with Bakhtin’s ideas because of how the councilors are in their own pockets and not looking out for their people.
Throughout the first half of Aristophanes’ Knights, there is a continuous reference to “marketplace morals” and “marketplace speech.” It is most relevant, I think, when the first slave is describing why the sausage maker would make a great companion to Demos, stating, “You’ve got everything else a demagogue needs: a repulsive voice, low birth, marketplace morals—you’ve got all the ingredients for a political career” (259). While this might be a rather obvious conclusion to draw, this still reminds me of Bakhtin’s mention of “the marketplace” when he goes through the three different types/aspects of the carnivalesque (on page 5 of the introduction). This marketplace is a place of laughter and familiarity and billingsgate. It is a place where everyone is shouting above everyone else, to the point where all voices become one loud glimpse at down-to-earth humanity and cheer. In this moment, or in this description, the sausage maker does seem to embody the carnivalesque, at least in terms of how the first slave views him.
However, while much of Knights does appear on the surface quite obviously “grotesque” and/or “carnivalesque,” (there are sausages and sexual innuendo and sometimes the two of them combined) I can understand why Bakhtin does not view this world created by Aristophanes as a truly grotesque and carnivalesque utopia. There is an effective use of billingsgate between the sausage maker and Paphlagon, as well as many references to penetration and open bodies in general, but there is still a greater force that looms over all of this, and that is the presence of gods and divine prophecy (if we are meant to take the prophecy in the beginning seriously, something that I am still trying to figure out). One of the main points of the grotesque is to transform someone into flesh and bring them back down to earth from the Heavens, in doing this, you can achieve a carnivalesque utopia (once everyone is made flesh). Because the sausage maker comes to live by a divine prophecy—his very fate determined from him by the Heavens—how can he ever be degraded and brought down to earth? A part of him is fixed in and by the celestial sphere which is what Bakhtin wants to avoid.
I think Bakhtin is also opposed to the blatantly satirical nature of Knights in terms of its representation of Cleon. The grotesque is not meant to make fun of the individual but simply make fun. Aristophanes does not follow this, making fun of Cleon through the character of Paphlagon, rather than uniting all individuals under human, carnal, and earthly ideals. Furthermore, the very existence of Paphlagon, in terms of how he is treated and how he treats others, interferes with any type of Bakhtinian utopia.
I also made this connection when I read the passage about the “marketplace” -like qualities that the sausage seller reflects and how he possesses the qualities that any politician would need. I think that this passage does a good job of embodying the carnivalesque spirit that Bakhtin was referring to. Yesterday, my group also briefly touched on how the language that the sausage seller uses when yelling at Paphlagon utilize the grotesque to manipulate body parts into food-like items. On page 277, the threats that they throw at one another do not hesitate from sexual innuendos, and treating the body like a culinary item. Thinking about how casually these lines would have been said in a fight, and how they do not have any legitimate threat, I think that they allude to a carnivalesque spirit that borders on utopia. The dialogue that is present throughout what we’ve read clearly illustrates the characters’ lack of hesitation to throw grotesque insults. Keeping in mind Hannah’s presentation, we can imagine that the costumes, masks, and staging were just as exaggerated as the text of the play. Building on that, I think that its a great example of how this language shapes the view of the body. Plays that embrace this type of language actively create a utopia-like space for the grotesque, and provide an example of what this utopia would look like.
