The philological study of earlier comic texts flourished in Alexandria during that period, and Machon also seems to have been a scholar. This trait is not attested in cooks of extant Middle and New Comedy, but recalls figures of the earlier comic tradition: the Megarian Maison some cooking personages in Epicharmus’ Sirens the gourmand Cyclops of Cratinus’ Odyssês Aristophanic protagonists preparing food for their own enjoyment and the greedy Heracles of the Birds. 2 introduces himself as a lover of good food, intent on tasting his own dishes. A few of their elements, however, are hardly typical of that genre. Machon’s plays, staged in Ptolemaic Alexandria, seem to have employed the stock plots and characters of New Comedy. Fishwives clean their cuttlefish alongside gastronomes seeking the tastiest tuna, and parodic cookbooks delight in a Conches, oysters, and clams gape open for the eager epicure, and eels are treated as goddesses. Lobsters, crayfish, and shrimp scuttle to an elaborate feast of the gods. Hot slices of perch are gobbled down, and sea urchins are licked clean. The fragments of ancient Greek comedy are awash with fish and other sea animals. This study provides a lexical resource for Greek comedy's numerous seafood fragments, uncovering many neglected ancient sexual jokes and offering fresh insight on comedy's interest in sea creatures. Greek comic poets correlate a range of sea creatures with sex and sexuality in imaginative and humorous ways, making obscene jokes about courtesans and aphrodisiacs, as well as creating double entendres for male and female genitalia. Although scholars have proposed various cultural, economic, and generic explanations for comedy's interest in sea creatures, they have not adequately considered the importance of seafood's relationship to obscenity and sexuality. Fish play a sizable role in the remains of ancient Greek comedy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |