Speaker(s)
Description
Comedy in the formal dramatic sense has its roots in popular ritual uprising — misrule, especially of a female kind. From Aristophanes to Shakespeare it shares a structure deriving from ancient mythico-ritual syntax. In this talk, Camilla Power will compare the Classical Greek comedy of the sex strike Lysistrata with the Merry Wives of Windsor, a comedy first performed at the Tudor English court on an occasion of royal ritual. Falstaff is revealed in the character of both lunar trickster and presiding native genius of the Kingdom of England.
Class syllabus