Disgust and Discernment in Aristophanes' Knights Open Access

Abstract

Many scholars have puzzled over the ending of Aristophanes’ Knights, but few have analyzed the role that disgust plays in the ending’s apparent incongruity. I myself am puzzled by this inattention to disgust, for I believe that the emotion of disgust is central to the play’s ending. The ending of the Knights so confounds scholars because it glorifies a character who, prior to the play’s final scene, seems utterly disgusting. For much of the play, this character, the Sausage-Seller, openly touts his repulsiveness, and he presents himself as more disgusting than even the play’s villain, Paphlagon. In this thesis, I explain that, despite their superficial similarities, the Sausage-Seller and Paphlagon are actually fundamentally different with respect to repulsiveness. I further argue that an understanding of these differences allows the ending of the Knights to become much more coherent in the context of the play as a whole.

 In Chapter One, I show how, as is evident in their early competitions of repulsiveness, the Sausage-Seller seems at first to be just as disgusting as, if not more disgusting than, Paphlagon. In Chapter Two, I analyze a passage from the Chorus’s second parabasis and argue that this passage provides guidance both about the nature of disgust in the play and about the discernment that one needs to differentiate the repulsiveness of Paphlagon from that of the Sausage-Seller. In Chapter Three, I explain how selfishness in particular distinguishes Paphlagon’s repulsive behaviors from those of the Sausage-Seller. In Chapter Four, I argue that, by presenting Sausage-Seller and Paphlagon as similar but fundamentally different in their repulsiveness, Aristophanes is suggesting how he, a comic poet, differs from demagogues.

Table of Contents

Introduction................................................................................................................................. 1

A Note on Disgust Vocabulary................................................................................................... 10

Chapter One: Competitions of Repulsiveness............................................................................. 12

Chapter Two: Disgust in the Second Parabasis........................................................................... 20

Chapter Three: Paphlagon’s Selfishness and the Sausage-Seller’s Selflessness........................ 30

Chapter Four: Discernment and the Good................................................................................... 45

Concluding Remarks................................................................................................................... 62

 

Bibliography................................................................................................................................ 64

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Classics
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Classical Studies
Keyword	Aristophanes
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Niall Slater, Emory University
Committee Members	Louise Pratt, Emory University Judd Owen, Emory University James Morey, Emory University

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