In his new book, John Zumbrunnen offers a compelling alternative to prevailing, and often conflicting, interpretations of Aristophanes' comedies. While often portrayed as a conservative Athenian who longs for order and stability through elite rule, a Dionysian populist who challenges the very order and stability imposed by elites, or a clever critic of Athenian ideology who satirizes the cherished ideals of his audience, Aristophanes emerges from Zumbrunnen's analysis as a thoughtful, indeed philosophical, instructor of democratic citizenship. The civic lesson taught by the comic playwright is no ordinary one. Instead of offering a particular view of Athenian democracy or a detailed “ethic” of democratic citizenship, “conservative” or “liberal,” Aristophanes provides training in a “disposition” that prepares citizens to navigate the complex, unpredictable, and often tumultuous world of democratic life. He does so by encouraging audience members to identify with and distance themselves from characters who inevitably find themselves in some absurd pickle. The dilemmas faced by these characters represent broader principles of Athenian democracy that Aristophanes simultaneously affirms and challenges in order to provide his audience with the opportunity to reflect on the foundations of democratic rule. He shows himself to be a true friend of the people, not by pandering but by having faith in the ability of his audience to develop a sophisticated disposition of this kind.

Zumbrunnen's analysis is framed by three major themes. The first entails a reexamination of the very nature of democratic citizenship defined by an essential tension between two competing understandings of democracy: One is an “agonal” or instinctive resistance to rule and authority; the other is a “liberal” desire for stable institutions and steady rule. To illustrate this theme, the author draws from contemporary French theorist Jacques Rancière's concept of the “emancipatory potential of art,” in which performers and audiences simultaneously associate with and disassociate from one another as they sail into an uncharted artistic territory of multiple meanings and interpretations. For Zumbrunnen, a similar fantastical “journey” can be understood best in Aristophanes' Lysistrata and Peace, both of which present deep-seated conflicts between radical change and reform, on the one hand, and the longing for stability and order, on the other. As Rancière struggles to liberate the rich complexity of artistic meaning from the stultifying grasp of intellectual theorizing, so too does Aristophanes and, by implication, Zumbrunnen, dodge the bullet of dogmatism by encouraging their audiences to associate and dissociate with the characters and their predicaments through laughter and enjoyment.

The second theme examines democratic citizenship in terms of a kind of “comic disposition” that is “manifested in comic voyaging, cleverness, and comic recognition” (p. 124). This comic disposition prepares individual citizens to deal with the challenges of democratic society by supplying the wherewithal to “abide the presence of multiple possibilities, multiple meanings, even multiple senses of one's fundamental identity” (pp. 125–26). Zumbrunnen then explains the various ways in which The Clouds, Women at the Thesmophoria, and The Frogs effectively destabilize the “category of the ordinary” by offering competing understandings of the “ordinary citizen” of Athens. Neither populist hero nor ignorant dolt, Aristophanes' version of “Joe Six Pack” eludes easy categorization as he alternates between god and man, father and son, empowered male citizen and even silenced female. The ordinary citizen is again reexamined in the Wasps and Birds to show that for Aristophanes, “the anger of ordinary citizens flows” not from a rage against elites per se but rather “from a kind of anxiety rooted in the inherent contingency of any form of rule” (p. 77).

The third theme explores the “interaction of vocal elites with the mass of ordinary citizens” in order to provide the man on the Athenian street the necessary skills with which to “see through masks or disguises to what lies beneath them” (p. 125). Through the The Acharnians and The Knights, Zumbrunnen traces the development of a particular kind of cleverness among ordinary characters who struggle against elite domination and ultimately acquiesce. Such cleverness “maintains a wariness about elites even as it accepts their inevitability” and thereby serves as a check on the haves as well as the have-nots (p. 81).

The analysis of Aristophanes' plays concludes with an examination of the interplay between fantasy and irony in The Assemblywomen and Wealth. The dream of the radical redistribution of economic resources at the center of both plays supplements Zumbrunnen's concept of “cleverness” because it allows audiences not only to see through the injustice of economic inequality but also to imagine alternative realities and possibilities that are more just and equitable. In the process, audiences are encouraged to reexamine the essential question of what it means to be human by simultaneously exploring the promise and possibility of human action, on the one hand, and the limits of human capacities, on the other.

As a collection of individual essays, this book is a masterful effort that appeals to readers interested in the political theory of liberalism, democratic theory, classics, cultural studies, aesthetics, and philosophy. For those unfamiliar with the comedies, each chapter provides a brief overview of the relevant plays that largely avoids pedantic discussion of Aristophanic scholarship. Indeed, Zumbrunnen goes out of his way to reach a diverse audience by using contemporary political theorists to highlight important themes in Aristophanes' comedies, and by connecting his findings to hot-button topics in current American political culture, such as populist antigovernment rage and elitist hijacking of the political process, as well as the nature of civic education and the role of identity politics.

The parts of this impressive project, however, do not always add up to an integrated whole. In the end, Zumbrunnen's concept of “comic disposition” ultimately consists of an assortment of possible reactions and teachings that could be gleaned from the works of the surprisingly subtle yet always amusing playwright. The sheer number of contemporary thinkers the author is compelled to marshal in crafting the principle of comic disposition belies the concept's fragmented nature. Bringing academics together is always a dicey proposition, and his eclectic group would surely pose no exception, yet the important and instructive disagreements among them remain unexplored. The heavy reliance on Rancière in elaborating the Aristophanic comic disposition is also problematic. Perhaps there is some humor in the idea of an anti-intellectual French intellectual, a career academic who speaks out for the working classes without speaking for (or down to) them, all the while berating the academy for its elitism and banality. Given the sheer abundance of hypercritical philosophers who rail against stultifying intellectualism, however, it is unclear why Rancière rises to the top. And this choice is not without cost. Like his French counterpart, Zumbrunnen is so engrossed with the “ordinary citizen” that he overlooks the equally important implications of Aristophanes' teachings for elites. The theory of comic disposition could perhaps be framed more cohesively by critically engaging debates regarding irony, dialectic, or the philosophic role of humor. With a more extended exploration of the relations between comedy and tragedy, instruction and entertainment, and, most important, between poetry and (political) philosophy, the unique nature of Aristophanic comedy could perhaps emerge more clearly.

It is no easy task to capture the richness of such a deeply enigmatic and sophisticated artist. Aristophanic Comedy and the Challenge of Democratic Citizenship breaks important ground in several ways. Zumbrunnen's judicious use of contemporary theorists as a lens through which to examine Aristophanes' works in remarkable detail, steering clear of oversimplification and directly confronting issues of anachronism, offers a model for future scholarship. As the author rightly concludes, “democratic citizenship is hard work” (p. 135). We must take full advantage of every opportunity to prepare ourselves for the task, finding lessons wherever we can in often unexpected places.