Dionysus, Comedy, and Tragedy

Abstract The previous chapters have suggested that Dionysus’ perspective has broadened so much during the agon of the Frogs as to become identical with the perspective of the entire Athenian polis as a theates. Correspondingly, however, although Dionysus is clearly the god of Drama when he first sets out on his quest for a ‘fertile’ poet (cf. 1. 7), it is only in the frame of the literary contest that his patronage of the theatrical events acquires its full range of implications. The present chapter, therefore, argues that, in clear contrast to the play’s earlier parts, Dionysus’ ‘viewpoint’ in the agon of the Frogs encompasses both Tragedy and Comedy at once.