Aristophanes on Tragedy

Fifty years before Aristotle wrote his Poetics, Aristophanes had devoted two comedies, Thesmophoriazusae (411) and Frogs (405), to the subject of tragedy. In both plays the plot shows the education of the main character in the nature of tragedy. Euripides learns in Thesmophoriazusae that he must present noble and not base women in his dramas. His depiction of perverse women in the theatre had moved real-life husbands to keep a narrow watch on their wives, and in order to be free of this tyranny, the women use their Thesmophoria to compel Euripides to change. Frogs shows the education of the god who presides over tragedy: Dionysus discovers that the telos of the tragedy-writer’s art is the education of the spectators to a heroic defence of their country. This discovery reverses the god’s earlier assumption that his own taste could judge the excellence of a poet. For both comedies, tragedy is a theoretical activity with direct practical results; what the spectators see in the theatre will determine their activity in the family or the State.