Action, Song, and Poetry. Musical and Poetical Meta-performance in Aristophanes and Ben Jonson

That a strong relationship must have existed between Ben Jonson’s theatre works and Aristophanes’ plays is a long-standing scholarly commonplace. The question, however, has hardly ever been approached from a truly comparative perspective, taking into account the formal, structural, literary, and ideological peculiarities of both Aristophanic and Jonsonian drama. This book aims to address this issue with reference to an enlightening case study – metaperformance, a fundamental comic strategy that characterizes both authors. Scenes of meta-performance frequently depict would-be poets, incompetent musicians, or treacherous intellectuals. But how do Aristophanes and Ben Jonson represent poetic, musical, and artistic performances within their own plays? At the crossroads of philology, reception studies, and comparative studies, this book will make a significant contribution towards a substantial re-evaluation of Ben Jonson’s classical reading and dramatic strategies.