Knights has clearly embodied the grotesque and carnivalesque facade from the ancient worldview; however, rather than depicting a completely grotesque and carnivalesque world, Aristophanes seems to intentionally build up a carnivalesque stage in the real Greek world. Having come on the stage, the sausage seller dose does not show the grotesque side from the beginning, and his change is due to the “invitation” from the two slaves of Demos. As the audience, we witness how the sausage seller accepts the carnival invitation and gradually let go of his grotesque nature. I’m not even entirely sure whether this nature comes from the depth of the sausage seller’s soul, but I can be sure that the carnival has an infectious power; as depicted in Bruegel’s paintings, it is difficult for people in a carnival to escape the consequence of assimilation. The two slaves erase the hierarchy that exists in the real Greek society by equalizing the people’s leader and the sausage seller, and they further convince the sausage seller that he possesses the same qualities as the leader. In the process of the sausage seller’s transformation, the chorus plays a strong boosting role. If the two slaves are the initiators of the carnival, then the chorus is like the rest of the carnival participants. Their rebuke of Paphlagon further raises the sausages seller to a higher level and makes him feel more at ease as a leader. This reminds me again of the encounter of the two kings in Bruegel’s painting. In his painting, the two guys who play the role of king are surrounded by many people. If the crowd surrounding them and those men pushing the trolleys are missing, it should be difficult for them to play such a role in the carnival. The sausage seller seems to be in the same situation at this time because without the efforts of the two slaves and the chorus, he would not have any reason or valor to speak against Paphlagon.
As one of the major parts of the grotesque and carnivalesque is the bringing down of what is traditionally important, I have been considering the first paragraph of page 275, where Paphlagon is mocking what the idea the Sausage Seller could give good speeches. Specifically, he talks about the courts and some men who feel they are good orators. He says that for many men, they speak at a trial which is easy to win, practice constantly, stop drinking in preparation, and win they win, think they are good orators.
While this paragraph lacks the obvious grotesqueness of some of the play, with no mention of food or sexual innuendos, it does have the bringing down that often goes with the grotesque and carnivalesque. While I do not know much about the Athenian legal system, I assume it was a pretty serious affair. It seems lawsuits were common and could ruin people, since in the play it is mentioned that Paphlagon seeks out scared people to sue. Yet this scene depicts many of the people who speak in the court as overreacting to their own skills and importance, and orating not being hard or impressive in most situations. While not as obvious as the scene where the councilors leave there positions for cheap food, I think this scene still degrades and lowers the importance of a serious aspect of life, the court.
I think you’re absolutely right! Legal battles are extremely common in Athens but also happen in (at least in my experience) many Greek/Roman plays. I’m definitely not as well versed in Greek/Aristophanes’s plays, but since Roman plays were usually based on Greek ones, I assume it’s a similarly common happenstance. Often the legal battle is the culmination of the play which ruins the “bad” guy, whoever that might be. Some plays (I’m thinking of Poenulus especially but there are plenty of others) the “good” characters set traps/tricks to catch someone out and ruin them financially with taxation/legal fees.
I hadn’t thought about the fact that even with all of these references to the court, jurors, council, etc., Paphlagon actually is never taken to court, but is simply forced to stop being Demos’ steward and take the Sausage Seller’s job. They have everything against him that they need; he’s admitted to countless crimes of bribery, stealing, fraud, etc all throughout, and there are many many witnesses (the knights) who could speak against him in court.
I don’t think that I have a good answer as to why Aristophanes would decide not to ruin Pahplagon in the usual way. Maybe that isn’t as much his style as it is for Menander/Plautus/Terrence? But maybe the idea of a “prophecy fulfilled” is enough, and a legal take-down is unnecessary.
One of the aspects of the carnivalesque that we have discussed is the idea that everyone is involved in the action. Bakhtin writes: “In fact, carnival does not know footlights, in the sense that it does not acknowledge any distinction between actors and spectators…. Carnival is not a spectacle seen by the people; they live in it, and everyone participates because its very idea embraces all the people” (7). I find it interesting to think about how these plays were performed and how the audience would be involved. The play and the way that it is staged blurs the line between spectator and performer. Even the chorus occupy a liminal space- they are a part of the play but they are not up on the stage like the other actors. In class yesterday someone mentioned how the sausage seller might be throwing food into the audience, and I find it interesting to think about other ways that the audience would be involved in the performance. It’s important to think about these plays in the context of an open-air theater that seats thousands of people.
