Venom in Verse

304 Pages·2000·1.96 MB·English

by  Gonda A.H. Van Steen

Venom in Verse
PRINCETON MODERN GREEK STUDIES
This series is sponsored by the Princeton University Program in Hellenic Studies
with the support of the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund.
Firewalking and Religious Healing: The Anastenaria of Greece and the American
Firewalking Movement by Loring M. Danforth
Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit by Peter Bien
Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece by Jane K. Cowan
Yannis Ritsos: Repetitions, Testimonies, Parentheses edited and translated
by Edmund Keeley
Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece edited by Peter Loizos
and Evthymios Papataxiarchis
A Place in History: Social and Monumental Time in a Cretan Town by Michael Herzfeld
Demons and the Devil: Moral Imagination in Modern Greek Culture by Charles Stewart
The Enlightenment as Social Criticism: Iosipos Moisiodax and Greek Culture
in the Eighteenth Century by Paschalis M. Kitromilides
C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard;
edited by George Savidis
The Fourth Dimension by Yannis Ritsos, Peter Green and Beverly Bardsley, translators
George Seferis: Collected Poems, Revised Edition translated, edited, and introduced
by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard
In a Different Place: Pilgrimage, Gender, and Politics at a Greek Island Shrine
by Jill Dubisch
Cavafy’s Alexandria, Revised Edition by Edmund Keeley
The Films of Theo Angelopoulos: A Cinema of Contemplation by Andrew Horton
The Muslin Bonaparte: Diplomacy and Orientalism in Ali Pasha’s Greece
by K. E. Fleming
Venom in Verse: Aristophanes in Modern Greece
by Gonda A. H. Van Steen
Venom in Verse

ARISTOPHANES IN

MODERN GREECE
Gonda A. H. Van Steen
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
Copyright q 2000 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Van Steen, Gonda Aline Hector, 1964–
Venom in verse: Aristophanes in modern Greece / Gonda A.H. Van Steen
p. cm.—(Princeton modern Greek studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-691-00956-2 (alk. paper)
1. Aristophanes—Appreciation—Greece, Modern. 2. Aristophanes—Stage
history—Greece, Modern. 3. Greek drama (Comedy)—Appreciation—Greece,
Modern. 4. Greek drama (Comedy)—Presentation, Modern. 5. Theater—Greece,
Modern—History. I. Title. II. Series.
PA3879.V34 2000
8828.01—dc21 99-039767
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Princeton
University Program in Hellenic Studies with the support of the Stanley J.
Seeger Hellenic Fund
This book has been composed in Galliard
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper)
http://pup.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Greg Terzian and Dimitri Gondicas

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xix
Prologue 3
CHAPTER 1
Poisoned Gift from Antiquity: Aristophanes as Paravase of
Koraes’ Nationalist Ideology 16
CHAPTER 2
Aristophanes in Modern Greek: A Demotic, Satirical, and
Theatrical Paravase 43
CHAPTER 3
The Lysistrata Euphoria of 1900 to 1940: Sexual and
Antifeminist Paravase 76
CHAPTER 4
Koun’s Birds of 1959: Paravase of Right-Wing Politics 124
CHAPTER 5
Framing, Clowning, and Cloning Aristophanes 190
Epilogue 224
Notes 231
Bibliography 259
Index 275

Illustrations
FIGURES
1. Phasoules takes Aristophanes up into the clouds (Clouds) 98
2. Cartoon of Tsatsos by Makres 134
3. Cartoon of Tsatsos by Phokion Demetriades 136
4. Caricature of Tsatsos by Geses 137
5. Drawing by Elly Solomonide-Balanou of the 1997 memorial
production of Koun’s Birds 146
6. The Lysistrata of cartoonist Bost 207
TABLES
1. Modern Greek Stage Productions of Aristophanes, 1951–74 226
2. Modern Greek Stage Productions of Aristophanes, 1975–98 227