The Aeschylean Sting in Wasps' Tale: Aristophanes' Engagement with the Oresteia

Two important elements to Aristophanes’ interplay with tragedy in Wasps have been overlooked in scholarship: his sustained engagement with the Oresteia and his use of costume to comment on Aeschylus’ work. The systematic consideration of Wasps’ allusions to Agamemnon and Eumenides in the scenes running up to, and including, the trial establishes the significance of this Aeschylean intertext for the appreciation of the ongoing competition between the comic and tragic genre in this comedy. It also highlights the special status of this tragic interaction, in which the first and last play of a connected trilogy are referenced simultaneously with a destabilizing effect on the original. The second part of the article argues that Aristophanes exploits references to both Agamemnon and Eumenides in the cloak scene (Wasps 1122–264) and uses them to criticize Aeschylus’ dramaturgy, invite a negative reading of Bdelycleon’s ideological stance and reinforce the play’s pessimistic view of the Athenian law courts. This article offers an original contribution to the scholarship on Wasps enhancing our understanding of the play’s relationship with tragedy and its use of costume.