The Johns Hopkins University Press The Classical Weekly
The Johns Hopkins University Press The Classical Weekly
The Johns Hopkins University Press The Classical Weekly
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THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY 221
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE. CHARLES D. ADAMS. clusions. Now, if the phallic ceremonies continued
until Aristotle's day and if their connection with
The Origin of Attic Comedy. By F. M. Cornford. comedy had always been recognized, the hypothesis
London: Edward Arnold; New York: Longmans, that comedy always harked back to this primitive
Green, and Co. (I914). Pp. xii + 252. $2.40 net. ritual is not so fantastic as it would otherwise be.
The present reviewer is free to confess that he took In my opinion, our author is correct also in tracing the
up this book with a distinct prejudice. Mr. Cornford agon and the parabasis of Old Comedy, as well as its
belongs to a group of English classicists the brillance physical violence and horseplay, back to the magical
of whose scholarship is second only to their intrepidity. aversion of evil in the phallic rites. I regret to state
Much as Mr. Gilbert Murray, Miss Jane Harrison, that, with minor exceptions, this marks the limit of
Professor William Ridgeway, and the rest may differ in the concessions I can make to Mr. Cornford's views.
other respects, they agree in seeking light upon clas- Writers on the origin of Attic comedy are fairly
sical problems from anthropological lore and in stick- well agreed upon one point, that only some features
ing at no exegesis which will contribute to this happy of it are indigenous and that it has been greatly modified
consummation. Then, when I read in the first para- by importations from Sicily and the Peloponnesus.
graph of Mr. Cornford's Preface that "the constant But, when they undertake to separate the foreign and
features of the Aristophanic play were inherited from the native elements, concord flies out of the window.
a ritual drama" and recalled how disingenuously the Yet even this single point of unanimity is unacceptable
same author, in his Thucydides Mythistoricus, had to Mr. Cornford, who maintains that every part of Old
resolved the three appearances of Cleon on that Comedy is Attic and would reduce the Dorian influence
historian's pages into "the complete outline of a drama", to a minimum. He acknowledges adherence to Profes-
my misgivings did not lessen. If I add that with fur- sor Murray's theory concerning the origin of tragedy
ther reading my prejudice against Mr. Cornford's and constructs a very similar hypothesis, mutatis
volume has vanished, I must not be understood as mutandis, for comedy. Comedy, then, was derived
accepting to any great extent his conclusions. But from sympathetic magic, from "the fertility drama of
with the exception of his statement that "it is tempt- the marriage of the Old Year transformed into the
ing to see in the two half-choruses of twelve in Attic New". Every year a stereotyped series of incidents
Comedy, the twelve months of the Old and the New was repeated. The ritual began with an agon be-
Years" (p. I29, n. 2), Mr. Cornford rides his anthro- tween the good principle and the bad principle (the
pological hobbyhorse with comparative discretion. New Year versus the Old, Summer versus Winter,
In fact this is the only utterly preposterous sugges- Life versus Death, etc.), was continued either by the
tion that I have noted. Of still greater consequence defeat and death of the latter, followed by a sacri-
than the sober application of his viewpoint, however, is fice and feast of thanksgiving; or by the death of the
the fact that there is a certain factor which differen- former, who was slain, dismembered, cooked,and eat-
tiates the origin of comedy from most other studies in en in the communal feast, only to be triumphantly
origins. resurrected. In either case-, the festivities are inter-
This factor is brought out in Aristotle's statement rupted by a succession of "unwelcome intruders" con-
that "comedy originated with the leaders of the phal- sistiAg of stock characters like the buffoon, the doctor
lic ceremonies, which still survive as institutions in or cook, the soldier, the old man, the old woman, etc.
many of our cities". Mr. Cornford finds the best illus- These are just the characters that are required for
tration of these ceremonies in Aristophanes, Acharn. the fixed plot of the fertility drama. Finally, in
24I ff., and concludes from this and other evidence the exodus occurs a "sacred marriage" (together with
that the phallic rites had a double object-that they a comus song and procession), derived from a sexual
were both a "positive agent of fertilization" and- a union which originally was consummated, or feigned,
"negative charm against evil spirits". The former in order that all the natural powers of fertility might
result was obtained by the invocation of friendly pow- be stimulated to perform their function. The reg-
ers: as to the latter, ular series of incidents, as outlined, forms the frame-
work of Aristophanes's eleven plays, however diverse
the simplest of all methods of expelling such malign
inifluences of any kind is to abuse them with the most their themes. At first blush this statement must
violent language. No distinction is drawn between appear absolutely incredible to every reader, but Mr.
this and the custom of abusing, and even beating, Cornford displays the most amazing ingenuity in main-
the persons or things which are to be rid of them . . .
taining it.
