Hijacking Sophocles, burying Euripides: Clytemnestra, Erinyes, and Oedipus in Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen
Hijacking Sophocles, burying Euripides: Clytemnestra, Erinyes, and Oedipus in Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen

Summary/Abstract: This paper identifies and analyzes several related, thematically significant tragedic resonances in Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen as exemplifying his shift from outright paratragedy to appropriation. His treatment of politicized gender and sexual tensions owes much both to Orestes-plays (Praxagora emerges as a comic Clytemnestra; the three old women as Erinyes) and to Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus. The abduction scene in Aristophanes is modeled on abduction of Oedipus, which elucidates the comedian’s attitude towards Sophocles.

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