The rhetoric comedy of Aristophanes: translation and study of the Clouds prologue

• Grant number: 12/04564-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2012
• End date: June 30, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Literatures
• Principal Investigator: Adriane da Silva Duarte
• Grantee: Felipe Campos de Azevedo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Project aims at translating the prologue of the comedy Clouds, by Aristophanes, delimited by verses 1 - 274, according to the edition set forth by N. G. Wilson, published by Oxford Classical Texts. In addition to the translation, a study focused on the prologue, underlining the characterization of the comic hero, Strepsiades, and the other characters presented in this segment, Phidipides, and Socrates, will be sought. Attention shall be also and mainly turned to the new theme which emerges in this Aristophanic comedy, which differs from his other comedies before Clouds (423 BC) like Acharnians (425) and Knights (424): the rhetoric comedy having as its main motto the ingenious discourse (lógos) which was in vogue in Athens at that time, among the sophists, the philosophers, the astronomers, and the court orators. This theme replaces the motto of war and institutional politics which pervaded his first works. Thus, Clouds delineates a fundamental thematic turn in the Aristophanic work, which would still be present in his next comedy, Wasps, about which some comparisons and observations shall be brought up. The rhetoric theme will be studied not only as a background to the work but also as the driving force of comedy, where all the relations are woven based on this power granted to the word in 5th century BC Athens.(AU)