There can be no doubt that the element of invective
and personal satire which distinguishes the Old Comedy Tragedy and comedy, he continues, have both come
is directly descended from the magical abuse of the from a ritual drama which was "the same in type and
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222 THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY
content, though not necessarily performed at the same ford's argument. Our author is troubled because,
time of the year". They differ in that, whereas com- though the contents of epirrheme and antepirrheme in
edy retains the whole series of canonical incidents, the the parabasis are "iambic" (i. e. lampooning), the
Aeschylean trilogy stops with the happy ending of meter is not iambic. But iambic meter was invented
the hero's resurrection, the series being concluded by by Archilochus, while the magical abuse of the phal-
the satyric drama. These conventional features are lic ceremonies must have started centuries before.
what Aristotle had in mind when he declared that Pages 5I and I83. The first actor in comedy, Mr.
comedy 'already had certain definite forms when the Cornford argues, was a projection of the vaguely
record of its poets begins'. personified genius of the Phallic rites, Phales. But
All criticism implies the existence of some standard in my opinion this would place the introduction of
of comparison, in this case the possibility of pointing actors at far too early a date. See the preceding
out, or of establishing for one's self, a more satisfac- note.
tory hypothesis. The latter alternative I intend to Pages 62 ff. Mr. Cornford makes the North G.reece
avail myself of in a forthcoming book on the Greek carnivals progenitors of comedy, as Ridgeway and
Theater and its Drama; accordingly, there is the less others have made them the prototype of tragedy. But,
need of indulging in constructive criticism here. since Mr. Cornford postulates practically the same
Nevertheless, I entertain no false hopes of setting up source for both tragedy and comedy (compare pages
unassailable results. The evidence at hand is too 68, 190, I95, 246, etc.), the disagreement is only ap-
scanty for that. Mr. Cornford truly remarks (p. parent. If the premises be granted, the original iden-
220): tity of tragedy and comedy logically follows. So
Many literary critics seem to think that an hypoth- irrational a result ought to open our eyes to the fact
esis about obscure and remote questions of history that arguments drawn from sympathetic magic can-
can be refuted by a simple demand for the production not be unreservedly traced to their utmost implica-
of moreevidence than in fact exists. The demand is as
tions. The ancient equation Tpa-ySta8 =,rpvUy3ta was
easy to make as it is impossible to satisfy. But the
true test of an hypothesis, if it cannot be shown to con- due to a\ false etymology, and its modern analogue
flict withknown truths, is the number of facts that it cor- is equally impossible. The present-day carnivals
relates and explains. The question left for the reader's are too full of later accretions to be safely employed
consideration is whether, after following our argu- as evidence for the sixth century B. C. and earlier;
ment, he understands better the form and features of
this strange phenomenon, Aristophanic Comedy. against the possibility of tragedy springing from
them still stronger objections lie (see Classical Phil-
The fact is that, if the true development of Greek ology 8. 282 if). Furthermore, the contention (246)
drama were divinely revealed to some one, he would that tragedy and satyric drama divided between
be unable to formulate a cogent proof for it. Not- them the ritual outlines which comedy preserve(, in
withstanding, in spite of these considerations and their entirety must give us pause. What has become
without deprecating the value of anthropological par- of the "choral agon" (the parabasis) in the division?
allels, it is still possible to comment in all fairness And what convincing traces of a "sacred marriage"
upon certain features of Mr. Cornford's conclusions. do Euripides's Cyclops and Sophocles's Ichneutae
Pages 3-7 deal with some current theories of the afford? I have too great respect for Mr. Cornford's
origin of comedy. It is unfortunate that Mr. Corn- ingenuity to assert that none can be found, but
ford is apparently unacquainted with the two latest at least they are not at once discernible to the anthro-
attempts, except his own, to treat the subject. I re- pologically unsophisticated.
fer to Professor Capps's paper in Lectures on Greek Pages 67 f. Mr. Cornford accepts Farnell's deri-
Literature (I912), I24 ff., and Professor Navarre's vation of tragedy from the worship of Dionysus of
paper in Revue des ttudes anciennes, I9lI, 245 f. the Black Goatskin and from the duel between Xan-
These authorities closely agree in their results and thus and Melanthus. Compare my criticism of this
differentiate Attic and Dorian influences most sen- theory in Classical Philology 8. 270.
sibly. Page 89. "The legends ultimately based on this
Page 32. For the interpretation of Aristophanes's ritual, the stories of Pelops, Pelias, Aeson, and the rest,
Ranae 790 compare Transactions of the American have come down to us in forms which date from a
Philological Association 40. 93 ff. time when their original meaning had been forgotten".
P. 36. For Aristotle's Poetics I449a 37 ff. Mr. Corn- I suppose this holds true also of the myths of Oedi-
ford should consult Professor Capps, in the Univer- pus, Perseus and Andromeda, Heracles and Hesione,
sity of Chicago Decennial Publications, Volume 6, and Pentheus, which are the outgrowth of the same
especially pages 266 if. Professor Capps made it seem fertility ritual (58 and 66). Now, so far as fifth cen-
tury dramatists treated these themes, they helped to
very clear that 7rp6cwra, prologues, and a plurality of ac-
tors were introduced after 487 B. C., not before. More- fix the forms in which these stories "have come down
over, he has informed me by letter that he believes to us". Consequently, according to Mr. Cornford's
zrp6crwra in this passage to mean not 'masks' but 'charac-
own admission, the "original meaning" of these had
ters'. All this has a direct bearing upon Mr. Corn- already been lost sight of at that period. Similarly,
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THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY 223
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