Politics and Anti-Realism in Athenian Old Comedy: The Art of the Impossible

Title Pages
Dedication
Preface
Abbreviations and References
Tripping Over the Light Fantastic
	Abstract and Keywords
	1.1 Plato’s comedy store
		1.1.1 Satire, context, and audience response
		1.1.2 Philosophy, comedy, and cultural competition
		1.1.3 Comedy as social control
		1.1.4 The ethics of comedy
		1.1.5 Comedy and realism
		1.1.6 Impossible positions
	1.2 The art of the impossible
	Notes:
Possible Worlds and Comic Fictions
	Abstract and Keywords
	2.1 Possible, impossible, and fictional worlds
		2.1.1 Comic possibilities
		2.1.2 Fictional worlds
		2.1.3 Are comic worlds just not possible?
	2.2 Illusion, fiction, and make-believe
		2.2.1 Taking fiction seriously (or not)
		2.2.2 Theatrical, fictional, and comic space
	2.3 Between worlds: identification, mapping, and reference
		2.3.1 Transworld identity and accessibility
		2.3.2 Character, plot, and evaluation
	2.4 Logic, cognition, and emotion
	Notes:
On Eating Cake: Joke Semiotics
	Abstract and Keywords
	3.1 Is laughter central to komoidia?
	3.2 Metaphors and other jokes
		3.2.1 Metaphor, allegory, and meaning
		3.2.2 Oracles, jokes, and interpretation
		3.2.3 Mapping tropes and jokes
		3.2.4 Plausibility and implausibility
	3.3 Towards a theory of the joke
		3.3.1 Incongruity: opposition and overlap
		3.3.2 Motivation and metaphor
		3.3.3 Comic mode of communication
		3.3.4 Jokes as narrative
	3.4 Summary
	Notes:
Comic Motivation: Jokes and Episodic Plot
Comic Networks: Story and Argument
	Abstract and Keywords
	5.1 Comic structure
		5.1.1 Metrical structure
		5.1.2 Narrative grammars
		5.1.3 Deep structure
		5.1.4 Single, double, and joke plots
		5.1.5 Episodes, story, and structure
	5.2 World, episode, and argument: Akharnians
	5.3 Jokes, concepts, and comic meaning: Knights
		5.3.1 Comic world and impossible characters
		5.3.2 Associative networks and plot
		5.3.3 Networks, narrative, and argument
		5.3.4 Comic infrastructure
		5.3.5 No way out?
	5.4 How did we learn today?
	Notes:
Entering the Metaverse: Comic Self-Reference
	Abstract and Keywords
	6.1 Disruptive theory
	6.2 Thinking the unthinkable
		6.2.1 Radical or (post)modern?
		6.2.2 The metatheatrical environment
		6.2.3 Impossibly self-aware
	6.3 The limits of self-reference
		6.3.2 Metatheatre as difference
		6.3.3 Stabilizing the comic world
	6.4 Chorus and consistency
	6.5 The comic multiplier
	6.6 Strangely significant worlds
	Notes:
The Role of The Audience: Ideology, Identity,and Intensity
	Abstract and Keywords
	7.1 Constructing the audience
		7.1.1 Spectators as polis
		7.1.2 Breaking up the audience.
		7.1.3 The audience in the performance: politics and presence
	7.2 From worlds to stage: mapping audiences
		7.2.1 Slippage and transworld identification
		7.2.2 Internal and external audience.
	7.3 Dionysiac worlds/festive worlds
	7.4 Anti-realism, metatheatre, and fantasy politics
	Notes:
Flights of Fancy: Tragic Myth and Comic Logos
	Abstract and Keywords
	8.1 Parody, intertextuality, and anti-realism
		8.1.1 The flight of the dung-beetle: audience, plot, and world
		8.1.2 Incongruity, intertextuality, and self-reflexivity
		8.1.3 Invective, satire, and authority
	8.2 Tragic and comic possibilities
		8.2.1 Crazy comedy: genre, realism, and plausibility
		8.2.2 Tragic naturalism and comic impossibility
		8.2.3 The failure of realism
	8.3 Parody, anti-realism, and postmodernist poetics
	Notes:
A Total Write-Off: Continuity and Competition
	Abstract and Keywords
	9.1 Comic intertextuality: iterability and innovation
		9.1.1 Serialization and popular culture
		9.1.2 The rhetoric of innovation
		9.1.3 Ratcheting the joke
		9.1.4 Tragic and comic difference
	9.2 The comic multiverse: world, story, and plot
		9.2.1 Aristophanes and Kratinos
		9.2.2 The world turned upside down: utopia and anti-utopia
		9.2.3 Flogging a dead dog: gender and innovation
		9.2.4 Topicality, plot, and competition
		9.2.5 Remakes, retakes, and revisions
	9.3 Comic populations: satire and stereotype
	9.4 What’s so funny? About Peace and comic understanding
		9.4.1 There is a season: Peace, genre, and utopia
		9.4.2 Politics and innovation: the parabasis of Peace
	9.5 Comic competition
	Notes:
Conclusion: Politics, Ideology, and Old Comedy
Bibliography
Index Locorum
General Index