The scene on page 263 when the sausage seller and Paphlagon are yelling at each other with escalating insults while other characters egg them on to physically fight each other exemplifies how the audience would be involved in what was going on onstage. I imagine that the crowd would’ve gotten really into the action and excited at the prospect of violence. I think about baseball games, because they’re something I’m pretty familiar with. I feel like the atmosphere of a ballgame, where people are drinking (sometimes heavily) and having a good time might be kind of similar to the atmosphere that these plays were originally performed in. Baseball games also blur the lines between player and spectator. The jumbotron and sound clips playing over the speaker system invite fan participation. The seats also aren’t too far removed from the field, and sometimes fans will run onto the field or interfere with fly balls in the outfield.
I’ve never witnessed it as a fan or an employee but sometimes fights will break out between players on the field, and the crowd will go absolutely wild. I imagine that maybe a performance of the Knights would be similar, with the audience egging the sausage seller and Paphlagon on to fight along with the chorus. It must have been deafening.
Moving on from baseball (sorry about that), I believe that Aristophanes’ comedy does achieve the political aims that Bakhtin expresses as components of the grotesque. Paphlagon is a stand-in for Kleon, an allusion that the whole audience would understand. Aristophanes is in a way including the entire audience in an inside joke. They’re taking Kleon, a serious and important figure in Athens, and degrading him for the audience to laugh at. This connects to Bakhtin’s idea of laughter as a means to free people from fear.
Edit: the scene is on pg. 267, not 263.
I think that using baseball games as a contemporary example of what it would be like to be in an ancient greek theater is a great analogy. I would also add that this type of environment exists at any major sporting event, and if we are talking about fighting specifically, the NHL. Usually the combo of alcohol and a good fight can erupt an arena just as well, if not more than a game winning goal/run/basket etc. can. I know that the prompt was focusing on the carnivalesque within the written play, but this post specifically got me thinking about how the carnivalesque exists in the actual acting out of the play. There was a dissolution of hierarchies, where while everyone was watching the play they were equal (Professor Farmer talked about the city subsidizing food/wine/tickets etc. so that everyone could participate). There was complete chaos, and I would imagine there was also obscene language tossed around with everyone having a few drinks in them. The abundance of food and alcohol would resemble the “utopian abundance”. While the carnivalesque laughter is defined as laughing together without the footlights, I think that there are still a lot of aspects of the carnival resembled in just being at the theater watching a play.
This comment resonates with me because I’m taking a theater class. In the class, we discuss the idea of a “liminal” space and relationship between the audience and the performers. This space can be filled with anything, and specifically refers to an unstoppable connection/ energy between the audience and actors. The actors “feed” the audience and vice versa. This idea that onlookers can participate in the act of the grotesque is interesting to me since I’m visualizing Eve’s comment where the performers are throwing sausages at one another and the audience is cheering them on. The audience’s laughter and shouting, feeds into this “chaotic” state of being that may create a sense of carnivalesque and utopia that is similar to this idea of a “liminal” space that my theater class has discussed.
I’ve also recently been thinking about how the audience would impact the grotesque nature of the play. Since a large part of our discussion has been about if Knights should be considered grotesque or carnivalesque in the sense of Bakhtin, it seems important to consider both the intended audience and how they would interpret and interact with the play. As you explained, the crowd was probably very involved by yelling and laughing.
I was wondering how the crowd would effect other parts of the carnivalesque. Specifically, I imagine the actual performance would feel rather carnivalesque since there were thousands of people probably crammed together all drinking and eating. It feels like if a performance of the play was in a book, that part of the book could easily have carnivalesque features. Especially since the people’s body can obviously be found in the crowd. As Professor Farmer explained, many people there would be from lower socioeconomic classes, which could contribute to a dissolution of hierarchies.
While the audience is not explicitly apart of the play, Aristophanes wrote the play with them firmly in mind. Because of this, I feel the carnivalesque nature of the audience itself should have some impact on if we view Knights as carnivalesque in a way Bakhtin did not. This would be especially important when Aristophanes plays off the energy of the audience to help the play be more exciting, which as you described definitely happens.
