Gender relations in Aristophanes: a study of the feminine in Classical Athens

• Grant number: 16/21000-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: January 01, 2017
• End date: April 30, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Margarida Maria de Carvalho
• Grantee: Bárbara Alexandre Aniceto
• Supervisor: Naomi Alison Weiss
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (FCHS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Franca. Franca , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Harvard University, Cambridge, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 15/08263-6 - The gender relations according the analysis of comic representations in Aristophanes: a study of the feminine in Athenian society (V-IV b.C. century), BP.MS

Abstract

Many authors have defended that the feminine presence in Aristophanes' plots expressed only a comicality tone in his works, aiming at mocking the Greek woman image. The feminine acting in his comedies has been conceived as circumscribed to the home space, to the domestic functions and it is presented by the historiography through the negative emblem of the feminine role in Antiquity. As we dive into the reading of Lysistrata (411 BC), Thesmophoriazusae (411 BC) and Assemblywomen (392 BC), produced during the Peloponnesian War and later defeat of Athens, we defend the hypothesis that it is possible to conceive the inclusion of women in Athenian public spaces, once we can notice the emphasis on the feminine civic importance as a vehicle of criticism in Aristophanes' pieces. Therefore, based on textual source analysis and gender history, this master's project seeks the understanding of women's role in the Athenian society of the fifth century BC from questioning the relation between the feminine and the masculine, emphasizing the possibility of an active feminine role.