The Dionysian Logic of Aristophanes' Frogs

Stephen Fineberg (Knox College)

Aristophanes' Frogs opens with a dialogue between Dionysos and his slave Xanthias on the question of humor, and I argue that a definition emerges that is definitively Dionysian.

In the opening scene of the play (1-34), Dionysos forbids Xanthias to use the old jokes which seem to have been based on personal suffering and socially inappropriate references to body functions. Dionysos does not specify what sort of humor he would condone, but the dialogue between himself and Xanthias provides examples. How can Xanthias complain about the baggage he must carry, insists Dionysos, since he is riding a mule and so it is the mule who is really carrying the weight. Again, some lines later, Dionysos demands that Xanthias pick up the baggage that he had not yet set down, and Xanthias replies: “Before I've even set it down?” (166) What characterizes this humor is that it is based on conceptual contradiction. Everyone knows you will still feel the weight you carry even if you are riding on a donkey, and who can conceive of picking up what you've not yet set down?

The visual analogue to these jokes that defy the common sense laws of physics are the sight gags in the play in which Dionysos' reality strikes others as absurd. Dionysos dressed in a lion skin with his yellow robes hanging out beneath and his feet in women's slippers presents himself at Herakles' door where he assumes that he presents a fearful appearance when in fact Herakles can not stop laughing at him (38-48). Dionysian reality defies the obvious. Again, later in the play (612-73), Dionysos subjects himself to a test to prove his divinity. If he feels pain under the lash, he is no god. In fact he does feel pain, he tries to hide it, and yet, as the audience knows perfectly well, Dionysos is a god. The humor once again is based on a contradiction of the obvious

Much of the humor of the Frogs, however, is not Dionysian. Despite Dionysos' prohibitions in the opening scene, humorous moments arise from the usual sources: a singing animal chorus, the absurdities of sophistic logic taken to the extreme, and endless inappropriate references to body functions, in some cases by Dionysos himself. If we look at the Clouds as a case for comparison, we find humor based on a chorus of Cloud-Deities, the absurdities of sophistic logic taken to the extreme, and the usual crude references to body functions. What we do not find in the Clouds are jokes based on conceptual contradiction. Instead, we find humor based on Strepsiades' simple common sense. For Strepsiades, it is difficult to recognize Athens on a map because he can not see the law courts (Clouds 206-07), and when Strepsiades is introduced to the chorus of Cloud-Deities he questions their authenticity for the fact that they look like women “with real noses” (Clouds 340-43). Just as an important source of humor in the Clouds is based on Strepsiades' definitive identity as a rustic of pronounced common sense, so humor in the Frogs derives from Dionysos' definitive tolerance for logical contradiction.

Whether the character of the protagonist determines a unique source of humor in every Aristophanean comedy must await closer inquiry, but for the present I offer it as a reading of opening dialogue in the Frogs.