Dogs in Court and Sheep in the Assembly: Animal Satire in Aristophanes

Greek Old Comedy is famous for its very personal use of satire as well as its use of animal imagery. This chapter will analyse Aristophanes’ Wasps as a case study to show how the playwright uses animal satire. He uses animals to mock stereotypical behaviour in humans (e.g. wasps are aggressive, sheep are stupid) and cleverly adds more and more elements (such as costume, animal sounds and live animals) into his satire as the play progresses in order to keep his audience’s interest and increase the humour. It has been argued by modern critics that Aristophanes’ satire was not seriously motivated criticism, and the way in which the playwright uses animal imagery in Wasps confirms that the mockery is tongue-in-cheek and aims mostly at making the audience laugh.