During the last few decades, comedy has received increased attention within Classical Studies. Humour, however, as a head-on aspect of the genre, has been largely neglected apart from in recent sophisticated studies of fragments (S.D. Olson [2007]; E. Bakola [2009]) and sporadic systematic approaches (M.S. Silk [2000]; L. O'Higgins [2003]; J. Robson [2006]), with the majority of scholars drawing upon Incongruity theories and the Bakhtin Circle. This book, published under the Oxford Classical Monograph Series, offers a fresh perspective. R.'s aim is to explain the complex relationship between humour and politics; he therefore combines theoretical analysis applied to selected close readings with the cognitive responses and the role of the audience. Its origins lie in R.'s M.St. thesis on metatheatricality in the fragments of Old Comedy as well as his D.Phil. thesis (Oxford, 2000). The in-depth examination of politics within the genre has been a later addition inspired by R.'s experience of contemporary politics in Glasgow.
R. argues that if scholars hypothesise fictionality they can also hypothesise humour, as they both involve complex accounts of audience processing. The core of his study comprises questions of ideology, identity, social and political structure and popular culture, with the last elaborated specifically around self-referencing and the audience. His aim is to investigate the principal areas of impossibility in which Old Comedy operated. R. draws together three parallel strands (metatheatricality, metafiction and breaking the illusion). Without any advance assumptions, R. shows how humour is created via formal elements such as jokes, fictional worlds and narrative structures, to name but a few.
The book is divided into nine chapters. In the first half (Chapters 1–5) R. examines theory in order to corroborate the impossible and the absurd as the contrivances through which serious reference and political or conceptual interventions are crafted. R. thoroughly examines theory from Aristotle to U. Eco. The rest of the book (Chapters 6–9) focusses on the self-reflexivity of the genre in terms of comic self-referencing, tragedy and intertextuality as well as the reception by the audience based on its role and overall cognition.
As R.'s arguments unfold, they are reinforced by and understood via a variety of explanatory models that facilitate the reader's understanding of comic impossibility, conceptual humour and comic networks (Chapters 2–5). In Chapter 2, comic possibilities are explored through a schematic application of historical, empirical, physical and logical possibilities (p. 32). R. delves into the reception of the audience by drawing upon a model for dramatic communication (p. 40). At the end, he concentrates on the fictional world and its subworlds by relating them to reality (p. 51). These schemes and models are supported by various examples and are used to justify solidly comic fictionality from the perspectives of logic, cognition and emotion. Joke semiotics are the focus in Chapter 3: S. Freud's typology of jokes after T. Todorov and E. Palmer (p. 79) forms a rough template for the formation of a theory on jokes and comic networks (p. 91). Chapter 4 deals with the complex interactions between episodic plot jokes and comic narrative with reference to Aristophanes' Wasps. Previous arguments on episodic plot, conceptual humour and comic networks are reviewed in Chapter 5, as well as their application(s) to Knights.
The second half of the book is split into three parts. Chapter 6 focusses on the nature, extent and role of comic metatheatricality. The argument evolves further in Chapter 7; R. hypothesises on the debated role of the audience: their construction and manipulation as a collective, internally to the text and performance. The final two chapters are dedicated to tragic parody and the intertextuality observed in comic plays. In both cases, the analysis of such poles of parodic and intertextual interactions begins with Aristophanes' Peace and not the Frogs as one would have expected.
The last four chapters are dedicated to how poets of Old comedy seek to influence the audience regarding contemporary political affairs. R. demonstrates how Athenian ideology appears to be a discursive and semiotic phenomenon in contrast to twentieth-century Marxist ideas (ideology as a part of the economic superstructure). Instead, R. tackles the notion of ideology as fluid and even contradictory rather than unitary and systemic (for example: E. Laclau and C. Mouffe [2001]). Instead of looking at institutional apparatuses as the vector for a construction of hegemonic ideology, R. underpins his arguments by building upon Palmer (1987, pp. 201–2) and E. Semino (1997) as well as N.W. Slater (2002, p. 236) applying them to the agonistic culture of Greece: the competition between disparate groups and individuals towards ideological hegemony.
In terms of methodology, the book's overall framework is semiotic: R. describes it as a formal exercise of descriptive poetics (along the lines of B. McHale [1987], pp. xi–xiii) yet it stands out by treating comedy primarily as an act of communication: how the audience processes humour, fiction and narrative. R. displays an in-depth knowledge of possible worlds theory and cognitive linguistics and zooms in on the relationship between ideology and form, avoiding the clichés of previous applications of Marxist traditions. The book embraces a number of broad post-modern positions regarding ideology and discourse. When interpreting humour as a social phenomenon, R., much like his predecessors, is influenced by the Bakhtin Circle, but the book echoes semiotics: specifically Eco's theories on readers and possible worlds. However, instead of adopting Eco's opinions blindly, R. recognises that infinite semiosis is only potential and dependent on the audience's cognitive responses.
As a result of the complex nexuses R. investigates, the book is dense in terms of style and its approach is multilayered. I am in favour of R.'s position and further analysis: the central argument is that jokes (in their semiotic and absurdist flexibility) are the basis for the comic plot. R. delves into the heart of the joke and illuminates how juxtapositions, comparisons and contrasts create associations and dissociations that constantly trigger the audience to pit concepts against one another.
Unlike most scholars of Aristophanic comedy, R. avails himself of translations and interpretations of both extant texts and fragments. Instead of producing yet another commentary or overestimating the potential of fragmented evidence, his approach is multifarious, stark and accurate. His explanatory schemata are not limited to the primary sources relevant to his study but are also applicable to contemporary popular culture and humour (Monty Python, the Simpsons, South Park). In addition, within this precise and sophisticated study one can observe an inquiry into popular culture (festivals, competitions, audience structure, intertextuality), and R. makes a brave attempt to project festivals (theatrical and otherwise) as the primary cultural media of the ancient world. R.'s engagement with the notion of popular culture is not always fully elaborated but he is certainly leading his readers on a new scholarly path.
The book offers a novel and systematic approach to humour in Old Comedy. Although R. focusses on the second half of fifth-century Athens and its political and cultural activity, his methodological tools and choice of thematic interpretation(s) are applicable beyond Aristophanes; they could be used as an interpretational template applicable to any kind of anti-realistic performative or literary humour. Most importantly, like those with ‘first-hand experience’ R. demonstrates ‘a real understanding of comedy and cognition’ (p. 6) yet he is sympathetic to its effects, justifying that comedy is the art of the impossible because it manages to ‘change our perception of the world and with that comes our potential for change’ (p. 429).
