The significance of Stage Directions in Aristophanes' Peace
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26750/paperKeywords:
Stage directions, Aristophanes’ Peace, giant beetleAbstract
Abstract
This study is principally concerned with the staging of Aristophanes’ Peace. John Dee (1527-1609) was the first person to design a clever stage-effect for Greek drama, Aristophanes’ Peace, and made a giant beetle that could move from the air down to the stage. The nature and status of stage directions in this play will also be investigated, paying particular attention to the status of stage directions in printed text, and whether these stage directions were originally written by the playwright himself or were revised or supplied by editors, scriveners or members of the theatre companies. The paper will also evaluate how the technology of the Elizabethan playhouse facilitated the appearance of dung-beetle on stage.
There was a great demand in the Elizabethan era for plays about spectacular tricks. People at that time were delighted in the dexterity of the supernatural mysteriousness of the magician and witches, and moreover there was a popular appetite for spectacles within such a play. One of the most widespread themes in legend and Elizabethan stage is the flying of supernatural entities. Dragons and dung-beetles are physically manifested differently on Elizabethan stage compared to Medieval and Jacobean stages. Flying of dragons and beetles had a remarkable fiery effect in theatre to create a new genre of spectacle in presenting princely power and martial values to the audience. The special effect of John Dee’s flying scarab for a Cambridge performance of Aristophanes’ Peace also prompted ‘great wondering and many vain reports spread abroad of the means how that was effected’ (Jefferies, 2011). In Aristophanes’ Peace, Trygaeus rides on the back of a giant dung beetle to the heaven in order to arrange peace for the Greeks. The flight scene offers an element of slapstick comedy to the play and makes a comical history out of the flight of the giant beetle. John Dee’s stage directions in Aristophanes’ Peace are very elaborate and clear which help the reader imagine how the play was staged (Hall & Wrigley, 2007). The findings of this study would be beneficial for the researchers, the students of English department and theatre companies.
References
Ancient Literature. 2019. Peace – Aristophanes – Ancient Greece – Classical Literature. [Online] Available at: https://www.ancient-literature.com/greece_aristophanes_peace.html (Accessed 11 July 2018)
Araújo, V. & Pereita, A., 2016. Stage Directions Beyond Theater: Eugène Ionesco’s exercise in theatricality. Rev. Bras. Estud. Presença, Porto Alegre, 6(2), pp. 331-351
Aristophanes 1912. Peace. Adelaide: The University of Adelaide.
Bakola, E., Prauscello, L. & Tel, M., 2013. Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bowie, A., 1993, Aristophanes. Myth Ritual and Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Classical Arts Universe 2019. Aristophanes – Peace – Summary and Analysis – Greek Comedy. [Online] Available at: https://classicalartsuniverse.com/aristophanes-peace-summary-analysis-greek-comedy/ (Accessed 18 November 2018)
Compton-EngleG., 1999, Aristophanes Peace 1265-1304, Food, Poetry, and the Comic Genre. CPh:, 94, pp. 324-329.
English, M., 2000. The Diminishing Role of Stage Properties in Aristophanic Comedy. Helio, 27(2), pp.1.
Hall, E. & Wrigley, A., 2007. An offprint from Aristophanes in Performance 421 BC–AD 2007. Oxford: Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Publishing Legenda.
Halliwell, S., 2015. Aristophanes: Frogs and Other Plays: A new verse translation, with introduction and notes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hubbard, T.K. (1991). The Mask of Comedy: Aristophanes and the Intertextual Parabasis. Ithaca.
Jefferies, F., (2011). The Gentleman’s Magazine. London: Northwestern University.
Lada-Richards, I. (1999). Initiating Dionysus: Ritual and Theatre in Aristophanes’ Frogs. Oxford
Loos, P., 2009. Greek Drama. New York: Infobase Publishing.
Mann, K., 2017. The rejected eagle in Aristophanes' Peace. Mnemosyne, 70, pp. 299-307.
Nelson, E. 1999. Stage directions uncovered : the author's voice in modern English drama. Honors Theses Paper, 319
Poe, J.P., 2000. Multiplicity, discontinuity, and visual meaning in Aristophanic comedy.’ RhM 143, 256-95.
Revermann, M., 2014. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rosen, R., 1984., The Ionian at Aristophanes Peace. GRBS 46(25), pp.389-396.
Russo, C., 2002. Aristophanes: An Author for the Stage. New York: Routledge.
White, J., 1891. The 'Stage' in Aristophanes. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 2(1), pp. 159-205.
