Aristophanes’ comedies not only drew the members and customs of the polis into the dramatic world to show continuity with the life of the poet himself and the audience but also introduced literary texts that were passed down in language and recontextualized them. The reading of the play Birds, which was staged in 414 BCE, has been divided into two camps: those who see it as an allegory of the historical situation in Athens at the time, and those who see it as a utopia or fantasy. This paper distances itself from both extreme interpretations and focuses on the tragic material and elements of composition borrowed from a wide range of elements in Birds.
In Birds, quotation, borrowing and allusions to tragedy are made at various levels in linguistic areas such as vocabulary, style, subject matter, and metre. These techniques contribute to creating complex dramatic meanings, starting with simply creating a heterogeneous atmosphere. Among them, the most notable part is the hoopoe, which appears as a mediator between humans and birds as the protagonists search for a new home. He is identical to the protagonist of Sophocles’ Tereus, but this tragic hero is a comic character who plays the role of the protagonist’s helper, and the tragic attributes are transferred to the comic hero, Peisetairos.
This article aims to analyze the dramatic irony that arises from the comic application of tragic elements in Birds. In particular, the comic hero, Peisetairos, will be analyzed in detail to see how the tragic hero’s comic transformation, the hoopoe, plays a supporting role in the play while also causing a counteraction. Based on this, the semantic void of Cloudcuckooland, which is built with words and performances, will be examined.