| dc.description.abstract | This thesis offers a new reading of Apollonius’ Argonautica which pays special attention
to the role of humour and the influence of comic literature. To demonstrate the
importance of these two elements, I make three main claims. 1) Apollonius engages in
different ways with a range of comic literature, from Aristophanes to Homeric parody and
the iambos. This engagement consists of borrowing literary techniques from comedy,
one-off allusions, and systematic intertextual relationships. 2) Apollonius receives and
reuses elements of Homeric humour but also uses a wide variety of humorous techniques
and effects, especially irony and what I call ‘paraparody’. 3) Apollonius’ integration of
comic genres into his epic should be seen as part of his poetic project: to compose a
‘universal’ epic which is the confluence of genres to Homer’s source.
The Introduction lays out these three claims in more detail and addresses several
theoretical and methodological issues: intertextuality, humour, genre, narratology. In
particular I argue that theories of intertextuality, as put forward by classicists, can be used
to identify and analyse jokes and humour in ancient texts. An essential part of this
argument is taking a broader view of the diversity of reader responses both in antiquity
and in the long course of the poem’s reception. I also highlight the importance of
engaging critically with ancient theorization of comedy and humour, and especially with
the self-definition offered by comic poets themselves. I close the Introduction with a
handful of examples of how this approach works and offer a short note on parody.
Chapter 1 (“Divine Comedy”) is a study of the Meeting of the Goddesses episode
(A.R. 3.6-166). While this chapter advances all three of my main claims, it is primarily
concerned with Apollonius’ reception of Homeric humour and the use of Homeric
intertextuality for humorous effect. Homer’s divine scenes are often seen as sources of
comic relief, though one should note that their light-heartedness heightens the tragedy of
the human action below and that Homer can be funny without making the gods bicker or
brawl. Divided into three sections for the three scenes in the episode, I argue that
Athena’s ignorance of sexual matters and discomfort with erotic intrigue is played for
laughs. This prepares us for a similar treatment of Aphrodite. The wellknown opposition
between the two goddesses, especially as found in Iliad 5 structures much of the
intertextual play in these scenes. The central intertext is the second song of Demodocus in
Odyssey 8 and themes of adultery and cuckoldry lead neatly into a humorous portrait of
the non-verbal child god Eros.
Chapter 2 (“The Bulls and the Bees”) reads the Lemnian women episode as an
(anti)-utopian (anti-)comedy. I argue that the influence of tragedy on the episode has been
overemphasised, especially given the dearth of evidence, and that comic treatments of the
Lemnian women myth are just as important. In particular, I single out the role of Polyxo
which I believe reveals the importance of a nurse-matchmaker figure in the pre-
Apollonian tradition of the Argonauts’ stay on Lemnos. I position Polyxo as the
interpretive key to the episode since it is her appearance which highlights the importance
of Assemblywomen, rather than Aristophanes’ lost Lemnian Women, as a model to be
subverted. The Assemblywomen presents the overturning of the gender status quo,
Apollonius’ episode its restoration but in pseudo-comic fashion. Through intertextual
engagement with Assemblywomen, the wider tradition of gynocracies and automatist
utopias in Old Comedy, Hesiod, and Herodas, Apollonius appears to advance a critique of
the philosophical and political ideas which proposed alternative modes of social and
economic organisation, be it the abolition of labour and/or slavery, the possession of
property in common, improvements in the status of women, and what must come with
these: the abolition of marriage and traditional family units. The intertextual density of
Polyxo, in particular, does permit more open-ended readings and I suggest what these
might be in the conclusion to the chapter.
Chapter 3 (“Heracles”) turns our focus to the male side of gendered humour. It
takes the Hylas episode as its centre, treating Heracles’ other key moments in the poem as
needed. My reading of Heracles’ role in the poem begins from a rejection of older
interpretive preoccupations: Jason, heroism, ‘archaic’ epic. I suggest instead that the
problem of Heracles in the poem reflects the difficulty of composing epic and that
Heracles’ own plural identity becomes a way of thinking about the generic polyphony of
epic. The interpretation of the Hylas episode adds further support to my three claims,
though the humour is perhaps at its darkest in parts of this episode. I discuss Apollonius’
use of Odyssean intertexts, knowledge of Matro of Pitane, connections to Aristophanes’
Frogs, and give an extended analysis of the phallic double entendres in the episode.
A short conclusion brings the findings of these case studies together and evaluates
them in terms of the thesis’ three main claims. I also make suggestions as to the direction
of future research on comedy and humour in the Argonautica. | en |
