悲劇から喜劇へ : エウリーピデース『イオーン』のドラマトゥルギー

Abstract

Euripides the tragedian is often called the inventor of European comedy. Indeed the plays he wrote in the last years of his career, Iphigenia among the Taurians. Helen and Ion, include most of the elements which were to become the stock features of comedies of Menander, Plautus, Shakespeare. Moliere, Oscar Wilde and even Joe Orton of the present day. How can a tragedy be presented as a tragedy but be appreciated as a comedy? I will try to examine the dramatic art of Euripides as shown in Ion, a play which, though an entry in the tragic competition at the festival of Dionysus, shows a treatment of situation and character differing subtly from the tragic norm and introducing a new attitude to human nature and action. The following points will be discussed from the perspective of what is comic (1-14, 16-18) and what is tragic (15) in the play : 1. Hermes' appearance as Prologist in the style of Roman comedy. 2. The introduction of "household matters, things we use and live with, " as phrased by Aristophanes. 3. Parody in the mode of Aristophanic stage. 4. The attitude of watching which causes detachment rather than involvement on the part of the audience. Peace and harmony in mythical prospect. 5. The so-called "Sophoclean irony" in stichomythia utilized to create tragicomic effects. 6. The fall of divine authority-Apollo caricatured. 7. Comic effect through hyponoia. 8. Qui pro quo in the scene of father-and-son recognition. 9. Comic effect through simple gestures on trochaic tetrameter. 10. Xuthus as the prototype of pater iratus and his deception. 11. Topicality treated with satire. 12. Diversion from the main plot in the style of comic parabasis. 13. The significance of paronomasia on Ion as the symbol of the rebirth of Athens. 14. Things contrary to expectation-the archetype of servus dolosus in his role manipulating his mistress. 15. Tragic monody by the heroine, as the centripetal force supporting the dramatic structure. 16. Disjointed structure-contrary to the Aristotelian prescription for successful tragedy. 17. Anagnorisis(discovery) and peripeteia(change of fortune) brought about by accident, not by the neccesity and probability of action. 18. The play as a ritual in celebration of the rebirth of Athens, with Athena ex machina to honour the occasion.