The Invention Of Secularity In Aristophanes
نویسنده
چکیده
The last two plays of Aristophanes show a world that for the first time in the development of Western civilization can reasonably be called secular. The secularity of Ecclesiazusae and Plutus lies in their presenting human individuality as containing in its activity the various aspects of the life of the polis, more thoroughly than the gods who presided over them. The gods do not thereby vanish but are revealed as having no true self in comparison with men. These plays complete the trajectory of his eleven plays, which began with five plays in which human subjectivity was not yet equalized with the divine life. In the plays of Aristophanes, equalization means that the human individual has as his sphere of activity the whole realm that the god presides over. Then in the sixth extant play, Birds, the human hero ‘overthrows’ even Zeus by experiencing more totally than even that great god the entire divine life, which is the effective rule of the Olympians over the Titanic gods. Three plays then follow in which human life is equalized with gods whose very existence consists in the communication of the life of the gods. Finally, in the last two plays the human subjectivity that the earlier plays had shown developing becomes itself the basis of human institutions and the gods themselves. In Ecclesiazusae no god is mentioned and it is humanity with its needs that defines the institutions of Family and State. The poet then posits Plutus as the chief god in the eponymous play, and this god has no other being than to encourage in humanity the private goods of virtue and wealth.
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