IL PROBLEMA RELIGIOSO NELLA CRITICA DI ARISTOFANE A EURIPIDE. LA DEFINIZIONE DELLE FIGURE DIVINE DI DEMETRA E DI DIONISO

Abstract

The aim of the present dissertation is to discuss the religious aspect of Aristophanes' criticism of Euripidean tragedy as found in Thesmophoriazusae and Frogs and to provide a comparative study of Aristophanes' and Euripides' religiosity. Aristophanes, it is argued, has a specific target, in that the tragedies he parodies (or simply hints at) seem to be all especially representative of Euripides' thoughts about religion. Plays such as Hippolytus, Cretans, Helen, Antiope, Hypsipyle, Bacchants (but also other fragmentary plays), share a peculiar interest in foreign cults: the 'Oriental' (and Cretan) cults of the Mother of Gods and Dionysus (conceived as a foreign god), not to mention a number of Orphic influences. Apparently, Euripides is keen on replacing important civic Athenian cults, such as the Mysteries of Eleusis, with these more exotic forms of religiosity. Contrary to scholarly consensus, then, Aristophanes' Euripides is not an atheist imbued with sophistic theories. Rather, he emerges as the champion of an alternative form of religiosity. Against the backdrop of Euripides' strange cults, Aristophanes emphasizes his own religiosity, deeply rooted in the traditions of the Athenian πόλις. On the one hand, Thesmophoriazusae exposes the corrosive effects of Euripides' tragedies on Athenian cults (the Thesmophoria in this case); on the other hand, Frogs provides Aristophanes' own view: the couple Demeter-Iacchus is in fact the Athenian version of Euripides' 'barbaric' couple Mother of gods-Dionysus. Aristophanes' reconfiguration of Euripides' cults is especially relevant for the god of theatre: not only do the civic cults of Demeter (Thesmophoria and Eleusinian Mysteries) play a crucial role for Athenian religious life; more specifically, they are also integral to Aristophanes' definition of Dionysus as a quintessentially Athenian deity. As it should be expected, all of this is especially prominent in Aristophanes' metatheatrical scenes. Owing to their religious (but also literary, social and political) views, Euripides' plays are exposed as dangerous for the πόλις, especially in such a dramatic year as 405 BCE, when the Frogs was staged. By contrast, Aristophanes' comedy is credited with salvific qualities: Aeschylus' victory in the poetic agon of the Frogs is not only the victory of old over modern theatre, but also of civic Athenian religion over Euripides' exotic and unorthodox beliefs.