I agree with your opinion on the audience in Greek theatres and I think the involvement of the audience is important to the grotesque and carnivalesque characteristics of ancient Greek dramas regarding the indestructible body that we discussed in class. The ending of Knights, where Paphlagon loses the contest and the sausage seller wins the approval of Demos, makes me think of the role of the audience in this context again. Paphlagon’s ending is a consequence of Aristophanes’s ridicule for Cleon and his political behaviors; simultaneously, the plot which the representative of Athenian citizenry pronounces Paphlagon’s end is destined because what Paphlagon faces is an indestructible body composed of all audiences. If the sausage-throwing we imagined in class was really applied to the stage, then this performance method should not be just a way to make the audience feel immersive, but more like a draw or bribe that brings the audience to the same position as Demos. If Demos is the only judge, then his power should be limited, but when everyone has joined his side, Demos’ judgment becomes powerful and logical. Moreover, since this whole event is provoked by the two slaves of Demos, I think that when these two slaves have invited the sausage seller to be a participant, he has already entered Demos’ camp. So when we consider the indestructible body and look back to the beginning of the contest, we will find that Paphlagon’s failure may have been doomed.
The interactions between the Sausage Seller and Paphlagon throughout the play––while I did not realize this during our discussion in class––are prime examples of the idea of billingsgate that we discussed in the first few days of class. The exchange of threats on pages 277 and 279 are prime examples of the grotesque imagery and language used as a means of expressing frustration and anger. The line “I’ll stuff your arsehole like a sausage skin” was one I found to be particularly grotesque in both the modern and historical sense of the word. It also plays to the comedic effect of the play––obviously a very important aspect of a comedy. At times, I felt like I was analyzing and breaking apart so many aspects of the text, that I forgot it was supposed to be funny. Now, looking back at many of the different interactions and conversations having talked about staging and costuming I can honestly see the humor in this play.
I think that the quote you chose (and the argument scenes between Paphlagon and the Sausage Seller in general) is a really good example of where Bakhtin’s ideas come into play in Knights because these scenes have elements of both the Grotesque and the Carnivalesque in conjunction with one another. A lot of times when we are identifying the Grotesque and the Carnivalesque in art and literature, I tend to think of them as two separate concepts, but these scenes demonstrate to me that the Grotesque and the Carnivalesque are very mutually dependent. In the quote you analyzed in particular, the Carnivalesque use of billingsgate that Paphlagon and the Sausage Seller use to insult each other is extremely dependent on Grotesque imagery. And paradoxically, the Grotesque imagery used in this play could not exist without the pre-existence of a Carnivalesque atmosphere in which it is accepted and celebrated.
I also really like your point about how our analysis of the play as an example of the Grotesque and the Carnivalesque can intersect with our understanding of it as a comedy or humorous piece. I have experienced the same thing while reading this play, where I wasn’t quite able to see the comedy for what it was until after reading it for the first time, or until discussing it in class. I wonder in what ways our insight into the usage of the Grotesque and the Carnivalesque in the play and in other literature impacts our ability to feel its effects. Do the aspects of the Grotesque and the Carnivalesque in the play have a greater effect on us when we are not as aware of them in an intellectual context?
Your comment on the presence of billigsgate reminds me of another hesitation I have about calling Knights a full manifestation of the carnivalesque/grotesque, namely that the billingsgate is funny but unaffectionate within the fictive context, which does not mesh with Bahktin’s conception as I understand it. The sausage seller and Paphlagon never make up and their relationship remains antagonistic until the end of the play. That being said, I think their billigsgate could be read as affectionate if we take a step out of the fiction proper and into the performance space. These are actors pretending to insult one another to the delight of thousands. In that sense, the insults aren’t sincere, just like Bahktin’s billingsgate insults aren’t sincere (as I understand them). In the same way, my other hangups about calling Knights a full manifestation of the carnivalesque/grotesque can be addressed by looking instead to the phenomenon of performance and farce– for example, abundance, while present within the fiction, exists outside of it too, and perhaps in a more folk-y way.