Appetizer Idea: Ancient Thought on Old Comedy

My idea for my appetizer presentation is to focus on how people in ancient Athens were thinking critically about Old Comedy. I intend to focus on some excerpts from Aristotle’s Poetics and what little he says about comedy and its purpose to try and narrow the scope of this topic, though I may also poke around in Plato’s Laws to see if there’s anything really essential there. I’m curious to see how Aristotle’s idea of comedy, though they may be more reflective of the changing Middle-New Comedy style, reflects on Bakhtin’s idea of the carnivalesque and, more obviously, who comedy is inherently about/for. Comparing 20^th century to 4^th century comedy theory could really help us to understand how the ancient participants in dramatic festivals understood what they were doing and to consider whether/to what degree Old Comedy and Bahktin’s concept of the carnivalesque overlap. Aristotle would be an especially prudent interlocutor in this sense because he is very explicitly looking for the point, which I think Bakhtin may be doing too, though in the Poetics he’s looking for the point of tragedy more than comedy. I plan to speak a little about Aristotle/Plato on comedy (though probably just one or the other) and pass out a handout with some key quotes and discussion prompts and ask people to get into groups to talk through the similarities/differences between Bakhtin and Aristotle/Plato and then bring everyone back for discussion, but I’m toying around with some more novel structures to keep things interesting.

Any feedback about this idea/the structure I’ve suggested would be appreciated! Thanks!