著者

チエシュコ マルティン

出版者

日本西洋古典学会

雑誌

西洋古典學研究 (ISSN:04479114)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.54, pp.86-97, 2006-03-07

---

In this paper I allude to the wealth of material and potential for comparison between even such disparate genres as the comedy of democratic Athens and the kyogen skits of feudal Japan While the former genre is of a complex nature, high lyricism and increasingly sophisticated plots and stagecraft, the latter is a brief and light vignette of life, a skit sandwiched between the more serious and poetical No dramas This type of plays has never developed into a western style of comedy Both genres, though to a greater or lesser degree literary, preserve many elements of popular culture My examples focus particularly on the agora, the market-place and the colourful characters that populate it I suggest that Aristophanes kept an eye on non-literary genres (about which we know very little indeed) when he looked at the agora with its scheming tricksters, loud female-vendors, or good-for-nothings loitering around it all day long Markets and fairs must have attracted a great deal of popular amusements of all sorts and A istophanes probably used much of this material Kyogen too found inspiration in market sellers, shysters waiting at the market for country bumpkins, temple visitors during fairs, and so on All these characters frequently feature in kyogen plays and the Japanese genre may in many ways help us refine our perception of Aristophanes I start with a Megarian scheme in Aristophanes' Akharnians (729ff) and compare it to the kyogen play Wakame The Japanese counterpart also depends on the recognizable tricksters of the market-place and their heavy punning I then go on to show how knowledge of kyogen can help us appreciate popular elements in Greek comedy Not only in subject matter with kyogen, we may still admire the actors' cleverness in devising efficient ways of moving in a fluid space without a fixed stage Now the stage is of course uniform and fixed, but movement on it reflects and preserves much of the early practice The art of kyogen exits and entrances, and generally of movement in space is truly intriguing and it may be of some value when reflecting on early Greek practice Folk motifs are a kind of metaphor in Anstophanic comedy The playwright likes to connect disparate images into a humorous but meaningful and evocative whole In order to appreciate such images and their impact on the audience we cannot afford to ignore other available traditions of folk comedy Finally, I briefly hint at New Comedy where too we find hints at panourgoi of earlier comedy However unlike in Aristophanes, they are not at the centre of humorous and unattached episodic scenes, but form an inseparable part of well-wrought plots, often significantly contributing to the resolution that consists of restored domestic bliss-something the panourgos of Anstophanic comedy was hardly ever interested in Here is a domestic version of panourgia, a compassionate trickster, and this bourgeoisification carried with it significant consequences for western literature