Humour, Obscenity, and Aristophanes (review)

This slight but occasionally interesting monograph represents a revised version of a King's College London doctoral thesis produced under the supervision of Michael Silk, whose theories on Aristophanic poetry (and particularly the problematic "discontinuity" of Aristophanic characterization) loom large throughout. The first half of the book considers how Aristophanic jokes function psychologically and textually, reacting against the Freudianizing approach of Jeffrey Henderson in his now-classic The Maculate Muse and building instead on contemporary theoretical work on humor generally. Robson begins with the mention of Sophocles and Simonides at Pax 696–699, a passage all modern commentators recognize is intended to be funny, but which no one has been able to explain convincingly. Taking this paradox as his starting point, Robson argues that what we almost unconsciously and pre-intellectually recognize as humor depends on "frame-abuse" (i.e., the violation of standard expectations for social or rhetorical situations) and a set of rules defined by H. P. Grice that serve to identify "unitary discourse" (i.e., discourse that can be appropriately understood as straightforward—as humor is not). He then applies these insights to a series of modern jokes and Aristophanic passages, analyzing how the humor functions on a mechanical level even when we, 2,400 years later, are unable to "get" the joke itself.

The second half of the book attempts to apply these insights on a line-by-line basis to Pax 819–921 (Trygaeus' return to earth from Olympus and his interaction with his slave and the chorus there). Robson generally begins with lexical analysis, which leads to questions of frame and linguistic register, and thus of frame-abuse. The stylistic analysis of Aristophanes' language in the passage is often interesting and insightful, but the overall result is disappointing. In particular, Robson argues repeatedly for sound effects that are difficult to detect and thus to take seriously, and for an alleged level of metrical playfulness that seems likely to have gone well over the head of any historical audience member. No larger conclusions are developed.

The writing throughout is labored, and the self-conscious style more appropriate to a thesis than to a monograph intended for a general academic readership. Perhaps more important, Humour, Obscenity, and Aristophanes is marked by a relentless sniping hostility toward the work of others in the field that disfigures its largely cheerful exterior. This seems a particularly unfortunate choice for a book so much concerned with rhetoric and with how the mechanics of an argument shape—and in some ways even come to stand in for—the argument itself.

Although this is in no sense a textbook, some of the first half is accessible to and will interest undergraduates in courses in Greek comedy in translation and the like, particularly if read in conjunction with relevant sections of The Maculate Muse. It is recommended for some undergraduate and graduate libraries, but a relatively low-priority buy.